A mathematical framework for understanding why things last — from atoms and cells to institutions and lives.

Chronodynamics is a framework for understanding persistence: why some patterns — cells, relationships, institutions, ecosystems — manage to keep going while others quietly erode.

The framework is built on a single inequality. For any structure maintained by feedback in a dissipative environment, there is a characteristic feedback time (τfb) and a characteristic dissipation time (τdiss). Their ratio — the persistence number Π — governs how long the structure can last.

Π  =  τdiss  /  τfb

When feedback outpaces erosion (Π > 1), lifetimes grow exponentially with redundancy. When it doesn't, structures drift toward failure. This result is proved formally using Freidlin–Wentzell large-deviations theory and developed across scales — from atoms and stars through prebiotic chemistry and evolution to institutions, technologies, and the patterns of everyday life — in a companion paper and a series of books.

Chronodynamics does not modify the laws of physics. It organises what we already know about non-equilibrium systems around a temporal question that turns out to be surprisingly consequential: is feedback fast enough?

The Science
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The formal framework: persistence number, CPP theorem, dominance conditions, and measurement protocols. Grounded in Freidlin–Wentzell theory.
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The Books
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Three books follow the framework from the origin of life through evolution and ecosystems to stress, institutions, and how to live.
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The Writing
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Essays every two weeks applying chronodynamics across domains — from prebiotic chemistry to why your organization keeps failing in the same ways.
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Chronodynamics was developed by V. E. House, a physical chemist whose professional work in energy systems, materials performance, and process reliability led to a recurring observation: failures that seem sudden are almost always the endpoint of a long process in which corrective feedback has fallen behind structural erosion. The same dynamics appeared in physical infrastructure, in organisations, in biological systems, and in people. The question became: is there a single formal condition that governs whether a feedback-maintained pattern persists or collapses?

More about the author and the project →