This work presents the Breathing Universe Model (BUM), a structural framework in which physical reality emerges from a pre-temporal domain of balanced yet internally structured imbalance. Instead of taking particles, fields, or spacetime as fundamental, the model begins from a distribution of imbalance defined over a structural spectrum, constrained by a global zero-line condition (net imbalance equal to zero, but with non-zero internal structure). A central element of the framework is a non-reversible structural transition, termed snapping, which selects a realized configuration from a continuous space of admissible structures. This transition introduces irreversibility without presupposing time and activates a transformation grammar described by operators. Post-selection dynamics are expressed in a reduced state space defined by deviation from balance and coherence, where coherence regulates the persistence of structure. Within this architecture, energy emerges as the cost of transforming structured imbalance, leading to a hierarchy of relations that connect coherence-driven dynamics, stabilized structure (mass), and the relativistic limit. Spacetime itself arises as an emergent relational structure associated with constrained redistribution. The model provides a unified structural perspective on the emergence of energy, mass, and spacetime, and situates established theories such as quantum field theory and general relativity as effective descriptions within specific regimes. It further yields testable implications, including scale-dependent behavior of vacuum energy governed by coherence-boundary conditions. The Breathing Universe Model thus offers a minimal and coherent structural foundation for physics, grounded in imbalance, coherence, and non-reversible selection rather than predefined physical entities.
Ivo Gerlach Angela Noel Cerfontaine (Sun,) studied this question.