Contemporary physics describes with extraordinary precision multiple regimes of interaction, stability, and energetic transformation. However, these regimes remain distributed across formally heterogeneous domains: quantum stability of matter, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, plasma physics, decoherence, structural emergence, gravitational confinement, nuclear stability, or atom–dispersion transitions. This work argues that such fragmentation conceals a transversal physical problem still insufficiently formulated: the absence of a universal criterion for compatible structural persistence. This formulation introduces an operational framework for classifying and analysing energetic persistence, grounded on five fundamental magnitudes: factual boundary, structural confinement, energetic redistribution, residual structure, and compatible persistent identity. From these elements, a minimal energetic persistence equation is constructed in order to model the conditions under which an energetic configuration can preserve identity against structural dispersion. The atom is reinterpreted not as a primary ontological entity, but as the first known discrete regime of stable energetic persistence. Likewise, mass is reformulated as effective structural persistence rather than merely inertial magnitude. The theory does not aim to replace contemporary physical formalisms, but rather to introduce a transversal framework of structural compatibility applicable across multiple domains: plasma physics, atomic stability, thermal transitions, combustion, nuclear persistence, and macroscopic energetic confinement regimes. The construction extends explicitly to the structural periodic table, to molecular formation, and to atmospheric composition, integrated as domains of derived persistence. Every formulation is further subordinated to an explicit universal criterion of operational legitimacy, structural residuality, and falsifiability.
Juan Antonio Lloret Egea (Wed,) studied this question.