Penrose (Quasicrystal)

Fivefold diffraction symmetry, Bragg peak contrast, aperiodic order
quasicrystaldim 2D with 5-fold2 metrics

What It Measures

Does the signal have fivefold diffraction symmetry — the hallmark of Penrose quasicrystalline order?

Computes the power spectrum and autocorrelation, then tests whether their peak structure is invariant under scaling by the golden ratio (1.618...). True Penrose/Fibonacci quasicrystals have spectral peaks at positions related by powers of the golden ratio, creating self-similar diffraction patterns with discrete Bragg peaks — the defining property that separates quasicrystals from both periodic crystals and amorphous matter.

Metrics

phi_tower

Multi-scale weighted coherence of detrended spectral residuals under phi scaling, with phi-specificity gap (target R² minus best null-ratio R²), cross-scale stability, and residual fit quality. Rewards signals where the phi self-similarity model is both the best fit and a good fit. Genuinely φ-specific by construction: the target ratio is hardcoded to φ and the null ratios [1.21, 1.38, 1.55, 1.85, 2.15, 2.45, 2.8, 3.2] include the Tribonacci constant (~1.84) and the plastic number (~1.32 ≈ 1.38) as distractors, so other Pisot eigenvalues are explicitly not alternative positives. Confirmed empirically: Penrose Substitution (golden², rank 1) and Fibonacci Word (golden, rank ~5) ceiling the metric, while Pell Word (silver Pisot, rank ~42), Tribonacci Word (cubic Pisot, rank ~79), and Padovan Word (cubic Pisot, rank ~92) all sit mid-pack despite being algebraic-irrational substitutions. Was previously named algebraic_tower, which overpromised general algebraic-degree detection. Evolved via ShinkaEvolve atlas v1.

long_range_order

Autocorrelation self-similarity at golden-ratio-scaled lags — a near-binary detector for quasiperiodic long-range order. A positive-control-backed detector (positive control = Fibonacci Quasicrystal): only true quasicrystals escape the zero floor — Fibonacci QC, Phyllotaxis, Circle Map Quasiperiodic — while ~97% of sources read 0. Returned to the atlas 2026-06-05 (previously class-only) on exactly that detector rationale.

Atlas Rankings

long_range_order
SourceOriginValue
Circle Map Quasiperiodiciterated-maps1.0000
Fibonacci Wordsymbolic-dynamics1.0000
Penrose Substitutionsymbolic-dynamics1.0000
···
Seismic Noise (ANMO)geophysical0.0000
x86-64 Machine Codealgorithmic-bytes0.0000
Accel Joghuman-activity0.0000
phi_tower
SourceOriginValue
Penrose Substitutionsymbolic-dynamics0.9785
Circle Map Quasiperiodiciterated-maps0.9120
Phyllotaxisnumber-theory0.8291
···
Gray Code Countersymbolic-dynamics-7.1242
De Bruijn Sequencesymbolic-dynamics-4.4473
Prime Gapsnumber-theory-1.7664

When It Lights Up

Penrose is the primary golden-ratio quasicrystal detector. The phi_tower metric provides atlas discrimination (score 0.924) while maintaining ratio specificity: the coherence gap penalizes signals that score equally well at non-phi ratios. Sources governed by the golden ratio (Fibonacci QC, phyllotaxis, critical circle map at golden-mean rotation, Penrose Substitution) stand out on it. The sister metric long_range_order (autocorrelation self-similarity at golden-ratio-scaled lags) was returned to the atlas 2026-06-05 as a sparse, positive-control-backed detector (previously class-only): F=0.365 (p=0.99), with 97% of sources at the zero floor and only true quasicrystals (Fibonacci QC, Phyllotaxis, Circle Map QP) escaping zero. The low F-stat is the detector signature, not a discrimination failure — it answers the single binary question "is this a quasicrystal?" rather than separating across domains.

Open in Atlas
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