Glossary

Definitions derive from DECISIONS.md, RESEARCH_PROGRAM.md and this repo's modules — sources cited per entry. This is the docs-site glossary page (RP Part XI).

chronon — one token: a fixed fractional slice of humanity's aggregate remaining time. Physics borrowing: the hypothesized indivisible quantum of time. Pluralizes as a currency word ("forty chronons"). (DECISIONS, name resolution 2026-08-16.)

CHRONON — the token's name and full-word ticker (modern convention; maximizes distance from CRO/CHR). Trademark clearance pending (classes 9/36/42; opposition risk from the Cronos/Chronos phonetic neighborhood). Reserve name if clearance fails: SAECULUM. (DECISIONS.)

TLY — the index: S(t), humanity's total remaining life-years, Σ over (age, sex, country) of population × remaining life expectancy. The data product of v1; the settlement underlying of v2. (DECISIONS #2; tly/stock.py.)

Mirror — the protocol: token supply algorithmically mirrors S via M = κ·S; all balances rebase pro-rata; shares change only by transfer. (DECISIONS #3; tly/gons.py.)

saeculum — the annual flagship vintage report (title use). Roman lineage: the span of a long human life (Censorinus, ludi saeculares — sources (verify), reading R7). Never the Strauss-Howe pop theory.

Ē (E-bar) — mean remaining life expectancy per living person: S/N. v0 measured value 44.7880 years. (DECISIONS Key numbers; tly/estimator.py.)

mint — the identity's inflow term B·e(0): newborns enter carrying full expectancy. (RP Part IX E4/E5; tly/decomposition.py.)

spend — the identity's passage-of-time term −N: each living person spends one year per year. (Same sources.)

drift — N·dĒ/dt|revision: the change in S from life-table revision at fixed structure — the secular improvement trend. v0 convention: annualized WHO-vintage gain, recovered 2026-08-17, pending ratification. (tly/decomposition.py; CALC_REPORT addendum 8.)

burn — life-years removed by excess deaths: Σ excess(a)·e(a+0.5). Signed (a mortality deficit is negative burn). Shocks route through burn, never through drift. (tly/burn.py.)

epoch — one settlement period: Mondays 12:00:00 UTC exactly, weekly. A year has 52 or 53 epochs — the calendar never pretends otherwise. (DECISIONS defaults; tly/weekly.py, tly/prints.py.)

print — one epoch's published figures: S, Ē, N, burn, coverage, accuracy, provenance — immutable once constructed, deterministic bytes. (tly/prints.py.)

fixing — the settlement-grade record derived from an epoch's FIRST archived print (first print settles); provenance-complete by construction; DRAFT→FINAL one way. (tly/fixings.py; DECISIONS #7.)

vintage — one dated, immutable snapshot generation of upstream data (data/snapshots/<date>/ + manifest). Upstream revisions create new vintages; they never rewrite old ones. (RP Part VI/VII.)

measured vs cohort series — the dual series: SETTLEMENT carries measured-period S (hard to dispute, small model content) and settles; INFORMATIONAL carries best-estimate cohort S (higher, model-based) and can never be a settlement input. Settle on measurement, inform with the model. (DECISIONS defaults; tly/prints.py DualSeries; tly/fixings.py.)

gons — the ledger's internal integer units (G = 10³⁰ constant); balance = gons/F; a rebase changes only the global factor F. (tly/gons.py.)