In the previous essay, I suggested that one plausible way to approach Einstein’s puzzle is to consider that spacetime may have emerged from a deeper, pre-geometric condition. If such an underlying substrate existed at the universe’s beginning, it would have formed alongside the universe itself and shared its earliest characteristics. Observation points to three defining features of that early state: expansion accompanied by decreasing density, the presence of motion within that changing environment, and the constraints imposed by conservation. The question that follows is straightforward but far-reaching: under these conditions, how does motion evolve into structure?

Several well-studied pathways are possible. Studies of hydrodynamic instability show that when organized motion loses stability, the resulting behavior does not evolve arbitrarily but tends to follow a limited set of recognizable patterns. Early work on rotating and stratified systems demonstrated how small disturbances can grow under changing conditions, redirecting motion rather than eliminating it (Chandrasekhar 1961). Later studies of nonequilibrium systems extended this picture, showing that instabilities often lead to repeatable forms of pattern formation governed by conservation and boundary constraints (Cross and Hohenberg 1993). Together, these results indicate that even in unfamiliar environments, the ways motion reorganizes are not unlimited but constrained by underlying physical principles.

Motion might dissipate, gradually fading as energy spreads through the surrounding environment. This occurs widely whenever organized motion encounters resistance. Energy becomes more uniformly distributed, and the original pattern slowly disappears. Over long periods, dissipation tends to smooth differences rather than preserve structure.

Motion might also fragment into turbulence. When organized flow becomes unstable, it often breaks into interacting eddies that redistribute energy across many scales. Turbulence is highly effective at mixing, but its defining feature is continual breakdown. Instead of maintaining organization, it spreads motion into increasingly complex and short-lived patterns.

Another possibility is that motion propagates outward as waves. Waves allow energy and influence to travel across large distances while the underlying medium oscillates locally. This behavior appears across many areas of physics, from sound in air to electromagnetic radiation in space. Yet because waves carry energy away from their origin, they tend to disperse motion rather than sustain concentrated structure.

A fourth possibility is that motion reorganizes internally, forming patterns that allow conservation to persist locally even as surrounding conditions change. In many physical systems, flow does not simply fade or scatter when stability is lost. Instead, it redirects itself into new configurations that preserve conserved quantities while adapting to evolving environments. This pathway differs fundamentally from dissipation, turbulence, or wave propagation. Rather than dispersing motion, it reshapes it into forms capable of maintaining structure. Given the constraints outlined in the previous essay, this represents one plausible route through which early motion might begin to organize.

Nature offers many examples of this kind of reorganization. Rivers develop circulating currents as they move past obstacles. Storm systems gather rotation as energy redistributes in the atmosphere. Rotating gases form disks as they collapse under gravity. In laboratory settings, fluids driven beyond stability often organize into coherent circulating cells. Even in plasma and quantum systems, structured patterns emerge when energy flows through changing conditions. These systems differ widely in composition but share a common feature: organized motion evolving under constraint. It is this shared behavior that makes them relevant as analogs, particularly when considering a pre-geometric condition whose detailed nature remains unknown.

This tendency appears across physics. Rotating clouds of gas flatten into disks as conservation and interaction act together. Accretion flows around young stars and black holes develop persistent circulation rather than chaotic collapse. Atmospheric systems organize into cyclones and jet streams. Even in laboratory experiments, fluids set into rotation rarely remain smooth. Small disturbances grow, redirecting motion into paths that preserve angular momentum more efficiently.

Because circulation bends motion back upon itself, rotation exhibits an important advantage over linear flow. A spinning system stores motion internally and can exchange energy with its environment without immediately losing its overall organization. For this reason, rotating motion often persists under changing conditions where straight-line motion would dissipate or fragment. Under suitable conditions, what begins as broadly distributed movement can concentrate into regions capable of maintaining coherence.

If the early universe evolved under the constraints described in the previous essay, motion governed by conservation would not simply disperse as density changed. Expansion would alter interaction strength, yet conservation would continue to guide how motion redistributed itself. Uniform rotation, which may be sustainable under highly concentrated conditions, could become increasingly difficult to maintain as the environment evolved. Under such changes, organization might shift toward more localized forms of circulation, not as a required outcome, but as a physically plausible response.

When motion reorganizes internally rather than dissipating outward, it often does so by bending its flow into closed circulation. Instead of continuing along open paths that disperse energy, motion begins to follow curved trajectories that return toward their origin. Such circulation allows conserved quantities like angular momentum to remain locally organized even while the surrounding environment continues to evolve.

In fluid dynamics such transitions are well understood. When rotating motion can no longer remain evenly distributed, circulation often reorganizes into localized regions where angular momentum can be preserved more efficiently. Motion bends inward upon itself, following curved paths that close back upon their own flow rather than dispersing outward. These circulating regions, known as vortices, appear wherever conservation and instability interact. While the early universe is not a fluid in the conventional sense, this behavior illustrates a more general principle: when motion is constrained and redistributed, closed circulation can emerge as one stable form of organization.

Vortices are among the most persistent structures observed in nature. Detailed analyses of rotating fluids have shown that once circulation closes upon itself, it can resist dissipation by continuously redistributing energy along its own flow (Greenspan 1968). This behavior is not limited to classical systems. In quantum fluids, vortices appear in quantized form, where their stability arises from collective organization rather than from rigid boundaries, demonstrating that circulation can remain coherent even under very different physical conditions (Volovik 2003). Across these domains, the same principle appears, that when motion reorganizes into closed circulation, it gains a capacity for persistence that open flow does not possess.

What makes vortices remarkable is their ability to preserve motion while adapting to change. Energy circulates internally rather than escaping immediately into the environment, and disturbances tend to be redistributed along the flow rather than destroying the structure outright. Some vortices endure only briefly, while others persist for extraordinary lengths of time. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, for example, has remained visible for generations, sustained not by external design but by the internal dynamics of rotating motion itself. Persistence, in this case, is not imposed, it emerges.

Across these examples, a consistent pattern appears. Instability does not necessarily eliminate order. Instead, it often reorganizes it. When smooth, distributed motion becomes unsustainable, circulation provides an alternative configuration through which conservation can continue to operate efficiently.

If expansion altered the earliest conditions of the universe while conserved motion remained active, uniform behavior might gradually become unstable. Studies of large-scale structure formation show that matter organizes along preferred directions defined by gravitational interaction and large-scale flow, producing the filamentary structure of the cosmic web (Libeskind et al. 2018). While these analyses describe much later stages of cosmic evolution, they demonstrate that coherent structure can emerge from the redistribution of motion under changing conditions. By analogy, regions responding differently to early density changes could begin to separate dynamically, concentrating organization into localized structures rather than remaining uniform.

Seen in this light, the emergence of organized motion in the early universe would not require distant coordination or finely tuned coincidence. Structure could arise locally as conserved motion responds to changing conditions. Expansion provides continual change in the environment, while circulation offers a way for motion to remain organized as those conditions evolve.

If such processes occurred, the earliest forms of cosmic organization may have appeared long before galaxies or stars assembled. They would not yet resemble familiar astronomical objects but instead would consist of enduring regions of circulating motion—structures shaped by conservation itself as the universe adapted to expansion.

Such a possibility does not challenge the mathematical success of general relativity. Geometry would continue to describe what we observe with precision. What changes is how that description is interpreted. Rather than viewing structure as emerging from initially featureless conditions, this perspective suggests that large-scale organization may reflect how motion reorganized under conservation as the universe expanded. In this sense, the argument follows directly from the conditions outlined in the previous essay: if motion, conservation, and expansion were present from the beginning, then structure may arise as a natural consequence of how those constraints evolve.

I invite your comments.

Robert J. Conover

References:

Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan. 1961. Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cross, M. C., and P. C. Hohenberg. 1993. “Pattern Formation Outside of Equilibrium.” Reviews of Modern Physics 65 (3): 851–1112.

Greenspan, H. P. 1968. The Theory of Rotating Fluids. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Libeskind, Noam I., Yehuda Hoffman, Gustavo Yepes, Stefan Gottlöber, and Francisco Knebe. 2018.
“Tracing the Cosmic Web.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 473:1195–1217.

Volovik, G. E. 2003. The Universe in a Helium Droplet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.