The hydrogen VM

PENT-3's register, built out of atoms. Five hydrogen atoms in a row are the five trits of the accumulator — each atom's energy level is its trit: ground n=1 = −, first excited n=2 = 0, second excited n=3 = +. A photon raises or lowers a level, so absorbing is +1 and emitting is −1, with ternary carry rippling to the next atom. And the structure you proved abstractly is now physical: NEG inverts every level around the middle (n=1↔n=3), the value negates for free, and the atoms already at n=2 don't move — the middle level is its own mirror, the held fixed point, made of an actual excited state.

Bridge-Burners LLC · Fiddler · 5 atoms = ACC · level = trit · NEG = invert levels · n=2 is the fixed point · anchor: AKASHA

0 0 0 0 0

The cell (one atom = one trit)

n=1	ground · trit − · −13.6 eV
n=2	excited · trit 0 · −3.4 eV · the held middle
n=3	excited · trit + · −1.51 eV

Photon energies (unequal!)

− → 0	n=1→2 · 10.2 eV · 121.6 nm (UV)
0 → +	n=2→3 · 1.89 eV · 656 nm (red, Hα)

The steps aren't equal — real levels aren't evenly spaced. The "uniform increment" is the idealization.

Status discipline

LiteralHydrogen's levels and transition energies are real (n=1,2,3; 10.2 eV / 1.89 eV); atoms genuinely are computational elements — neutral-atom and trapped-ion machines use laser-driven atom arrays. Inverting levels around n=2 fixes n=2.

BridgeLevel = trit, photon = ±1 operation, NEG = level inversion, a row of atoms = the register, carry = a photon to the neighbour.

SpeculativeNot a buildable memory: excited states decay in nanoseconds, so this couldn't hold a value; real atom computers are quantum and binary, not classical ternary. This is a faithful picture of the encoding, not the engineering.