RESULT 23 verdict: gap tracks FIT DEPTH not width — all registered hypotheses falsified (C128 zero-gap at cos 0.805); fw72m_cent live at 1.95 it/s

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014FAPDWQ49M5Ye3NpTndTpn

1 files changed, 26 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/campaign/CASCADE_ABLATION_PLAN.md b/docs/campaign/CASCADE_ABLATION_PLAN.md
index c0044ee..74eb7c8 100644
--- a/docs/campaign/CASCADE_ABLATION_PLAN.md
+++ b/docs/campaign/CASCADE_ABLATION_PLAN.md
@@ -603,6 +603,32 @@ PRE-REGISTERED PREDICTIONS (before any result):
 - Noise floor: seed band ~±0.006 (amp 3-seed); single seed per size -> differences <0.01 are NOT
   interpretable; if the trend lands inside the band, extremes get 3 seeds before any conclusion.
 
+RESULTS (2026-07-15, all 8 runs sealed, wandb ept-tinystories-gapscaling 8/8 live-streamed):
+| C | params | EP best | BP best | gap | final gate cos | skips |
+|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| 128 | ~3.4M | 1.5562 | 1.5519 | 0.0043 (=0 in noise) | 0.805 | 25 (all gn) |
+| 192 | ~6.9M | 1.4257 | 1.4222 | 0.0035 (=0 in noise) | 0.996 | 0 |
+| 256 | ~11.4M | 1.3502 | 1.3353 | 0.0149 | 0.998 | 0 |
+| 384 | ~24.4M | 1.2898 | 1.2766 | 0.0132 | 0.996 | 0 |
+| 512 | 42.75M | 1.2808 | 1.2311 | 0.0497 | ~0.994 | ~0 |
+(128-384 pairs amp-consistent; C512 anchor pair fp32-consistent; amp lossless ±0.006 -> tiers comparable.)
+VERDICT — my registered call was WRONG, and so is every simple hypothesis on the list:
+- H-A (bigger = more noise-robust -> gap shrinks): FALSIFIED. Gap RISES in tiers toward C512.
+- My registered call (mild H-A, 0.06-0.10 at C128): FALSIFIED. C128 gap is ZERO.
+- H-C (recipe detuned at small C -> C128 inflated): FALSIFIED. Smallest sizes are the cleanest.
+- H-B as loop-gain/wall-2: NOT the mechanism here — zero skips at 192-384, no guard activity,
+  cos flat ~0.996 across 192-384. Nothing wall-2-shaped below 42M.
+- The pattern that survives: the EP tax tracks FIT DEPTH, not width per se. Capacity-bound runs
+  (C128/192, high floor) pay ~nothing; as runs become optimization-bound the tail-SNR tax appears
+  (0.013-0.015 at 256/384) and compounds at C512 (0.050) where gn falls lowest. The C128 anomaly
+  nails the point from the other side: gate cos 0.805 + 25 gn-guards, yet ZERO gap — direction
+  noise alone does not cost validation CE when the loss floor is capacity-set. Consistent with
+  RESULT 22: the binding constraint is late-phase SNR at low |g|, and centered@big-beta (which won
+  exactly there) is the validated counter. fw72m_cent (RESULT 24, running) tests it at 72M.
+- Caveats before this becomes a paper figure: single seed per size (256/384 gaps ~2x band — likely
+  real, certify with 3 seeds at C256 and C512); gap measured at matched STEPS on the same token
+  stream (matched-data, not matched-compute); C512 anchor recipe is the tuning point.
+
 ### RESULT 22 (2026-07-14): TAIL-SNR SEVEN ARMS — centered estimator at BIG beta WINS; momentum-on-ghat REFUTED.
 Setup: resume stage1b_ep_muon_s45000.pt, run 45k->55k (10k tail steps, the low-|g| regime where
 wall-1 bites), all --amp, common recipe; one knob per arm. Reference: original run at s55000 = 1.2808