Infinity as an Artifact of the Point Assumption: A Finite-Cutoff Reading of QED Renormalization

Abstract

Abstract. Quantum electrodynamics is at once the most precisely verified theory in physics and the first site ofits collision with infinity. The Wilsonian resolution reads the divergences as artifacts of extrapolating a fieldtheory to zero distance, but leaves the physical identity of the cutoff unspecified. We register a concretecandidate: the electron as a bound triple of subconstituents with structural scale ℓ_w = ℓ_Pl α^(−1/2) ≈1.89×10⁻³⁴ m, a scale fixed in prior work of this program for reasons independent of renormalization. All QEDpredictions are retained without modification, so the proposal deliberately shares QED's empirical fatewherever the two overlap. Three finite accountings follow: a total electromagnetic dressing δm/m = (3α/2π)ln(ℓ_C/ℓ_w) ≈ 0.171, finite but scheme-dependent and therefore internal; a mode-count audit in which thedivergent tower is absent by construction; and a compositeness trace bounded at 2.4×10⁻⁴³, thirty orders belowcurrent sensitivity. A methodological distinction is drawn between borrowing results and using measuredconstants as anchors that translate dimensionless structural ratios into numbers; under three admissibilitycriteria this yields a five-entry comparison at QED's output layer, including a parameter-free 4.94% for thebaryonic energy fraction and a two-anchor 1776.97 MeV for the τ mass. Falsifiability conditions are stated; thedecisive open item is a derivation of the QED β-function from the framework's pair-response dynamics.