Mechanical node (load-bearing node)
Hypothesis A type assignment is a prediction until it is measured. The simulated evidence is one model family.
Source: Style sheet v22 §1.2
Definition (canon)
Stiff, near-linear transfer function to a hard limit, then rupture. Holds gain to the limit.
On record (as assignments, not measurements): the safe-storage sink (Substrate §4); settlement and reserve capacity (Legibility §6).
A hinge is discontinuous rupture, not a transition between two stable states, and requires none of the three bifurcation conditions. A mechanical node with no loop around it still fractures at its limit.
In plain words
A part that holds right up to its limit and then breaks. Nothing in it needs to feed back on itself to do that.
It is not
- A node that warns by slowing. In the series' simulated local-load bundle its relaxation was flat, not falling (see hinge).
- Typed from its mechanism alone. See the standing rule at sensor node.
What would defeat it
- Canon, erratum 2026-11-06. A structurally hinge-typed model, stiff and with no slowing, showing a scale-free precursor distribution above the event-count floor would restore the withdrawn pairing for that class.
- Follows from the definition. A node typed mechanical whose measured response saturates and whose relaxation time diverges on approach.