---
slug: localized_defect_propagation
name: Localized Defect Propagation
one_liner: "Large-scale change of an ordered medium achieved by propagating a small localized defect through it, so each unit shifts minimally in turn — far cheaper than rearranging every unit at once."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [physical, structural, computational]
origin_domain: materials_science_crystallography
alternate_origin_domains: [traffic_flow, fracture_mechanics, condensed_matter_physics]
aliases: [defect_mediated_transformation, wave_of_local_rearrangement, propagating_kink, domain_wall_motion, dislocation_glide_generalized]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `dislocation_motion` (lift: strip the crystal-lattice / mechanical-stress vocabulary, leaving the bare pattern that macroscopic change of an ordered medium propagates through a moving localized defect at far lower cost than uniform rearrangement). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B candidate (B-rest): sonnet-proposed genus generalizing a single named input; macroscopic-change-via-moving-localized-defect spans physics/traffic/materials distinctly. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `dislocation_motion` and any wave-propagation / phase-transition / local-vs-global-change primes; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the dislocation input AND siblings like traffic stop-and-go waves and crack propagation) and not a domain instance or a restatement of the input; draw a subsumption edge dislocation_motion→this + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The genus is a cost-and-mechanism structure: an ordered medium changes globally not by simultaneous uniform rearrangement but by a localized defect that moves through it, each unit relaxing by one step as the defect passes, so the energy/effort barrier scales with the defect size rather than the whole. Stripped of crystal vocabulary this is medium-neutral — it describes crystals, traffic, fracturing solids, and magnetic materials with the same skeleton, so structural_abstraction and domain_breadth sit at 4. Transfer evidence is strong (4): the siblings are all real, quantitatively-studied propagating-defect phenomena (traffic stop-and-go waves, crack tips, domain walls) with established front-propagation physics, not analogies. It stops short of the ceiling because the pattern presupposes an *ordered/regular medium* with a low-cost local-defect mode — a genuine substrate condition — so it is not fully unconstrained.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: dislocation_motion
  similarity: 0.72
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.18
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.3, evaluative_weight: 0.0, institutional_origin: 0.3, human_practice_bound: 0.1, import_vs_recognize: 0.2}
  rationale: 'The genus carries no evaluative content and is not bound to a human practice: it is a recognizable physical/structural mechanism (change via a moving localized defect) that appears wherever an ordered medium admits a cheap local-rearrangement mode. Its vocabulary generalizes off the crystallographic particulars, and it is recognized across domains rather than imported as a doctrine. It reads clearly structural; the mild non-zero criteria come only from its origin as a named materials-science concept (dislocation theory, Taylor/Orowan/Polanyi 1934). Well toward the structure-first end.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Localized Defect Propagation

## Core Idea

The genus is a mechanism-and-cost structure: *an ordered medium changes at large scale not by rearranging every unit at once, but by introducing a small localized defect and propagating it through the medium, so that as the defect passes, each unit shifts by only a minimal step*. It is reached from the input `dislocation_motion` by stripping the **crystal-lattice and mechanical-stress vocabulary**. The crystallographic case — a line defect gliding through a lattice under modest stress, each row of atoms slipping one step as it passes, so the crystal deforms macroscopically at a fraction of the cost of shearing every plane simultaneously — is one instance; lift off the lattice and the stress, and the general pattern is *defect-mediated transformation*: whenever an ordered medium admits a cheap local-defect mode, global change flows through the moving defect rather than through uniform rearrangement.

The load-bearing anatomy has three parts. First, an *ordered/regular medium* — a substrate of many like units in a repeating arrangement, whose fully-uniform rearrangement would be prohibitively costly because it requires breaking every bond or moving every unit at once. Second, a *localized defect with a low-cost mobility mode* — a small, mobile discontinuity (a missing/extra unit, a boundary, a front) that can move by having only the units at its edge relax by one increment. Third, *propagation as the transformation channel*: the defect sweeps across the medium, and the sum of the tiny local shifts it leaves behind is the large-scale change. The characteristic payoff is a *dramatic cost reduction*: the barrier to change scales with the defect, not the whole system, so ordered media transform far more easily than their idealized defect-free strength would predict (this is precisely why real crystals yield at stresses orders of magnitude below the theoretical shear limit). The characteristic cost/failure is *fragility and runaway*: the very mechanism that makes change cheap makes the medium vulnerable — defects can multiply, pin, tangle, or accelerate, and a defect front can run away (a crack that outpaces its driving) so the medium fails catastrophically along the cheap channel rather than resisting uniformly.

Read as a genus rather than as crystal plasticity, the same mechanism recurs across structurally-unlike domains. In *traffic flow*, phantom jams are stop-and-go waves: the "ordered medium" is a stream of cars, the defect is a local density perturbation, and it propagates backward through the flow as each driver brakes one step in turn — a macroscopic slowdown carried by a moving localized disturbance, not by all cars decelerating at once. In *fracture mechanics*, crack propagation is the same shape: a solid changes from intact to broken through a crack tip that advances by breaking bonds only at its edge, so the material fails by propagating a localized defect at far lower energy than uniform decohesion. In *condensed-matter physics*, magnetic domain-wall motion reverses a material's magnetization by moving the boundary between oppositely-aligned domains, so each spin flips as the wall passes rather than all spins flipping together. Dislocation glide is one species; the traffic wave, the crack tip, and the domain wall are structurally-unlike siblings sharing the identical localized-defect-propagation skeleton, which is what shows the lift is real rather than a restatement of dislocation motion.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed genus of the input `dislocation_motion`, by stripping the crystal-lattice and mechanical-stress vocabulary to leave the bare pattern of macroscopic change via a moving localized defect at sub-uniform cost. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03. Claimed siblings: phantom traffic jams (stop-and-go wave propagation); crack propagation in fracturing materials; magnetic domain-wall motion. Manifest tier: B-rest (sonnet-proposed generalization; "macroscopic change via moving localized defect spans physics/traffic/materials distinctly").

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: this is among the stronger Tier-B lifts because all three siblings are real, quantitatively-studied propagating-defect phenomena with established front-propagation physics — traffic stop-and-go waves, crack tips, and domain walls are not analogies but independently-characterized instances of "global change carried by a moving local disturbance," and the shared cost logic (barrier scales with the defect, not the whole) is precise and load-bearing. The input `dislocation_motion` is genuinely narrower (bound to crystals and stress), so the lift removes a real specialization. The RISKS, stated plainly for a coinage candidate: (1) **coinage risk** — "localized defect propagation" is a sonnet-minted label; the underlying idea is close to established notions like propagating fronts, soliton/kink propagation, and moving phase boundaries, so Kurt should judge whether this is a genuine unnamed genus or a rebranding of an existing wave/front-propagation concept. (2) **overlap risk with a wave/front prime** — the highest-priority check: if the corpus has (or should have) a `wave_propagation`, `front_propagation`, `phase_boundary`, or `soliton` prime, this genus may be a specialization of it (the specialization being *the moving thing is a defect in an ordered medium and it carries a cost saving*), not a peer. (3) **restatement risk** — confirm it does not just restate `dislocation_motion`; the discriminator is that the genus covers non-crystalline media (traffic, cracks, magnetic domains) where "lattice" and "stress" have no literal meaning. The sharp keep/cut question: *is "change an ordered medium by propagating a cheap localized defect" a distinct genus worth a prime, or is it the same structure a broader front/wave-propagation prime already carries — with dislocation motion as the crystal instance of that broader prime?*

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `dislocation_motion` (the input — restatement check), and against any `wave_propagation`, `front_propagation`, `phase_transition`, `soliton`, or `local_vs_global_change` primes (overlap check — the decisive one). If kept, draw a subsumption edge `dislocation_motion → localized_defect_propagation` (dislocation glide as the crystal species) and sibling edges to any traffic-wave, fracture, or domain-wall primes. Note the likely missing edge to a broader front/wave-propagation prime if one exists — this genus may be a child of it. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
