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EPIC trios#446 (WAVE-GF-001) · Anchor: phi^2 + phi^-2 = 3
## Why
WAVE-GF-001 experiment plan in trios#446 sweeps the GF Family across
the full numeric-format universe (~60 formats) — IEEE binary/decimal,
ML low-precision (bf16/TF32/FP8/FP6/FP4 OCP MX), Posit/unum III,
LNS, GF Family, INT/UINT, Q-format, BCD, historical (HFP/MBF/VAX/Cray),
theoretical (minifloat/Unum I/II/tapered), and quantization tricks
(BFP/shared-exp/stochastic rounding).
Until now the whitepaper compared GF16 against 5 specific competitors
(fp16, bf16, DLFloat-6:9, FP8 E4M3/E5M2). To make WAVE-GF-001 results
interpretable, every reader needs a single authoritative reference
that lists every format, its bit budget, vendor, phi-distance, and
canonical use case.
## What
### whitepaper.md (+257 lines, inserted between §11.5 and §13)
New "Section 12: Universal Numeric-Format Catalog":
12.0 Why this catalog exists (positioning vs §1–§11)
12.1 Family map (one row per cluster, 13 families)
12.2 Full table — 13 sub-tables, ~60 formats:
12.2.1 IEEE 754 binary (binary16..binary256)
12.2.2 IEEE 754 decimal (decimal32/64/128)
12.2.3 Extended (FP80, double-double, quad-double)
12.2.4 ML low-precision (bf16, TF32, FP8/6/4 variants)
12.2.5 Microscaling OCP MX (MXFP8/6/4)
12.2.6 Quantization-tuned (NF4, AFP)
12.2.7 Posit / unum III (Posit8/16/32/64)
12.2.8 LNS
12.2.9 GF Family (full audit, BIAS / PHI_BIAS / phi-dist /
source / storage / status / use case — synced with
gf_experiment_plan.xlsx 'GF Family' sheet)
12.2.10 Integer / fixed-point (INT/UINT 4..128, Q-format, BCD)
12.2.11 Historical (IBM HFP, MBF, VAX F/D/G/H, Cray)
12.2.12 Theoretical (minifloat, Unum I/II, tapered)
12.2.13 Compression tricks (BFP, shared-exp, stochastic rnd)
12.3 phi-distance ranking (21 formats with defined phi-distance,
sorted ascending — GFTernary 0.000 → FP8 E5M2 1.882)
12.4 Position of GF Family in the map (3-axis uniqueness:
phi-aligned + integer-backed + Lucas-closed)
12.5 Open R&D suggested by the catalog (GF6, GF128, GF256,
GF8-BFP, GF+stochastic, Posit-vs-GF bench, GF+LNS hybrid)
12.6 Cross-references
### whitepaper/gf16_comparison.md (+110 lines, appended after Appendix A)
New "Section 8: Universal Numeric-Format Catalog (16-bit-centric)":
8.1 The full list (~60 formats, single line each)
8.2 16-bit competitor table sorted by phi-distance
(GF16 / DLFloat-6:9 / fp16 / Posit16 / bf16 / INT16 / TF32 / MXFP6)
8.3 Why phi-distance predicts trained-network accuracy (4-step
physical mechanism, links to BENCH-004b empirical evidence)
8.4 Where GF16 is preferred (decision matrix)
8.5 Where GF16 is NOT the right answer (decision matrix)
8.6 Standardization status (which formats are IEEE / OCP / vendor)
8.7 Cross-references
## R5-honest scope
Append-only. No existing section renamed or reordered. No claim
modified; existing benchmarks (BENCH-001..007) and Coq invariants
(INV-3, INV-5, INV-8) all referenced verbatim. The new tables source
their numbers from:
- gf_experiment_plan.xlsx 'GF Family' + 'R5 Audit' sheets
(BIAS=PASS, phi-dist=PASS for all 8 GF formats)
- whitepaper §1.3 (BENCH-007 empirical phi-distance values)
- whitepaper §9.1 (5-row narrative format catalog — this PR
expands to 60-row taxonomy)
- public OCP MX 1.0 / OCP FP8 1.0 / IEEE 754 / unum III specs
## I-SCOPE
Only docs/whitepaper.md and docs/whitepaper/gf16_comparison.md
modified. No source code, no Cargo.toml, no Coq theorem touched.
Agent: LEAD
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---
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## 12. Universal Numeric-Format Catalog
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**Status:** v2.1 addition (2026-05-02) — synced with [trios#446](https://github.com/gHashTag/trios/issues/446) WAVE-GF-001 experiment plan and the GF Family audit (`gf_experiment_plan.xlsx`, sheet *GF Family*).
The Golden Float Family exists alongside dozens of other numeric formats. To position GF rigorously — and to make it explicit which formats compete on which axes — this section catalogs **every numeric format relevant to ML, scientific computing, and historical hardware** in a single reference table. Each row carries the bit budget, the φ-distance to `1/φ ≈ 0.618`, the standardized status, and the canonical use case.
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The φ-distance metric (BENCH-007) is the unifying lens: it answers *"how close is this format's exponent:mantissa allocation to the golden-ratio optimum?"*. Lower φ-distance → more φ-aligned. **GFTernary = 0.000 (perfect), GF16 = 0.049 (best floating), bf16 = 0.525 (worst)** anchor the scale.
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### 12.1 Family map (one row per cluster)
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| Family | Members | Bit range | Format philosophy | Best φ-distance |
|**Theoretical / parametric**| minifloat (arbitrary E/M), Unum I, Unum II, tapered floating point | varies | Frameworks for designing new formats | dynamic |
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|**Compression / quantization tricks**| block floating point (BFP), shared-exponent, per-channel scale, stochastic rounding | varies | Apply atop another base format | base-dep. |
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### 12.2 The full table
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Each row gives **bits**, **representation** (sign:exp:mant or alternative), **standardized? / vendor**, **φ-distance** (where defined), **canonical use case**, and **GF-Family relation** (or `competitor` / `orthogonal`).
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#### 12.2.1 IEEE 754 binary (radix-2)
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| Format | Bits | S:E:M| Standard | φ-distance | Use case | GF relation |
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|---|---:|---|---|---:|---|---|
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|**binary16** (fp16, half) | 16 | 1:5:10 | IEEE 754-2008 |**0.118** ≈ α_φ | GPU activations, inference | direct GF16 competitor; same bit budget, looser φ |
|**Posit16**| 16 | sign + regime + exp + frac | unum III | Mixed-precision training | GF16 alternative; better around 1.0, worse at extremes |
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|**Posit32**| 32 | sign + regime + exp + frac | unum III | f32 replacement | GF32 alternative |
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|**Posit64**| 64 | sign + regime + exp + frac | unum III | f64 replacement | GF64 alternative |
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#### 12.2.8 LNS — Logarithmic Number System
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| Format | Bits | Encoding | Use case | GF relation |
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|---|---:|---|---|---|
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|**LNS-8/16/32/64**| 8–64 | log₂(x) directly | DSP, signal processing | orthogonal — multiplication becomes addition; GF preserves both ops in linear space |
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#### 12.2.9 Golden Float Family (this work) — full audit
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Source: `gf_experiment_plan.xlsx → GF Family` sheet · all entries verified by `R5 Audit` (BIAS=PASS, φ-distance=PASS for all 8).
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| Format | Bits | S:E:M| BIAS | PHI_BIAS | Source | φ-distance | Storage | Status | Canonical use |
Note: **PHI_BIAS** has no closed-form formula across the family — it is empirical (`H_E` approach, approved 2026-04-30). See `R5 Audit` sheet for the per-format justification (Lucas / Fibonacci / power-of-prime).
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#### 12.2.10 Integer & fixed-point
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| Family | Bits | Range | Use case | GF relation |
- The top 9 (φ-distance ≤ 0.118) are the **φ-aligned cluster** — formats whose E:M ratio sits within `α_φ = 0.118` of `1/φ`. The Golden Float Family monopolises 7 of the top 9 slots; the remaining 2 are GFTernary (perfect) and IEEE fp16 (which lands at α_φ exactly — a non-trivial physical resonance documented in §1.3 BENCH-007 of this whitepaper).
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- The notable **FP6 E2M3 = 0.049** result *(rank 8, tied with GF16)* suggests an unannounced golden cluster among OCP MX formats — open question for §8.5 future work.
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- bf16's `0.525` φ-distance is the empirical reason for its catastrophic MNIST failure (BENCH-004b: 9.80% accuracy, 87.87% gap from f32) — not a coincidence, and consistent with INV-3 (`gf16_safe_domain`).
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### 12.4 Position of GF Family in this map
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The GF family occupies a **unique band** at the φ-aligned, integer-backed, Lucas-closed corner of the design space:
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```
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↑ φ-alignment (better)
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│
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GFTernary •─────── perfect
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│
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│ • GF64
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│ • GF32
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│ • GF24
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│ • GF20
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│ • GF12 • GF16
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│ • FP6 E2M3 ← unannounced golden cluster
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│ • GF4 • fp16 ← α_φ resonance
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│ • GF8
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│
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fp32, TF32 •───────────────────
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fp64 •───────────────────
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binary128 •───────────────────
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binary256 •───────────────────
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bf16 •───────────────────
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FP8/FP6/FP4•───────────────────
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│
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└── ← φ-misalignment (worse)
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```
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**Three things only GF formats currently combine:**
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1.**φ-aligned exponent:mantissa partition** (Trinity-derived, not random).
3.**Lucas closure** (φ²ⁿ + φ⁻²ⁿ ∈ ℤ, INV-5 PROVEN) at every accumulator boundary — no NaN/Inf accumulation over deep MAC chains.
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Posits get (1) (tapered) but not (2) or (3). FP8/FP6/FP4 OCP MX get (2) but break (1) and have no closure theorem. bf16 gets (2) at the cost of (1) — and pays the price empirically (BENCH-004b).
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### 12.5 Open R&D suggested by this catalog
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| Direction | Why interesting |
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|---|---|
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|**GF6** (between GF4 and GF8) | Fill the φ-gap at 6 bits; FP6 E2M3 hint suggests it lands at φ-distance ≈ 0.05 |
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|**GF128** / **GF256**| Match binary128 / binary256 ranges with φ-aligned splits |
|**GF + stochastic rounding**| Composable training stack at GF8/GF16 precision |
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|**Posit-vs-GF empirical bench**| Posit16 vs GF16 on the same trained MNIST MLP (extends BENCH-004b) |
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|**GF + LNS hybrid**| Multiplication in LNS log-space + Lucas-closed accumulation in GF — dual-space arithmetic |
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These are tracked under `MASTER_EXPERIMENTS.md → §"Format expansion"` and feed into the Phase 4 / Phase 5 lanes of [WAVE-GF-001](https://github.com/gHashTag/trios/issues/446).
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### 12.6 Cross-references
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- §1.3 — BENCH-007 φ-distance result for GF8/GF16/GF32/GF64/GFTernary.
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- §9.1 — GF Family format catalog (5-row narrative version; this section is the full 60-format taxonomy).
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-`gf_experiment_plan.xlsx` (in [trios#446](https://github.com/gHashTag/trios/issues/446)) — sheet *GF Family* (per-format audit, R5-honest).
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