Topological wake ejection

In RSI, the proton is a pressure sink that creates an inward undertow. An electron in an outer shell (n = 2) holds its place because this inward pull is balanced by the outward centrifugal force of its orbital motion.

Outer shells, however, are geometrically dissonant grooves, and an electron in one is not in the lowest available state. It does not slow down gradually. It stays in its valley until it drops, all at once, into a lower, tighter valley, with a fixed chance per unit time. That is why excited atoms have exponential lifetimes, like the constant chance per beat that governs radioactive decay. In the lower valley the electron moves faster, not slower.

As the electron drops through the Acoustic Ridge, the energy difference between the two valleys is shed into the medium as a single transverse ripple whose frequency is set by that difference (E = hf). RSI calls this Topological Wake Ejection and identifies it as the physical origin of the photon. Because the valleys are discrete, so are the frequencies, which is why atomic spectra are sharp lines.