A New Cosmology in the JWST Era: The Energy Quantum Theory and the Early Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed an unexpected population of massive, morphologically mature, and even quenched galaxies at redshifts \ (z > 10 \) —a finding that starkly contradicts the slow, hierarchical structure formation predicted by the standard ΛCDM model. In direct response, this monograph articulates and applies the **Energy Quantum Theory ** (EQT), a comprehensive physical and philosophical framework first systematically developed in the author’s foundational monographs (Li & Li, 2025). EQT reconceives the cosmos not as a collection of particles in spacetime, but as a dynamic **energyon density field** \ ( (r, t, f) \), whose evolution is governed by three core postulates: **Frequency Partitioning**, **Gradient Flow**, and **Non-cumulative Emergence**. This process ontology—explicitly physicalizing the philosophies of Whitehead and Prigogine—unifies quantum, electromagnetic, and gravitational phenomena as frequency-band manifestations of a single gradient-driven dynamics. We show that JWST’s “precocious galaxies” are a natural consequence of EQT: high-frequency energy quanta from the first stars (\ (f 10^15–10^18 \) Hz) **nonlinearly cascade** into low-frequency gravitational modes (\ (f 10^-5 \) Hz), inducing the rapid formation of massive structures far earlier than ΛCDM allows. Critically, because energy is fundamentally non-negative (\ (E = hf 0 \) ), the energyon density field satisfies \ (0 \), which **entails the intrinsic unidirectionality of gravitational gradients** (always attractive). JWST’s observation of efficient early aggregation thus provides strong empirical confirmation of this core tenet and decisively rules out cosmological models invoking significant negative-mass repulsion. Philosophically, EQT replaces the narrative of cosmic heat death with a **four-phase rhythm**—Inspiration, Suspension, Expiration, and Inflection—wherein complexity emerges locally and transiently as a necessary phase of cosmic self-expression. The theory is not merely explanatory but **predictive**, yielding concrete, testable signatures for next-generation observatories (e. g. , spatial correlation between JWST star-forming galaxies and the LISA gravitational-wave background). This work demonstrates that the JWST anomaly is not a crisis for cosmology, but a catalyst for a deeper synthesis—one that unifies fundamental physics with a coherent natural philosophy of process, time, and cosmic destiny.