# Instructor guide: ZPF spectral-response and null-test bound

Course: Zero-point-field inertia programs

Suggested time: 70–90 minutes

## Learning target

Learners reproduce a response-based inertia coefficient, expose its spectral assumptions, and convert a calibrated null result into a model bound.

## Prepare

- Review vacuum spectral density and response integrals.
- Declare normalization and cutoff conventions.
- Prepare one composition-dependent precision bound.

## Facilitation moves

- Vary cutoff and resonance separately.
- Compare inferred mass with a reference mass budget.
- Demand a unique predicted modulation before discussing anomalies.

## Misconception checks

- **A coefficient proportional to acceleration proves all inertia is vacuum drag.** The model must reproduce relativistic covariance, composition, QCD/binding mass, gravity, and decisive experiments.
- **A null result cannot teach anything.** With calibrated sensitivity, it excludes a defined parameter region and improves the theory.

## Accessibility and participation

- Plot the response and cumulative integral together.
- Translate frequency decades into contribution factors.
- Provide an assumption-to-bound dependency map.

## Evidence of learning

- A reproducible spectral integral
- A sensitivity analysis
- A quantitative excluded/allowed decision

## Extension

Replace the Gaussian response with two resonances and test whether existing composition bounds permit either component.

## Evidence boundary

Assess the learner's reasoning only within the declared model and recorded observations. Do not upgrade a simulation result into a claim about an unmodeled physical system.