Thermal Gear System (TGS-2026) Series & Thermodynamic Automaton Computer (TAC-2026-001): Complete Collection

This open-access package contains the complete foundational series on the Thermal Gear System framework (TGS-2026-001 to TGS-2026-004) and its extension to computation (TAC-2026-001), all published March 2026 under CC BY 4.0. Contents (5 full papers): TGS-2026-001: Heat Fields and Energy Gradients as Gear Mechanisms — A Complete Mechanical Analogy TGS-2026-002: Material Thermal Gears — The Microstructure as Gearbox — Solid-State Phononic Transmission (Γ_total = 19.4, c_thermal = 3910 m/s) TGS-2026-003: Programmable Material Thermal Gears — The Material That Learns to Be a Better Gear (PMTG + ISL gradient descent) TGS-2026-004: The Programmable Automaton — A Complete Account of PMTG as a Self-Governing Machine TAC-2026-001: Thermodynamic Automaton Computer — A Complete Theoretical Account of Computation by Entropy Descent (introduces ThermP complexity class) The series proves that every thermal field is already a gear system, that nanopatterned solids are phononic gearboxes, that materials can self-program their own gear ratios via thermodynamic gradient descent, and that this physical process constitutes a new computing paradigm distinct from classical and quantum machines. Written in the spirit of Feynman’s Lectures. All documents are open access (CC BY 4.0). No external computation or controller is required — the Second Law itself is the program."