Proving Sonoluminescence in Zero Knowledge: How We Built a 1,664-Byte Proof for Real Physics

A Bubble, a Collapse, and 1,664 Bytes A gas bubble in water, driven by a 26.5 kHz acoustic field, collapses so violently that it reaches 12,348 Kelvin -- hotter than the surface of the sun. For roughly 100 picoseconds, it emits light. This phenomenon, sonoluminescence , was discovered in 1934 and remains one of the most extreme energy-focusing mechanisms in nature. We built a zero-knowledge proof that verifies the entire simulation of this collapse -- 2,359 time steps of a nonlinear differential equation, gas pressure calculations, temperature evolution, and Stefan-Boltzmann radiation -- in a constant-size proof of 1,664 bytes. The verifier learns three numbers: the bubble's equilibrium radius, its final temperature, and total radiated emission. Everything else -- surface tension, viscosity, pressure traces, intermediate states -- stays hidden. The proof system is halo2 PLONK with KZG commitments on bn256. The codebase is roughly 3,500 lines of Rust. And the hardest part of building it