Relational Time Flow from Particles' Internal Clocks

Elementary particles exhibit intrinsic phase recurrences, so each can serve as a reference clock. From this perspective, Rovelli's ``timeless'' viewpoint is best read not as denying time, but as denying the fundamentality of any preferred external time coordinate: time persists as internal cyclic variables carried by particles, covariantly modulated by energy exchange and relativistic transformations. Macroscopic flow arises from records and thermodynamic coarse-graining. Intrinsic temporal periodicity, supported by theoretical and phenomenological results published in previous works, constitutes the fundamental principle at the base of Elementary Cycles Theory, which may be regarded as a minimal, purely four-dimensional string-like framework.