  It is shown that the "massless chiral edge excitations" are an integral and
universal aspect of the low energy dynamics of the $\vartheta$ vacuum that has
historically gone unnoticed. Within the $SU(M+N)/S(U(M) \times U(N))$
non-linear sigma model we introduce an effective theory of "edge excitations"
that fundamentally explains the quantum Hall effect. In sharp contrast to the
common beliefs in the field our results indicate that this macroscopic
quantization phenomenon is, in fact, a {\em super universal} strong coupling
feature of the $\vartheta$ angle with the replica limit $M=N=0$ only playing a
role of secondary importance. To demonstrate super universality we revisit the
large $N$ expansion of the $CP^{N-1}$ model. We obtain, for the first time,
explicit scaling results for the quantum Hall effect including quantum
criticality of the quantum Hall plateau transition. Consequently a scaling
diagram is obtained describing the cross-over between the weak coupling
"instanton phase" and the strong coupling "quantum Hall phase" of the large $N$
theory. Our results are in accordance with the "instanton picture" of the
$\vartheta$ angle but fundamentally invalidate all the ideas, expectations and
conjectures that are based on the historical "large $N$ picture."
