Ontology of Quantum Physics: What a Century of "Shut Up and Calculate" Has Been Calculating
The preprint is available on SSRN: Ontology of Quantum Physics: What a Century of "Shut Up and Calculate" Has Been Calculating (September 25, 2026). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7528765 Ontology of Quantum Physics: What a Century of "Shut Up and Calculate" Has Been Calculating Juliet Zhong Independent Researcher | London, United Kingdom | September 2026 ORCID: 0009-0006-5099-3671 Abstract For a century quantum physics has calculated, with unmatched precision, the probabilities with which matter registers events, from collider cross sections to the electron’s magnetic moment at one part in a trillion. It has not said what it is calculating. “Shut up and calculate”, Mermin’s description of the practice, names the decision to leave the question open. Quantum field theory excludes the two familiar answers: its fields have no values at points, and under their localisation assumptions the theorems of Malament and of Halvorson and Clifton, with th...