Juliet Zhong

The preprint version is available on SSRN: The Observer and Spacetime: On the Existential Precondition of Physical Theory (August 18, 2026). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7316678   The Observer and Spacetime: On the Existential Precondition of Physical Theory   Juliet Zhong Independent Researcher | London, United Kingdom | August 2026 ORCID: 0009-0006-5099-3671 Abstract This paper argues that the observer is not a peripheral element in physics but the existential precondition without which physical theory loses its empirical content. Using a series of thought experiments grounded in special relativity, the paper demonstrates that the construction of a reference frame—the foundational operation upon which all of relativistic physics depends—requires an entity capable of measurement, and that measurement, in every instance, presupposes an observing system. When this precondition is removed, the formal apparatus of special relativity—coordinate systems, th...

The preprint version is available on SSRN: The Ontological Boundary of Quantum Probability: Pre-Collapse Possibility versus Realised Physical Fact (July 13, 2026). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7300039       The Ontological Boundary of Quantum Probability Pre-Collapse Possibility versus Realised Physical Fact     Juliet Zhong Independent Researcher | London, United Kingdom | July 2026 ORCID: 0009-0006-5099-3671     Abstract This paper identifies a fundamental ontological boundary in quantum mechanics: the collapse event. The pre-collapse domain is governed by the Schrödinger equation and describes the complete probability amplitude structure of unrealised physical possibilities. The post-collapse domain consists of definite physical events subject to the definite-state descriptions provided by classical and relativistic physics. The failure to draw this boundary explicitly has generated compounding confusion in quantum foundation...