Juliet Zhong

The preprint version is available on SSRN: The Origin of Thunderstorm Charge Separation: Structural Asymmetry and Directional Electron Capture in Ice-Graupel Collisions (August 17, 2026). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7309279        T he O rigin of T hunderstorm C harge S eparation Structural asymmetry and directional electron capture in ice–graupel collisions     Juliet Zhong Independent Researcher, London, United Kingdom. ORCID: 0009-0006-5099-3671 | August 2026   Abstract The microscopic origin of charge separation during collisions between ice crystals and graupel in thunderstorm clouds is a longstanding open problem. Recent measurements establishing that hexagonal ice is a strong flexoelectric material suggest one candidate mechanism, but any mechanism rooted in an intrinsic, season-independent material property must still explain why global lightning frequency is governed by convective intensity, peaking sharply in local su...

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...