Scale Contrast Theory: One Formula, Any Expression

This paper offers a grammar of cited observation, not a predictive theory of physics. Its premise is that every measurement is one distance read against another: \rho = \Delta x/(c\Delta t). The disparity is the relation itself, not a relation among isolated terms. There is no prior function that takes an outside argument and returns the facing. The paper makes three commitments (the spatial contrast, the temporal contrast, and the relative-to), states two formal claims (persistence under rescaling; consistency across expressions via one composition law), and treats two further statements as properties of the form rather than claims that could fail (equal contribution; closure). Three thought experiments—two televisions, two planets, and nested screens—illustrate the premise before the formal sections begin. The paper's contribution is an audit format: a Kind column (R / I / A) that distinguishes restatement from seated input from argument, a list of seated inputs, and a Marks-with-standing table that states what would count against each row. The rows are cited observations, not new derivations. The paper includes one argued row (the eccentricity dependence of Mercury's perihelion advance), and it names the structural alternative that would give a different dependence. The paper does not replace the legacy formalism. It reads the same results as expressions of one relation, distance contrasted against distance, with no term standing outside the relation. It derives no new quantitative rows. The commitments are offered, not argued; a reader who does not accept them is not reached by the rows. The reading is offered; the route may be constituted; the law is declined.