John,
I'm afraid God beat that hands down! His solution is far simpler. So simple, beautiful and perfect that man can hardly grasp it and make it stick to the messy neural networks in our heads. You did so once, but , as with most it slipped away. Are you willing to try again? Let's give it a go.
1. Space is not 'nothing'. Call it what you will, but only the dense ion particle fields condensed between it's co. Moving regions are important (i.e. bow shocks).
2. In Einstein's terms 'absolute' referred to a 'one only' background ether frame. He was right. this cannot work. However, he only had to ban the 'one only' ('absolute') characteristic not the concept of 'background' itself. (Stokes/Fresnel got close, but Lorentz/Lodge's poor understanding caused them to dismiss it.)
3. So we DO have Einstein's (1952) "Smaller space 's' in motion wrt larger space 'S'." Earth's LOCAL ECI 'frame', including the ionosphere, is then a REAL PHYSICAL ENTITY moving wrt the barycentric frame (solar system,)
4. EM waves 'PROPAGATE', which is a LOCAL phenomena, at c IN each frame. light the CHANGES SPEED to the LOCAL c everywhere. (scattered to c by the shock particles) there is then ALWAYS a datum for speed, as there must be. The particles are essential to implement the change. The Doppler shift of wavelength is the result, obviously limited to (so 'by') the minimum wavelength 'gamma'.
5. Inertial systems are then real, local and mutually exclusive. They are formed by states of motion. They include all detectors 'lenses' which may be in their own rest frame. Once assimilated its simple beauty emerges.
Now this 'discrete field' based (DFM) system works perfectly, in application it matches observation perfectly, is entirely free of paradox and resolves all known anomalies, and all it's many predictions are born out by findings. I have well over 200 papers which, between the lines, show the completed jigsaw puzzle.
So why is it not adopted? Because it is unfamiliar. To those schooled in different physics it is 'different', so is obviously wrong. I've now asked hundreds to falsify it. They try, and all fail, so revert to, "yes but it MUST BE wrong because it's 'different' to our (paradox and anomaly ridden) beliefs!"
What somewhat confuses me is why so many NOT indoctrinated by other nonsense can't visualise the dynamics. You're far better placed than me to help by explaining what it is that prevents it appearing obvious. Can you help? I'm at a bit of a loss to be honest.
