Dear Vladimir F. Tamari ,
Every year I look forward to your art and essay. Growing up on the Mississippi River, and growing up with Einstein's ideas, I appreciate your title. I too believe it is the River of Now that we are rolling on.
You mentioned the world turned upside down with special relativity and velocity-dependent attributes. In my mind this is another case of focusing on the mathematical projections imposed on reality by physicists. I believe in the physical reality and seek to understand such reality through appropriate models. For example, I believe the appropriate model for special relativity is the "radar" model. My radar sits in my rest frame in London and sends a pulse at the speed of light toward a V2 rocket headed for London with velocity v. When my pulse strikes the nose of the V2, it returns to me at the speed of light. But a portion of the radar pulse wave-front continues toward the tail of the rocket. While my pulse travels to the tail fin at c, the tail fin is traveling toward me at v, and analysis of the return pulse implies that the V2 rocket is shorter in length than is actually the case.
Since I cannot reach out and touch an object in another inertial frame, but can only send and receive messages traveling at the speed of light, [even if that varies from place to place or time to time!] then Newtonian physics dictates a "length contraction" for objects so measured in a frame moving with respect to myself. I see no reason to believe the V2 has turned into silly putty. I simply see that communication at the finite speed of light complicates analysis of communications between moving reference frames.
Similarly, the "clock model" that times 'ticks' in terms of the round-trip travel between a source and detector on the floor of the railroad car and a mirror on the ceiling will show time dilation for moving clocks, compared to the identical optical clock stationary in the station. Again, essentially the radar model. No nonsense about "perfect" clocks.
I agree that the Equivalence Principle has problems. It completely fails when either tidal forces or local rotation cannot be ignored. Why choose a fundamental principle that has glaring exceptions? The main consequence is that the gravitational energy of the field can always be transformed away in a suitable reference frame, yielding a purely geometric formalism. This follows from ignoring the Maxwell-Einstein gravito-magnetic aspects of dynamic gravity. If these aspects are considered it plays havoc with the Equivalence Principle and also with Copenhagen 'particle-wave duality'. The gravito-magnetic wave induced by ultra-dense matter (such as electrons) cannot be ignored. It is primarily due to the statistical/thermodynamic Partition function that the wavelength of this field can be related to energy and hence probability, resulting in the endless confusion known as QM.
I am amazed and pleased that your summary diagram on page 6 is almost 100% compatible with my theory of reality (with the possible exception of the bottom left corner [21st c]). You have been very busy my friend!
To tie some of this together, I hope you find the time to look at my recent paper
The Nature of Quantum Gravity
I think you will like it. The issue with Bell derived from his projecting the 'qubit' "two state" model onto a simplistic interpretation of Stern-Gerlach. But there is no fiercer branch of the QM religion than the church of the entanglement, so that is a fight to be avoided if possible. Thank God as you note, there are competent thinkers outside the establishment to do the work that must be done to escape the mess we're in.
I am in full agreement with viewing gravity as aether that acts as an optical field of variable index of refraction bending light. Since local gravity (aether) did not change for Michelson and Morley, wherever in orbit, they should've expected null results!
I showed in my dissertation that any axiomatic theory of physics can be formulated as automata. An example in my endnotes shows the mapping between the canonical form and one of Feynman's path integral terms. I also observed that the automaton's 'next state address' is conceptually equivalent to potential (as shown in the example.)
Vladimir it is so rewarding to see that many here continue to improve their theories in their essays every year. You and I are converging in many areas. That is so pleasing.
My very best wishes for you,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
PS. Can you recommend a specific paper or place I should study to familiarize myself with Eric Reiter's work?