http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm"Einstein's Legacy --
Where are the "Einsteinians?", Lee Smolin: "Quantum theory was not the
only theory that bothered Einstein. Few people have appreciated how
dissatisfied he was with his own theories of relativity. Special
relativity grew out of Einstein's insight that the laws of
electromagnetism cannot depend on relative motion and that the speed
of light therefore must be always the same, no matter how the source
or the observer moves. =A0Among the consequences of that theory are that
energy and mass are equivalent (the now-legendary relationship E =3D
mc2) and that time and distance are relative, not absolute. SPECIAL
RELATIVITY WAS THE RESULT OF 10 YEARS OF INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE, YET
EINSTEIN HAD CONVINCED HIMSELF IT WAS WRONG WITHIN TWO YEARS OF
PUBLISHING IT."

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/OntologyOUP_TimesNR.pdf"What Can
We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the Theory of
Relativity?", John D. Norton: "In general relativity there is no
comparable sense of the constancy of the speed of light. The constancy
of the speed of light is a consequence of the perfect homogeneity of
spacetime presumed in special relativity. There is a special velocity
at each event; homogeneity forces it to be the same velocity
everywhere. We lose that homogeneity in the transition to general
relativity and with it we lose the constancy of the speed of light.
Such was Einstein's conclusion at the earliest moments of his
preparation for general relativity. ALREADY IN 1907, A MERE TWO YEARS
AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE SPECIAL THEORY, HE HAD CONCLUDED THAT THE
SPEED OF LIGHT IS VARIABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD;
indeed, he concluded, the variable speed of light can be used as a
gravitational potential."

Note that the fact that THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS VARIABLE IN THE PRESENCE
OF A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD has made Lee Smolin conclude that SPECIAL,
not general, relativity is wrong. That is what Einstein discovered in
1907 and what a small number of clever relativists have known since
then. All other relativists have been hypnotized by Einstein's
camouflage in Chapter 22 in his "Relativity".

Pentcho Valev