EINSTEIN SHIFTS ALLEGIANCE 1952-1954

http://www.relativitybook.com/resour...ein_space.html
"Relativity and the Problem of Space"
Albert Einstein (1952): "During the second half of the nineteenth
century, in connection with the researches of Faraday and Maxwell it
became more and more clear that the description of electromagnetic
processes in terms of field was vastly superior to a treatment on the
basis of the mechanical concepts of material points. By the
introduction of the field concept in electrodynamics, Maxwell
succeeded in predicting the existence of electromagnetic waves, the
essential identity of which with light waves could not be doubted
because of the equality of their velocity of propagation. As a result
of this, optics was, in principle, absorbed by electrodynamics. One
psychological effect of this immense success was that the field
concept, as opposed to the mechanistic framework of classical physics,
gradually won greater independence. (...) Since the special theory of
relativity revealed the physical equivalence of all inertial systems,
it proved the untenability of the hypothesis of an aether at rest. It
was therefore necessary to renounce the idea that the electromagnetic
field is to be regarded as a state of a material carrier. The field
thus becomes an irreducible element of physical description..."

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/pdf...09145525ca.pdf
Albert Einstein (1954): "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."

Banesh Hoffmann, Einstein's apostle, explains the essential difference
between the concept presenting light as a continuous field and the
concept presenting light as discontinuous particles:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested
in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second
principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do
far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the
particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it.
And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these
particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian
relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths,
local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein
resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of
particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and
introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less
obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Pentcho Valev