With the failure of the Michelson-Morley Experiment detecting luminiferous ether, Einstein proceeded on his abstract, mathematical venture, to examine the plausible explanation for known phenomenon, such as the aberration of starlight, which, at the time of this experiment, was dependent upon a failed ether theory. The principal problem at the time was an unchanging focal length of starlight in telescopes, particularly stars directly ahead or behind the earth's solar tangential motion.  Given that the index of refraction is a ratio between the speed of light in air (or vacuo) relative to the speed of light in glass lenses (slightly slower, thus causing its refraction), it would seem, that on a fast moving earth in the direction of a star, the velocity of light inside the "air cavity" of telescopes should be a bit faster than at normal rest, and a bit slower relative to light coming in from behind the earth.  Such was not the case.  No matter what stars and in what direction they might be, they remained in precise focus inside telescopes, despite the earth's notable progression around the sun at about 18 km/sec.   Along with this, light sweeping in from alongside the earth, seemed to displace the stars, making them appear to be offset slightly in advance of their charted position by as much as 20.492" seconds of arc.  Generally, both these observed effects fall in the category of aberration of starlight.
    At the time, this is before 1880, there was no known explanation for such strange events.  Both physicists and astronomers were at a loss to explain any causal mechanism.
    One thing seemed clear, the velocity of light, thought to be constant by investigators, thus denoted as c, was the same to the observer as to its emission velocity on some distant star.  It might be concluded, if not assumed, that objects, such as the earth, could never surpass, yet alone reach this upper limit.

    To Einstein, it meant that ponderable masses must reflect a causal mechanism inhibiting their approach to such high speeds.  Since force is equivalent to the product of mass and acceleration, the implication stood, that given any finite acceleration, which is wholly reasonable, something else must happen.  Since the exact mechanism concerning the nature of mass remained unclear, one could justifiably assume mass to undergo increase with speed, such at exactly the speed of light (c exactly!), any object's mass would become infinite!  Photons are of course exempted from this rule.  The adjacent expression, which was put forth by Einstein in his restricted theory of relativity in 1905, mathematically relates this assumption.
   In the adjoining illustration, we see the approach of an ambient field surface (dashed) approaching (positions A,  B and C), passing through (C, D and E) and leaving the earth (E and F).  The behavior, based on geometric relationships, of this surface is typical of all ambient field surfaces passing through the earth;  only one of many being shown.  Now, initially at some great range from the earth, the field surface will not be bent inward towards earth, but progressively, as it draws nearer, it becomes more and more bent, as at positions B and C.
     [Remember, the lines you are seeing, are surfaces where they cut through the plane of the paper (raster), and not lines.  You must imagine a three-dimensional volumetric region where within, this is all happening.  If one were to draw many, many surfaces in perspective, instead of lines, we would have visual confusion, so these illustrations are normally limited to lines.]
    Any surfaces deemed as being part of earth, must be bent in a fashion conforming them to the general shape of all surfaces passing through it.  This is a dynamic process, where approaching surfaces begin to match the surface contours of those surfaces belonging to earth array, and then as they leave, they reconform to the general contours of ambient field surfaces.
    The whole process is purely geometrical.  As surfaces draw closer and closer, they continually impinge on surfaces ahead, undergo interchange (50% of the time), which tends to draw them closer together and more parallel (because of IDDI).  Then, as these surfaces sequence themselves through the earth, they progressively assume the average of field surface contours encountered, thereby reconforming to the isotropic field of surfaces surrounding any moving object, such as the earth.
    The explicit mechanism causing relativistic mass increase of any material object, be it earth or neutron, is the conformation of ambient field surfaces as they approach and pass through an object moving through the field.
    Any two surfaces which bump into each other tend to drive both surfaces closer together, as the result of IDDI, leaving them in a compromised position, much like an average position of both.  In passing through many surfaces which might belong to a radial array, a single surface will always yield more and more of its original contour to the preponderance of all the other surfaces.  Being outnumbered in this process, the single ambient field surface passing through, will hardly affect the individual contours of the group, yet in itself, undergoing significant change.  In other words, it conforms to the group.
    The process of IDDI, as a process, rather than an instantaneous event, requires a duration to complete itself.   This, in combination to the understanding that the rate or frequency of surface collisions, is constant for any finite region of the field of any given density, governs the rate of conformation.  Thus, an ambient field surface moving very slowly through a radial array will experience more bending than a wave moving very fast, which in itself, clearly accounts for Fitzgerald's relativistic foreshortening.
    Once this process was fully understood, as well as its implications, the notion of mass, inertia, momentum and relativistic mass increase, required inquiry.  Since the number of surfaces thought to be captive to a dual-wave configuration should be of constant value within a field of constant density, and since the mass of a dual-wave configuration (as a neutron-parton) should closely relate to its real world counterpart, the effective mass of a single surface in association to this field configuration can be estimated.

    Given that the neutron's mass is 939.553 x 10⁶ electron volts (EV), and that it comprises6 x 10¹⁰ surfaces, the effective mass per surface is,

    Surface mass = 939.553 x 10⁶ EV / 6 x 10¹⁰ = 1.6 x 10^-2 EV.

`    This is not relativistic mass, but mass equated to a three-dimensional system without time, and though surfaces bear no intrinsic mass, in conjunction with a field array caused to undergo motion within the field, the number of surfaces associated to a field array would at least be directly proportional to the mass effect.  In the case of a photon (akin to a simple field wave which moves with an unaltered speed throughout the field, but with directional variation),  moving from surface to surface as it propagates through the field, it would spend part of its time on one surface and part of its time on two.  One might say that the average is 1.5 surfaces, giving the photon an average mass of .024 EV.

In the case of an earth moving through a field, all conforming field surfaces will quickly move from their undisturbed position at A (previous illustration), through positions B and C, but then find that they will slow down a great deal traveling through the body of the earth and atmosphere included, only to resume their rapid acceleration away from the earth as they pass through positions E and F, before rejoining the field.  Ostensibly, earth's passage is sweeping the field by bringing field surfaces to itself, where they congregate in much greater density than they would if the earth were to be at rest.  The faster the earth goes, the more surfaces held by it;  a form of mass increase with increasing speed.  Even if surfaces did not undergo this effect, the same would be true.  Essentially, the faster an object goes, the greater number of surfaces can be associated to it in time, thus the greater the mass.  Mass then, is proportional to the number of surfaces which are associated with and pass through an object during a fixed interval of time.

Professor Albert Einstein's home in Princeton, New Jersey.  A glorious moment in time.

    Throughout the field, simple waves are moving in every direction.   As they skip from surface to surface, they experience no change in speed, nor is there any friction to the system, so once waves are moving at a certain speed, this speed remains invariant.  Also, when these waves undergo self-convolution, the maximum speed before self-convolution is retained as the maximum speed after convolution, so even with convolution, the system speed remains invariant.
    As the earth moves through the field at a relatively slow orbital speed around the sun, it is bombarded from all sides by field waves, which are probably really traveling at the speed of light:  the invariant system speed associated with simple waves.  Also, all surfaces moving in association with the earth's field effect are likewise being bombarded.  At slow speeds, this does not matter, in that there would be little pronounced effect.  At higher speeds, something else happens.
    Now it is not that surfaces cannot move fast. They can move very fast.  They have no intrinsic mass.  If it were possible to whip a surface back and forth, even at extreme distances, there would be no impediment to this action.
    At very high speeds, all surfaces in association with the moving earth will experience a lower frequency of waves striking from behind than from ahead.  If the earth is traveling at a speed equivalent to the average speed of all simple waves within a finite region of the field, exceptionally few waves should arrive from behind, creating a severe imbalance between bombardments for and aft.  Because the impact of each simple wave against a surface leaves that surface displaced 1/2 h in the direction of wave travel, a surface will tend to not be able to make headway through the field if already traveling near optimum speed.
    Viewed from an earth-at-rest perspective, all surfaces passing through the earth from any and all directions, experience this  bombardment of field waves pushing each surface from both sides;  a sort of compressional stress.  Once these surfaces begin to move across the field, does this stress become imbalanced, leading to a general impediment to forward progress which overcomes all forward motion as that motion reaches 100% system optimum.

    For those surfaces both approaching and leaving the earth, which are moving much faster than the earth, is this effect even more pronounced, thus slowing them down even more so, thus causing a distortion or flattening of the array and all surfaces associated with it.
    Albeit a brief excursion into the possibility of this model.  Three things become evident.  As the earth goes faster, it acquires more field surfaces, suggesting mass increase.  At an exceptionally high rate of speed, a universal field exertion opposite to the direction of motion reaches maximum at a speed matching the system optimum, and lastly, a flattening of shape along the axis of motion occurs at exceptionally high speeds.
    Though to most, the theory of relativity stands as principle, it should not, but instead, from the scientific methodology, be an escarpment to greater learning.
    Presented more than a century ago, its progenitor man of the century, relativity has dazzled and mesmerized nearly all.  Yet, Einstein was well aware of its missing links, namely he didn't know why, only how his mathematical expressions worked.  Moreover, that quantum leap, given as label to Einstein's brilliance overlooks the total effort, study and hard work he put into it, and minimizes the genealogy of its foundation, namely ontology, and the failed either-wind experiment two centuries past.  It is one thing to celebrate the man and his ideas, but to know them is better.
 

*In this example, the equations of transformation are:

    x' = B(x-ut)
    y' = y
    z' = z
    t' = B(t-ux/c²), where B = (1-u²/c²)^-1/2, of the expression:

        x² + y² + z² - (ct)² = 0, representing the outward moving spherical wave front of light emanated at the origin of x, y, z at t₀.

    Essentially what we have is the transformation of a rigid Cartesian coordinate system of three orthogonal spatial axes and a time axis into another identical coordinate system in motion and displaced from the first, the observers themselves being unessential.