New SI Standard: Why Homage to Einstein?

This is a follow up to the previous post on origins to the present crisis of modern physics going back to (i) Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity SR and (ii) Einstein's heuristic explanation of the law of photoelectricity $K+W=h\nu$ connecting kinetic energy $K$ of ejected electrons modified by $W$ as energy preparing ejection, with the energy $h\nu$ of an incoming photon as a light particle representing a wave with frequency $\nu$ and $h$ is Planck's constant.  

Here (i) introduced the idea of space-time without the classical separation of space as carrier of simultaneous existence and time as change of spatial existence, which had worked so well in Newton's mechanics and Maxwell's electro-magnetics of in particular light. 

In (ii) Einstein stepped away from Maxwell's description of light as an electro-magnetic wave back into Newton's idea of light as a stream of particles, now called photons carrying the energy of a Planck quanta $h\nu$. Very heuristic and very simplistic. In any case (ii) gave Einstein the Nobel Prize in 1921 with a motivation stating that this was despite SR as if that carried negative value. 

After his death 1955 Einstein was lifted to be the icon of modern physics as something wonderful full of mystery and power, although he was considered the be senile already at early scientific life from not understanding quantum mechanics. 

The New SI Standard of 2019 gives homage to Einstein by changing the unit of length scale from meter to lightsecond measured by a clock. The length of a material rod, which can then be used as material reference meter stick, is thus measured by counting the time it takes for a light signal to go from one end to the other and back again using a clock at one end. Spatial distance is so measured by a clock as if time and space have similar nature, in perfect agreement with SR. '

The old standard with a reference meter stick was thus replaced with a new standard, where the length of a reference material meter stick is to be determined by 2-way travel time of light. Nothing wrong with that. Just an easier way to decide reference meter sticks around the world than to go to Paris for calibration.

But the change was a signal that Newton's mechanics was now replaced with Einstein's SR mechanics coming with all sorts of funny effects of time dilation and space contraction worthy of being new and modern. 

But that also made physics very much more complicated than Newton's physics for material reference meter sticks keeping their length under motion with constant speed allowing different observers to easily agree on spatial distances. But in SR different observers moving with different velocities have to measure different lengths and time intervals and agreement requires careful coordination.  

Nevertheless SR insists that an object has a definite unique intrinsic length just as in Newtonian mechanics (and  also a unique rest mass). 

In all cases of practical interest Newtonian mechanics is used, because SR is too narrow and the extension to General Relativity GR is very complicated. 

Newtonian mechanics is thus unchanged under the New SI Standard the only change being specification of a reference length determined by two-way light speed set to a fixed value making the constancy of light speed into a definition and not empiric fact. It is up to experimental testing to see how well this works in practice, if different observers cannot agree to use a common spatial coordinate system as the natural thing to do for directly coordinated observations in which case there is no funny time dilation and space contraction. 

Of course there are issues even using a single common coordinate system, Earth based or fixed star based, when both observers and objects are moving even with high speeds, but they can be sorted out amd then without SR saying nothing in the case of just one common system. 

The New SI Standard is used to sell SR pointing to the fact that duration in time is used to measure length as if space can be traded for time. Further, the constancy of the speed of light as Postulate 2 of SR can now be guaranteed by definition and then sold as empirical evidence of SR. 

If you find reason to be critical to SR as real physics, you will have a hard time convincing a real physicist (or chatGPT collecting the opinion of many real physicists) that something is fishy. In particular you will be confronted with the New SI Standard as evidence that SR is real physics and not just shades of real physics. And of course referring to Einstein as the icon of modern physics, heavily questioned during his life time, but sanctified after. 

The trouble with SR is that Schrödinger's equation as the basic model of Quantum Mechanics QM, is non-relativistic/incompatible with SR and that Dirac's equations claimed to be a relativistic form is very difficult to use for atoms. Newtonian mechanics is perfectly compatible with Schrödinger's equation and Maxwell's equation together forming a Unified Field Model, which Einstein tried to formulate the second half of his life but failed to find because he was too heavily invested in SR and GR,