Its good to see that physics is finally moving past the superstring era and into new territory based on experimentally verifiable theories. My expectation is that the absolute of Einstein - the speed of light in a vacuum - will be seen for the chimera that it is, as scientists come to understand that the so called absolute vacuum is itself a phantom that does not exist except in concept.
From what I have read, I believe that the math bears this out. Its just that physicists have this recent habit of going where the math leads them. Einstein himself approached theoretical physics from a conceptual standpoint, then developed the math to back up the conceptual theory, then counted on experiment to verify or falsify the results of the math.
Physicists today, at least the mainstream, seem to leave out the first step. This is not surprising; the first step requires genius and vision, which is always a scarce commodity. If we accept the experimentally verified theory that mass is a disruption of the Einsteinian field, and couple this with the phenomenon of dark mass, it becomes obvious that so called empty space is a highly distorted or lumpy field more like a bad batch of jello than like a smooth rubber sheet with marbles on it. If we then add the fractal nature of mass distribution (something that seems to be missing in the math that physicists use today) , it becomes clearer that the propogation of light should be quite variable on a local scale.
What seems to be the issue to be explored is possibly why light manages to travel in relatively coherent formations across large distances (that is, without being completely diffused in transit,) when apparently the presence of dark mass exists in its path. Most likely we are missing a distortion or process of diffusion taking place along the way that perhaps would explain the seemingly weak nature of Gravity, which is again itself a distortion of the Einstienian field.
It is good to see that scientists are becoming aware of the process of emergent order, but they have not yet incorporated Mandelbrot's theories of scaling (and distortions in that scaling process) into their toolbox of algorithms. Again, the route that physicists should explore in an effort to set complex equations up is to use fractal compression, in a sense, to make the math more tractable, perhaps even amenable to iterative solution using computers.
As a total amateur observer, I don't have enough background to know if this is already being done. No doubt, someone will eventually stumble upon this approach.
November 24, 2006.