What, if anything, would be wrong with replacing the light postulate in Einstein’s 1905 formulation of special relativity with a ‘sound postulate’, stating that the speed of sound is independent of the speed of the source? After reviewing the historical reasons underlying the particular focus on light in the special theory, we consider the circumstances under which such a theory of ‘sonic relativity’ would be justified on empirical grounds. We then consider the philosophical upshots of ‘sonic relativity’ for four contemporary areas of investigation in the philosophy of spacetime: (i) global versus subsystem symmetries, (ii) dynamical versus geometrical approaches to spacetime, (iii) the possibility of a preferred frame in theories of quantum gravity, and (iv) spacetime functionalism.

将爱因斯坦 1905 年狭义相对论公式中的光假设替换为“声速假设”，即声速与源的速度无关，会有什么错误呢？在回顾了狭义理论中特别关注光的历史原因之后，我们考虑了在何种情况下可以根据经验证明这种“声波相对论”理论是合理的。然后，我们考虑了“声波相对论”在时空哲学中四个当代研究领域的哲学结果：（i）全局与子系统对称性，（ii）时空动力学与几何方法，（iii）首选框架的可能性在量子引力理论和（iv）时空功能主义。