From Mass Privilege to Metric Self-Consistency: The Logical Evolution of Newton, Einstein and TFT

Newton’s law of universal gravitation implies a profound logical contradiction when demonstrating that all objects fall to the ground simultaneously: the mass of the Earth determines the gravitational field, yet the mass of the iron ball is canceled out. This "mass privilege" cannot be eliminated within the Newtonian framework, leading to the dilemmas of reference frame asymmetry and metric inconsistency. Einstein resolved the mass privilege by redefining gravitation — reconstructing it from a "force" to "spacetime curvature". However, his solution is a reframed resolution rather than a demonstrative one: why does the equivalence principle hold? Why can geometry describe gravitation? These questions remain open for further inquiry. Starting from the more fundamental logic of "metric must be self-consistent", the Time Field Theory (TFT) demotes the equivalence principle from an axiom to a corollary, and reduces geometry from a first-principle mathematical structure to a mathematical expression of metric self-consistency. This paper sorts out the logical evolution from Newton to Einstein and then to TFT, reveals the inheritance, contradictions and resolutions of the three theories on the "mass-gravitation" issue, and demonstrates the core advantage of TFT’s methodology: it does not revise predecessors’ conclusions, but probes into the logical premises one layer deeper than before.