Special relativity and general relativity have inherent theoretical defects: they only establish energy conservation in three-dimensional space, lacking a complete four-dimensional global energy conservation law. Within the framework of general covariant geometry, gravitational spacetime cannot be defined with local stored energy, and the carrier for energy exchange when photons enter and exit gravitational potential wells has remained unresolved for a century. Taking photon propagation in gravitational fields as the fundamental starting point, this paper establishes the fundamental law of the universe: four-dimensional global spacetime energy conservation. Total energy is divided into three orthogonal components: spatial kinetic energy of particles, intrinsic temporal energy of particles, and geometric deformation energy stored in spacetime continuum. Energy can transform mutually among the three terms, and energy conservation does not hold independently in three-dimensional space alone. Two types of spacetime deformation are strictly distinguished: discrete microscopic curvature inside dielectric media only causes internal exchange between photon spatial and temporal components, with no energy transfer to the spacetime background. Gravitational fields produce global continuous stretching of geodesics, leading to genuine energy exchange between photons and curved spacetime. The intrinsic physical process is separated strictly from observational coordinate projection: when approaching massive gravitational bodies, photons lose spatial kinetic energy and deposit energy into geometric deformation, accompanied by an increase of intrinsic wavelength. Distant inertial observers see apparent gravitational blueshift due to reference frame projection. General relativity regards observational appearance as physical reality, reversing the causal sequence. When leaving gravitational regions, geometric stored energy is fully returned to photons. The Fizeau dragging effect, gravitational time dilation, black hole horizon structure, cosmological Hubble redshift, and vacuum zero-point energy can all be derived consistently within a single theoretical framework. Special relativity is a strongly constrained special case for flat spacetime, while general relativity discards the degree of freedom for geometric energy storage and becomes an incomplete approximation. Five decisive falsifiable experiments are proposed to quantitatively distinguish the present theory from conventional relativity.
Q Chen (Tue,) studied this question.