Did 20th century physics have the means to reveal the nature of inertia and gravitation?

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century the classical electron theory (or, perhaps more appropriately, the classical electromagnetic mass theory) - the first physical theory that dared ask the question of what inertia and mass were - was gaining momentum and there were hopes that physics would be finally able to explain their origin. It is argued in this paper that if that promising research path had not been inexplicably abandoned after the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics, the contemporary physics would have revealed not only the nature of inertia, mass, and gravitation, but most importantly would have outlined the ways of their manipulation. Another goal of the paper is to try to stimulate the search for the mechanism responsible for inertia and gravitation by outlining a research direction, which demonstrates that the classical electromagnetic mass theory in conjunction with the principle of equivalence offers such a mechanism.