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by akira2501 2258 days ago
I'm an amateur, but I like to think about this:

If spacetime is quantized, then the speed of light would be 1 planck length / 1 planck time. Assuming spacetime is actually quantized to that metric, we can then ask: How does something move at 2/3c? Or two discrete planck lenghts in 3 discrete planck times?

In one instance it could be:

t=0,x=0, t=1,x=0, t=2,x=1, t=3,x=2

It could also do:

t=0,x=0, t=1,x=1, t=2,x=1, t=3,x=2.

It implies a hidden variable, or at the very least a hidden phase of some sort. All sorts of oddness abounds when you consider all velocities are then quantized fractional values of c.

2 comments

If you can have real numbers at each spacetime point (as opposed to boolean values) then you can easily get a speed less than c. This is similar to simulating the wave equation on a grid on a computer.
But then your 2/3c is an average, it's not the real speed of the object at any actual instant.