[Chirono]

Further, time doesn't exist. Not in the classical sense... If you are on a ship traveling close to c, the rate of entropy in the matter and energy on your ship is lower than the outside universe. That's why time seems slower.

Not trying to be facetious, this is a genuine question, but rate of change in entropy with respect to what?

[felipemnoa]

I suspect with respect to the frame of reference from where the measurement is being done. If the frame of reference is the ship itself then you will not notice any change in entropy. Hence why you won't be able to tell that time is actually slower. However, from a frame of reference outside the ship you will notice the difference in rate of change.

So really what you are really measuring is the difference in change of entropy from your local frame of reference to the frame of reference of the ship. There is no such thing as absolute rate of change. All is relative.

With respect to time, if you could somehow reverse all the motions of every single subatomic particles in a particular frame of reference then you would essentially be moving back in time in that specific frame of reference. To reverse time you have to reverse the motion of every single particle, sub-particle. Is almost the same thing as simply playing a movie in reverse. Now the real issue with this methodology is that the particle movements are not being recorded anywhere as far as we can tell. So we need to first find a way to record the movement of all the particles in a frame of reference and then find another way to run the entire recording in reverse. I wonder if exceeding the speed of light would actually reverse the motion of particles. That would imply that the motion is somehow being recorded? Who knows, just thinking out-loud.

Another really good question that I've been wondering about is why does entropy decreases when you move faster? What is it that causes entropy to decrease? Is it some sort of "friction" with space-time? Anybody have any good suggestions? It may have to do something with conservation of energy. Or conservation of something. The faster it moves the slower the particles move. Something is being compensated for.

[geuis]

In regards to your last question, I have had similar thoughts. I no longer like using the phrase "speed of light" because it's most commonly used to reference the maximum speed anything observed can attain. It's very clear this has nothing to do with light itself but is derived from the medium itself, space-time.

One analogy that occurrs to me is movement through a fluid. There is almost always a terminal velocity. We can transmit waves via a fluid, and particles through it as well.

I would like to know what vacuum looks like at the Planck scale. Perhaps entropy increases slower or faster based on interactions at the smallest scale between light/matter and whatever space-time is. Movement through the medium at higher speeds decreases these interactions, maybe by skipping over them. Less interactions, slower entropy, slower apparent time.

Perhaps c is the terminal velocity of space-time. The air/water analogy breaks down easily, since we can travel faster than terminal velocity in air. But it's a different way of looking at the question.

[felipemnoa]

Terminal velocity is a really good analogy. Light is just a ripple in space. The ripple will continue forever until it gets absorbed by other matter. Space-time does seem to be an actual substance. Perhaps the proponents of the Ether were right except that now we call it space time. Space-time seems to be made up of super tiny particles were all other particles ride on.

One more thing, if we were to discover that light actually accelerates to c when it is first released by an electron then that would be strong evidence that the upper limit on light velocity is just something intrinsic of space-time. Nothing is ever instantaneous and I have a feeling that neither does light go from zero to c in zero time.

[dkersten]

If we were to discover that light accelerates to c when it is first released, the next step would be to discover that c isn't actually the maximum possible velocity of light at all, but rather the maximum naturally occurring velocity (terminal velocity) and that through some as yet undiscovered means, it actually is possible for light to be artificially accelerated above the value of c.

The terminal velocity analogy makes sense to me. It would be pretty interesting is it turned out to be more than just an analogy.

[geuis]

Vlad refined this concept well. Let me change "rate of entropy" to his clearer distinction.

[hugh3]

I'm still not sure that makes any sense.