The Speed of Light Problem

There is one very basic problem with the Speed of Light and Relativity

What sense does it make!? We have all these theories and formulas, but what does it really mean?
Why should Relativity exist?

Most of the time, you can answer a question with a better question – and that's what I'm trying to do.

Let's go through a refresher on relativity. For some thought experiments, let’s pretend you could reach the Speed of Light. With a rocket.
Your space rocket accelerates for a few minutes, then reaches the Speed of Light.
What happens?

What happens is this, that time dilatation, Lorentz contraction and relativistic mass come into effect.

So you're sitting in the space rocket. What happens during acceleration:
For the observer from Earth, nothing changes on Earth itself - of course, but looking into the rocket (if he could actually see let's say into the cockpit)
- time passes slower (and a clock would tick slower)
- it seems that the rocket gets thinner and appears turned slightly
- it starts to get heavier.

For you as the observer inside the rocket, your time and dimensions stay the same but the mass of the rocket increases.
Looking towards Earth, you'll see almost the same symptoms that the observer from Earth saw happening to the rocket.
- time on Earth passes slower,
- it seems that the rocket gets thinner and appears turned slightly

Now, what happens after acceleration, at the Speed of Light?
For the observer from Earth, still nothing changed on Earth itself, but looking into the rocket
- time stopped
- the rocket disappeared.
- is infinitely heavy but we agreed to neglect this for now.

For you as the observer inside the rocket, your time and dimensions stay the same but the mass of the rocket is infinite.
Looking towards Earth, again you'll see almost the same symptoms that the observer from Earth saw happening to the rocket.
- time stopped
- Earth and the inertial universe disappeared.

What is that supposed to be, the inertial universe?
It is galaxies moving slow compared to the speed of light and slow relative to each other, e.g. the Milky Way.
To get an understanding of how big these Intertial Universes are, our sun turns around the center of the Milky Way
with a speed of 240km/s. That is 0.08% of the Speed of Light. They are pretty big.

Beyond the Inertial Universe, it is possible for galaxies to move apart faster than the speed of light. This is unaffected by relativistic effects because the space itself expands faster than light.

Here is a quote from Pandian and Rothstein:
"Although it's impossible to move through space (locally) faster than the speed of light […], it is still possible for the distances between faraway galaxies to increase faster than the speed of light, due to the rate at which the space between them is stretching. This faster than light "travel" doesn't have any effect on the material that makes up the galaxies (for example, their energy does not become infinite in any meaningful sense), since they aren't really moving with respect to each other in any way that they can measure directly."

Let's go back to Earth and our rocket at Speed of Light. Time stopped, the universe disappeared and there is nothing else but 'you.
Just as a reminder, we are still neglecting the effects of relativistic mass – we'll come to this in a minute – but the next step is very important.

Once at the Speed of Light, you cannot go back!
The Universe you came from... is gone. This is a bit paradox.
You may think: “I’ll just shut-down the engine.”, but remember, at the Speed of Light, you travel infinitely far in no time.
There is no place to return to. Where do you think you ‘pop out’ in the universe after you travelled infinitely far?
In fact, your new speed is basically zero, it can’t be determined anymore since there is nothing to relate to.

No time, no ‘space’ or no ‘thing’ to relate to. And you. And the rocket.
Well, we know that no mass can reach the speed of light, so your rocket would have created an infinite mass black hole thus swallowing the complete universe.
What we can do though to keep this thought experiment going, is to imagine we didn't reach Speed of Light with a rocket, but only with our mass-less consciousness.

Then - at the Speed of Light -, your consciousness is floating in Eternity (without time) and Infinity (without space).
This leads me to a 'Why' and maybe you saw or will see my previous entry about the answer to "in how many dimensions we live in'.
Why is what happens at the Speed of Light the same than the Dimension in which ‘that what we really are’ lives in?

There is more to come, so keep your eyes open!