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1kEinstein’s Theory of Relativity tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in our universe however it did not preclude space expanding faster than the speed of light
In other words because it allows for space to expand faster that the speed of light some things, like space itself can move faster.
The evidenced supporting this is not based on the theoretical predictions of Relativity but on direct physical observations of our universe.
For example that astronomers observe the rate at which galaxies move apart from each other is proportional to their distance from each other. In other words the further the galaxies are away from each other, the faster they move apart. Hubble’s law, as this distance to velocity relationship has come to be called tells us that the space between two galaxies separated by around 4,200 mega parsecs (130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers) must be moving relative to each other faster than the speed of light.
One way to understand why this does not contradict Einstein’s Theory of Relative is think of the universe as a giant blob of dough with raisins spread throughout it (the raisins represent galaxies; the dough represents space). When the dough is placed in an oven, it begins to expand, or, more accurately, to stretch, keeping the same proportions as it had before but with all the distances between galaxies getting bigger as time goes on.
In other words galaxies in our universe are not moving faster than the speed of light in space but space between them is moving or expanding at a rate which is faster.
However the fact that space can expand at a rate faster that the speed of light means there must exist universe that can support that motion.
Many of you are probably asking yourself is there a way of determining where this universe is and if it is possible for humankind to utilize its ability to support faster than light movement.
The answer can be found in observations related to how our universe is expanding
For example, we do not observe three-dimensional space to be expanding towards a time dimension but towards another spatial one because only the distance between galaxies is increasing not the time.
This suggests our three dimensional universe must be expanding in the direction of a four *spatial* dimension that is not defined by Einstein because as was just mentioned observations of three-dimensional universe tell us that it is not expanding towards a time dimension but towards another *spatial* dimension.
Therefore to explain the observed spatial expansion of the universe one would have to assume the existence of a fourth *spatial* dimension in addition to the three spatial dimensions and one time dimension contained Einstein’s theories.
This would be true if Einstein had not given us a means of quantitatively and qualitatively converting the geometric properties of his space-time universe to one consisting of only four *spatial* dimensions.
Einstein derived the geometric properties of his space-time universe in terms of a dynamic balance between mass and energy defined by the equation E=mc^2. However when he used the constant velocity of light in the equation E=mc^2 to define that balance he provided a method of converting a unit of space he associated with mass to a unit of space-time he associated with energy.  Additionally because the velocity of light is constant he also defined a one to one quantitative correspondence between his space-time universe and one made up of four *spatial* dimensions.
In other words by defining the geometric properties of a space-time universe in terms of mass/energy and the constant velocity of light he provided a qualitative and quantitative means of redefining his space-time universe as was done in the article “The “Relativity†of four spatial dimensions” in terms of geometry of only four *spatial* dimensions
However if our universe is made up of four *spatial* dimensions instead of four dimensional space-time and if it is true three-dimensional space is expanding towards it, as observation suggest then the fact that we also observe that some sections of three-dimensional are expanding faster than the speed of light relative to others means that three-dimensional space can travel faster than the speed of light in the fourth *spatial* dimension.
In other words in the future we may develop the technology to “elevate” a bubble of our three dimensional environment, move it through the four *spatial* dimension at speed greater than that of light relative to the three-dimension environment where it was created and then have it materialize in another part of our universe.
Later Jeff
Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2013
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