According to the new hypothesis, the maximum speed an object can attain rises far from massive objects, such as stars, planets etc. I found the book on Amazon (for free!) and thought it was very exciting, mostly because the idea is so "outside the box". The idea is clearly far outside the mainstream, but I liked it because it's something I haven't heard before.
It uses a single premise, which is that the Universe works by processing information, meaning all physical laws are computed. That's pretty much it. From this premise, both special and general relativity, gravity and quantum mechanics come about, in their mathematical form. I am still digesting this. Like I said, it's just a hypothesis, but I like new and exciting, and even if wrong, this is it.
I found it for free on amazon, it's called "The Faster Than Light Hypothesis" by Theo Quinn:
The Faster Than Light Hypothesis - Kindle edition by Quinn, Theo. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Faster Than Light Hypothesis.
www.amazon.com
but a cursory google search finds it elsewhere, in case you're not on amazon, like (also for free):
A speculative technology might finally give us Faster Than Light (FTL) travel. The proof, if we only knew where to look, could have been ours by now.If hypothetical aliens could tell you how they traveled to Earth, would you be surprised? Would the same physics we hold dear be close to their...
books.google.com
It predicts that a large object (such as a huge mothership? I am guessing) CAN break the light barrier and move hundreds of time faster than light - but only in deep space, far from other objects. That's my take of it. Clearly no one has done this. There's also a proposed experiment with a space probe, in which kinematic time dilation would "dissipate" as the probe moves into deep space.
My PhD in physics is rusty (I am doing financial derivatives AI now), but I know enough to say the math here is fairly simple and it's correct. As for the premise, that's obviously a question above my pay grade. It's likeable though.
The book is very calm and non-confrontational, it just explains the idea on its own, without touching on any physics at all, in a very very simple language. It kind of sits on its own, quite interesting. It's also easy to read with many analogies, most of them relating to a world simulated in a computer. Food for thought.
Obviously, this isn't official science in any sense of the word, but the thought and the idea are intriguing to say the least. The idea is so "alien" that I understand it doesn't come from a science journal and the author had to publish the book on the web, as I don't think any respectable journal would entertain this, but maybe they should....
-Gina