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It seems to me that this article ("What’s the real reason you can’t go faster than the speed of light?", Big Think, November 17, 2022) is wrong or misleading in claiming that every object moves through spacetime at the same speed. With respect to its own proper time, an object that is moving faster through space is also moving faster through external time, since its proper time changes slower with respect to external time; so overall the object must be moving faster through spacetime. Something in the vicinity is true, i.e., it works if you make the time coordinate imaginary (or do something similar -- see, e.g., here), but this does not seem to be the commonsensical definition of moving through spacetime. The Wikipedia article on four-velocity, which is cited by the article above, also does not seem to mention this aspect and, at least to me, got confusing in the magnitude discussion.

Am I missing something? Or is it correct to say that, if an object moves faster through space (with respect to external time), then it in fact also moves faster through spacetime (with respect to the object's proper time, which seems to be the only meaningful way to talk about moving through external time at a particular speed)?

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  • $\begingroup$ These of papers ignore that the rate of time and the relative speed of light varies in our curved spacetime universe. If you shine a laser to two people on the left and right side of Mercury, the lasers would arrive at the same instant. BUT if Venus swings by then due to the time dilation caused by Venus the laser would arrive later at the person in that line. So you could say that everything moves through spacetime at the same speed, but certainly not at the same relative speed. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 19:50
  • $\begingroup$ What does "an object that is moving faster through space" mean? Also what does "move through spacetime" mean? $\endgroup$
    – WillO
    Commented Nov 26, 2022 at 2:45
  • $\begingroup$ With respect to its own proper time an object doesn't move at all in space since the proper time is the time in the object's rest frame. The only motion is along the time axis. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 26, 2022 at 6:34
  • $\begingroup$ @foolishmuse: happy to stick with special relativity for this question $\endgroup$
    – present
    Commented Nov 26, 2022 at 22:54
  • $\begingroup$ @WillO: at some level that's what I'm trying to figure out -- clearly the article has something in mind. The only sense I can make of it is with respect to proper time (which is also what the Wikipedia article seems to do). $\endgroup$
    – present
    Commented Nov 26, 2022 at 22:57

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