rgrunt:
Thank you for the further explanation. I'm trying hard to see what you are getting at and am still sure that it is clearer to you at this point than it is to me.
Your analogy at the quantum level does help, and I have to say while your hypothesis is highly speculative, at some point, EVERYONE'S hypotheses at the quantum level are highly speculative. Even the Quantum Theorists!
However, if I understand your conclusion correctly, to wit...
"This low pressure space time is what causes time to slow down to the viewer in the accelerated spaceship. The increased energy density is what causes the molecules of that ship to appear accelerated to the outside viewer."
...I'd still have to say you have it backwards. (If I understand you correctly.)
The traveller does not notice HIS time doing anything but flowing along as usual. (As does the observer see HIS.) The traveler however sees the universe OUTSIDE his realm speeding up. Not slowing down. (If indeed one can see ANYTHING at light speed.) The observer sees the traveller SLOWING DOWN not speeding up. If the observer could actually directly OBSERVE the traveler personally, the observer would notice that the traveler is not aging as fast.
Remember, the traveller on the 59 year journy around the universe at light speed sees the Earth go around the Sun MILLIONS of Times. From the view of the Earth, millions of years have passed because we measure a "year" as ONE revolution of the Earth around the Sun. This is the part that trips most people up in the time dilation scenario. But the traveler's biological AND actual mechanical clocks have slowed down.
There is no "Time Travel" involved in any of it per se. It's all a matter of the effect of the RELATIVE PASSAGE of time within the same timeline for two different individuals whose velocities relative to each other is quite different.
It actually occurs ever day in a measurable manner with ever comercial jet airliner in the air at the time. BARELY measurable, but measurable nonetheless.
Something about one individual travelling FASTER than another makes time "run" slower (for him), the one going faster. We don't know WHY yet. Only that it does. And is precisely predictable by Einstein's Relativity Theory.
When one is traveling at near light speed, the effect is EXTREMELY pronounced.
Actually, we ASSUME this because thus far, every measurement of time dilation relative to specific velocity difference has proven to be as predicted. The bigger (faster) the difference in velocity, the proportionally greater the dilation. By the amount predicted.
Thus far we can't actually measure the dilation at near light speed yet can we. But if it increases as relativity says it should, based on what we CAN measure we have to assume it to be so. At this juncture anyway.
For instance, the Space Shuttle's time dilation is precisly as much more pronounced than that of a jet airliner by precisely the proportional difference in the velocities they travel. This is well documented. Therefore we have no reason NOT to assume it will be as predicted at velocities we cannot yet confirm by placing a clock on something going that fast.
There is a counteracting effect caused by a spinning gravitational force, )in this case, the Earth's) that we are only beginning to understand. It's called "Frame Dragging" and an experiment to measure it involving a spinning ball, within a chamber, in orbit around the Earth is under way at NASA. (I don't believe it's been launched yet but I'm not sure.)
New hypotheses are always hard to prove. But when one can be so well resolved into a theory that can be confirmed by what the theory PREDICTS, bingo. What have what becomes accepted as a reality. Confirmation of prediction is the hammer that drives the nail home.
Frame Dragging appears to counteract Time Dilation. But appearantly not enough to keep Time Dilation from being MORE pronounced even at jet airliner speeds.
Frame Dragging is a hypothesis that is so close to becoming a theory that the experiment to measure the theory's ability to confirm the prediction is now what is under way.
GOOD science is usually very slow, and very thorough. It has to be. Otherwise it is not good science.