Why/how is light the fastest thing in the universe and nothing else can be faster?

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Why have we ruled out the possibility of finding something faster when we’ve only scratched the surface of space exploration and understanding?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There is a common misconception that the speed of light is an important limit in the universe, and that confuses people into wondering why nothing can be faster than light. “What makes light so special that it dictates the speeds of the universe. Surely there must be something faster.. no?”

Well this is the wrong way to think about it, but you should not be blamed in thinking this way, the way that science is presented and taught kind of led you this way.

The truth is that it is the other way around. Light wants to go as fast as it can. Light will always go as quickly as it can in any volume/medium that it is travelling in.

The maximum speed that light can go in a vacuum is not up to light, it is up to the universe. The max speed is actually the maximum speed of causality. Otherwise known as, the maximum speed that information can move in the universe. And since light can carry information the speed of causality holds it up.

Nothing that we have found as of yet, can move faster than the speed of causality. (There is a thought that maybe entangled particles might allow us to move information faster than causality, but this is purely theoretical and has not been proven to actually work)

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