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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From my understanding, it’s not that the speed of light is the fastest speed. It’s the only speed you can go when you have no mass but are still a particle in this universe. So other particles that we have observed that are “massless” also go the speed of light. It’s why it’s known as the “universal constant”. Also, it is the fastest speed at which objects can have influence over one another. Gravity’s effects are also felt at the universal constant, which is why if the sun were to suddenly disappear, we wouldn’t know about it for 8 minutes-ish because light and gravity would still be felt in that time (takes light 8-ish minutes to get from the sun to earth).
As for the the second part, we have observations from all sorts of experiments over the centuries. Those observations have helped us craft a set of equations that have been incredibly reliable in making predictions on how objects behave in the universe (here on earth but also out in the universe that we can observe with telescopes and whatnot). A lot of these equations have also helped up in getting up into space and helped use send probes and satellites. There is still a possibility that our understand is off, so there COULD be something out there that go faster than the universal constant. We just haven’t seen or heard of anything like that. To approach that speed, you need increasingly more and more velocity, to the point where you need a an infinite amount (if you have mass). And, as I said before, massless objects and effects go at the universal constant. It’s been pretty reliably documented.
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