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Chromotron t1_j6k6346 wrote

Reply to comment by BourgeoisStalker in ELI5: How do we know that light is the fastest thing in existence? by Grump-Dog

But it does not really answer the question: why can light not be even faster? Why are there not other massless things that are faster than light?

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LARRY_Xilo t1_j6k85uz wrote

This is a bit above eli5 but a simplfied version is because of relativity the faster you go the slower time happens. At c time stands still, if you were to go faster than c time would happen backwards. And with our current understanding of physics we dont have the slightes clue what time going backwards would look like. Also even though most people know c as the speed of light its actually not, light has diffrent speeds depending on the medium it travels through, the fastest is through a vacum which is c or the speed of causality.

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WeDriftEternal t1_j6k7nss wrote

So it does-- all things with no mass travel at the same speed.

The deeper question is why is that speed this value: 299,792,458 m/s. This speed appears to be a fundamental "limit" of the universe we live in

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Careless-Ordinary126 t1_j6k9vit wrote

Well we dont know right? There Is this Quasar jet which dissapear for a bit And Is thought to be Faster than c, So we can't see it. You have to understand that heat, visible light, UV, radiowaves, your WiFi, tv signal And more is still "light" you just can't see most of it. Let have this box which can be shielded from everything in universe, but Is still in our universe, if you turn on a flash light in there, surprise you Will see light. But if this box Is not part of our universe, there Will be no light, cuz the energy can't travel thru Space like a wave. There Is no particle in photon, it is energetic Peaks in Space which sometimes act like a particle. if you swoosh a long straight rope, the wave Will travel along the rope, it Is the same with light, the rope Is Space And the wave Is photon.

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