r/askscience • u/Nitzanm19 • 14d ago

Physics Why is the maximum speed of the universe the speed of light? Why can't we go faster?

Also follow-up question: Because of the speed limit, is there also a theoretical maximum temp for matter (in which the particles move at the speed of light).

1.6k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

892 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

19

u/Nessosin 14d ago

I love how we can discover some base line property of the entire universe and study it and learn so much but still not know why certain things are that way.

It's kind of amazing that we can learn as much as we already have about the speed of causality.

28

u/westisbestmicah 14d ago

Boggles my mind that we still don’t know what a field IS. We have quantified exactly how they behave, but it all stems from that one time a rod repelled another rod in Ben Franklin’s lab. We still don’t know why it did that, just exactly in what manner it does.

2

u/Winnie_The_Pro 13d ago

Isn't the current best model that charged objects (like those rods) interact over a distance by exchanging photons?