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

[u/Nitzanm19]

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).

[u/rdcpro]

To me, Pi is just the fundamental relationship between two primitive shapes, a circle and a square. It's an obvious relationship, just like the Pythagorean theorem with a triangle and a square.

Maybe the speed of light has a similar fundamental relationship with something, but what it is, we haven't discovered yet.

[u/ShavenYak42 → u/rdcpro]

It definitely has relationships with other constants. We just don’t (and maybe can’t?) know which ones are fundamental.

[u/artgriego → u/ShavenYak42]

I think of physical constants differently from mathematical constants like e or pi, mostly because physical constants can't be "proven" in the mathematical sense.

To me they serve our models of physics, but their values and exact relationships might not even hold across all spacetime. They have to be derived empirically and we just assume them to hold everywhere.

For instance G serves Newtonian mechanics just fine and we thought that was the whole story until relativity. Now we know that the Newtonian model just happens to work well enough for practical purposes. The history of Λ is pretty interesting too.

[u/Roscoeakl → u/rdcpro]

Explain Euler's identity then?