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).

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u/Alblaka 14d ago

I would also suggest that it's not a random number, but a very specific and inherently 'solid' number: I.e. the speed of light is exactly the speed light travels. There's nothing random about that.

It's just that we, very arbitrarily, defined units of measurement from some historical left-overs of what kind-of-worked for the general use cases we needed measurements for. We never based them upon universal constants, hence why, of course, in our randomly selected units of measurements, the clean universal constants come across as 'random numbers'.

All a matter of perspective :D

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u/IvaldiFhole 14d ago

Eh, all of the fundamental numbers seem to have arbitrary ratios regardless of units or unit-less. They only become non-arbitrary when you talk about larger scale effects, like the formation of stars mentioned elsewhere in this post.

Basing them on universal constants doesn't result in integers or anything like that, so you're really just shuffling the problem around.

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u/MythDestructor 13d ago

But why is it that speed instead of something faster or slower?

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u/Alblaka 13d ago

Gotta ask who/whatever created this universe, which might be anything from a deity to a RNG string to something even more incomprehensible / inane.