What is the limiting factor of the speed of light?
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it is not possible to travel faster than the speed of light. In particular - what is the limiting factor?
light is constant, the same 2.9979*10^8 m/sec, in all reference frames no matter what the relative velocities of the frames.
Why is light the limiting factor when it comes to physics? I am a social scientist and cannot grasp this concept.
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3 ANSWERS
Charles Thorington, I have studied plasma physics, and worked on the simulation of particle beams.
Answered Oct 12, 2015 · Author has 127 answers and 77.6k answer views
You are not alone! This is (in a way) also true of physical scientists. What we do not understand is why the speed of light is constant, the same 2.9979*10^8 m/sec, in all reference frames no matter what the relative velocities of the frames. The additivity of velocities from Galilean relativity (see Galilean invariance) is so ingrained in our bones from everyday experience, it is hard to visualize how the speed of a light signal can be the same in all frames.
What we do understand is the actual fact that the speed of light is the same everywhere, and the physical consequences of this fact, the foremost of which are the following:
The Lorenz transformation (see Lorentz transformation) between the space-time coordinates of an event in two relatively moving reference frames. Among other things this transformation predicts such weird phenomena as time dilation (see Time dilation) and length contraction (see Length contraction). These have actually been observed.Conservation of four-momentum together with the Lorenz transformation predicts that a massive particle must be given an infinite amount of energy to be boosted to the speed of light. Since available energy is always finite, every massive particle must have a speed less than the speed of light in all reference frames, no matter what their relative velocities. This too has been observed, particularly in particle accelerators.Any particle of zero rest mass (such as the quantum of the electromagnetic field, the photon) must always travel at the speed of light in all reference frames, no matter what their relative velocities.
IF THIS ALL GETS BEYOND UR UNDERSTANDING THEN SIMPLY...
More generally, it is normally impossible for information or energy to travel faster than c.