B Why is the speed of light limited?

[Simtrad]

TL;DR Summary

Why is the speed of light limited?

Summary: Why is the speed of light limited?

Why does light have a maximum speed?

 

[BvU]

Nobody knows. It's a fact.

Hello Simtrad, !

Here at PF we do encourage folks to do some research themselves. We have no way of helping with such broad and general questions if we don't know where you start from ...

 

[jedishrfu]

Scientific American has an article on that very question:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-isnt-the-speed-of-lig/

 

[sophiecentaur]

Summary: Why is the speed of light limited?

Why does light have a maximum speed?

It's more to do with the way you're looking at what 'speed' means, I think. There was a recent thread in which the idea of giving c a value of 1 was the starting point and all the rest hangs on it. The School and Newtonian definition of speed is OK for most slow speed situations but it's not enough to explain everything.
c is not arbitrary; it's far more fundamental.
You must read around as much as you can and then come back with some more informed questions.

 

[FactChecker]

The speed of light, relativity, and electromagnetic forces are all intimately related. If the speed of light was infinite, the logic of electromagnetic force would be invalid and the universe would be completely different. Atoms and molecules would not exist as they are now. So maybe the speed of light is finite because otherwise, things wouldn't work out and we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
(See How Special Relativity Makes Magnets Work . More examples of how closely the theories are related can be seen in Einstein's Gravito-Electromagnetism, Gravity of moving mass in General Relativity )

 

[ZapperZ]

Summary: Why is the speed of light limited?

Why does light have a maximum speed?

This has been asked so many times, we even have a video archived on our forum:

https://www.physicsforums.com/media/the-speed-of-light-is-not-about-light.102/
Zz.

 

[po0]

No one knows yet... It's a postulate.

 

[vanhees71]

It's a postulate based on very accurate empirical facts.

 

[po0]

Yes and the theory derived from that postulate has also been confirmed time and again by empirical facts.