why is light speed the "speed limit"

[Plethora]

Wouldn't the light on the ftl headlights drain off the front of the car like rain does?  The light would want to bounce off, yes, but it couldn't because the car is constantly catching up to it, so it makes sense that it'd do something like that, I think.

[Ad Bot]

[Aide33]

wait i've got another question
is the universe expanding only because the light from the big bang is moving at the speed of light, and that light is the edge of the universe, and if you go past the end of the universe, theres no light, so theres nothing there?

what is the edge of the universe even made out of?
is it a particle, a wave?
what?

The universe doesn't expand because we can't see beyond the Cosmic Mircowave Background, it expands because of relativity.

General Relativity predicts that space and time itself expand, the distance between galaxies IS getting bigger and this is proven because of the red shift of the light from the stars. The reason that our bodies and planet doesn't expand is that we are so close that gravity holds us together and the expanding universe is really weak.

And yes, there are object past the CMB(edge of the universe as you call it), but we can't see it because of the speed of light. The edge of the universe is made of nothing since there is no edge(or so we think) it's just we can't see the objects because we look so far into the past that the objects didn't exist.

then correct it instead of actin like you're on a high horse

I'm not the best at physics but I've been to the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical physics for a summer and have attended lectures. It doesn't take much to realize most of the people in this thread are spreading wrong information.

[The Resonte!]

then correct it instead of actin like you're on a high horse

dare i say, a high deer in the headlights of a car made out of light

[Ipquarx]

It doesn't take much to realize most of the people in this thread are spreading wrong information.

Am I at least getting stuff right :(

[WaterOre]

because light is a wave and a particle does that void the bottlenecking of it being in a medium

No, it's still affected by being in a medium.

Shining a light through something like water is still going to slow it down because while light travels at c always, it doesn't necessarily take the shortest path there.

I'm going to steal an example from MinutePhysics. Let's say the President of Sealand always walks at a presidential pace of 5 miles per hour, no matter where he goes. In a 5-mile-long room filled with people though, he isn't necessarily going to take the shortest path out of the room, instead stopping and talking to different people about his administration, or kissing infants on the forehead, or ordering a tactical nuclear strike on India for some reason or another, still traveling between person to person at a fully presidential speed of 5 mph. However, he is going to take considerably longer to exit the room than if it were empty.

This is why c is the speed of light in a vacuum; just because a photon can take the shortest path out of a room doesn't mean it will.

[Aide33]

Am I at least getting stuff right :(

Yeah you're aight bro