Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
The assumption that if, no matter how hard you try, nothing you see ever goes faster than the speed of light, then that's the maximum. And that's still the case, over 100 years after Einstein came up with special relativity to describe what they saw before that...
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That is the current belief for cases where special relativity applies i.e. locally over small distances where one can approximate spacetime to being flat. However, general relativity which applies over large distances, where the curvature of spacetime must be taken into account, does not prohibit speeds faster than that of light.
An example is, if the current model of the universe's expansion is correct, that galaxies sufficiently far away from us are traveling at speeds greater than that of light. Furthermore, despite their speed being faster than that of light, we can still see some of them.
Regardless, I think it is unlikely that current models/theories/laws will survive unchanged so I have an open mind. They are mathematically and observationally correct at this time, but history tells us that they are probably going to get modified with time.