was it Einstein or Maxwell that said nothing can exceed the speed of light?

Answer 1

It was Einstein with his Special Relativity Theory

Answer 2

Very good question! If you trace back in history the first paper Einstein published on Special Relativity you'll find it curiously titled, "On the Electrodynamics of moving bodies." The reason for this is something of puzzle Einstein resolved concerning Maxwell's equation.

Maxwell's Equations can be used to derive Electromagnetic wave equations. Aside from referring to Electric and Magnetic fields, the EM wave equations are pretty run-of-the-mill. That is, there are very standard forms all wave equations take on, regardless of the medium. Most importantly all wave equations include a term that specifies the speed of propagation.

The EM wave equations introduced a small puzzle, they include the standard speed term, but this speed only made sense for a frame of reference at rest... or, an absolute frame of reference. (As you know, you can't reasonably argue we're at rest on the Earth...) And this lead many Scientists to search for the hypothetical Ether, believed to be the absolute rest frame for EM waves.

Einstein solved this puzzle by introducing an new idea. All non-accelerating frames of reference were suitable "rest-frames" for EM waves. That is, all observers not accelerating, but possibly in motion relative to each other, will measure EM waves traveling the same exact speed.

This idea had an interesting implication for massive objects. The faster and faster a massive object is traveling with respect to you, the more massive it is, from your point of view, than when it's a rest with respect to you. The objects mass will asymptotically approach infinity as its speed approaches the speed of light, hence no amount of force can accelerate it any more.

So, it was Einstein.

Answer 3

Neither. Einstein said that you cannot exceed the speed of light at the local level. His theory does not exclude warp speed (a warping of the space-time continuum.) Warp is when you create a mini universe with in the universe around an object. Hypothetically when this is done it is possible to travel faster than light. Your speed is actually unlimited should this happen.

You also want to be away from any gravity source as gravity is the cause of spacial inertia. You would be crushed by the force of acceleration if you were near to any gravity field.

Answer 4

Einstein did; Maxwell came up with the electromagnetic theory of light.

Special relativity is where the speed limit comes from, and I think was best explained in the book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene: Imagine that your friend has a race car, and you take it out to the salt flats outside Utah to do straight line speed trials. Part of your tests require the car to travel in a straight line at exactly 100 miles per hour over a one mile course. He'll accelerate to 100 mph and you'll start your stopwatch as he passes you, and stop it when he crosses the finish line. Now, although his spedometer is really accurate, his compass isn't, and it turns out he isn't travelling perfectly perpendicular to the start and finish lines, so he crosses the finish line at a slight angle. If you imagine the triangle his path forms with the starting line and the path he was supposed to follow, you can see that the hypotenuse (his actual path) is longer than the real path -- his deviation from his course robbed a few seconds from his time because he was travelling sideways at (let's just say) 1 mph and forwards at 99.995 mph.

Now, imagine that time and space are linked (time is just another dimension). Einstein imagined that we are all travelling through spacetime AT the speed of light, even when we're sitting still: your spatial velocity is zero, but your temporal velocity is going forwards through time at the speed of light. Now you start moving. Just like the race car, as you move faster through space, you rob a little bit from the temporal speed in order to maintain your total speed at c. So the closer you get to light speed in space, the slower you go through time, until you effectively stop when you reach light speed. (There are other, far less pleasant relativistic effects to travelling near light speed, but we won't get into those)

Answer 5

I personally beleive that it was maxwell. Einstine had the thoery of relativeity, no two things could take and acoupy the same space at the same time.

Answer 6

neither. it's often misunderstood, but einstein never explicitly said faster than light is impossible. students misunderstood his equations.

Answer 7

it was definitely einstein. he also felt that just because of this phenomenon,. timne travel is impossible...............