What prevents light from traveling faster than 186k mph?

Question

i know this may seem like a silly question to some, but try and think outside of the box and explain your theory.

Answer 1

That's just the way it works out. If you look at the equation for electromagnetic waves there are two constants that appear in the equation. Then you take the product of the two, take the square root and divide one by the answer you get the speed of light. It's simply derived from two physical constants that we can measure.

Answer 2

Light (and other electromagnetic waves) traveling at the speed of light (186k per second) propagate as mass-less photons. None are faster or slower than the speed of light and any mass (electron, proton, etc.) can not be propelled at the speed of light. The energy of photons may differ and highly energetic photons display much shorter wavelengths than those less powerful. For example UV (ultraviolet) light is more powerful and penetrating than infrared radiation. UV can cause sunburns while infrared merely warms the skin. Even more powerful X-rays with shorter wavelengths can pass through flesh and bone to expose film. Even shorter wave gamma rays can pass through thick steel to X-ray pipe weld joints for flaws. Because adding energy to a photon merely shortens its wavelength (increasing its frequency) a balance is maintained without violating the speed of light. Light is pure energy. Of course the speed of light is a maximum within a perfect vacuum and is actually slower within a magnifying glass (that accounts for magnification!) because of interactions between the photons and orbital electrons of the atoms in the glass. A crude analogy might be to picture an invisible string 186k long and picture the disturbance along it caused by a photon. Several photons may travel along the 'string' with short powerful waves of high frequency or long less powerful waves of lower frequency but they all make the trip in one second. This is similar to the propagation of waves when a stone is dropped into a mill pond except light travels through a perfect vacuum (with no media to support the waves as in the pond). There have been no contrary observations by countless scientists ... and it would require only one observation replicated in many labs to undo years of observation.

Answer 3

Nothing, try 186k per second.