2^nd Fastest in the Universe

We all know light is the fastest thing in the universe, but what comes next? As it turns, out the silver medal goes to... potentially a number of different objects and particles, including light itself. The speed of light is usually taught as a constant, a never changing underlying feature of the laws of physics. But in recent years physicists have proposed that under certain scenarios, the speed of varies, termed Varying Speed of Light or VSL theory (Cao et al. 2018). Physicists proposed VSL as a response to contradictions between models and observations of the expansion of the universe. An underlying principal of constructing models in science is that if the model cannot explain observations of natural phenomena, underlying assumptions need to be challenged. In this case, it was the nature of the speed of light and gravity itself (Bhattacharjee & Sahoo, 2020). To explain observed phenomena these "constants" may actually have to be variable. Second, there are physicists who propose that under certain conditions, faster than light speeds are possible in the realm of quantum physics (a subject for another blurb).

But let us assume for our purposes, light is a constant at roughly 300,000 kilometers per second. In physics we represent the speed of light as "c" (Remember E=mc²?), so typically the speed objects that get close to the speed of light are represented by percentages of c. Particles can get accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light through a few mechanisms (see this NASA link for details):

1. Electromagnetic Fields - 99.99999896% of c

2. Magnetic Explosions - Can get particles close to c

3. Wave-Particle Interactions - 99.6% of c

Interestingly, we can get particles to speeds close to c in the laboratory using particle accelerators, eg. the Large Hadron Collider. But remember, 2^nd place is the first loser.

A particle accelerator: gotta go fast!