"why not something faster or slower"<br /><br />when the talk is about the speed of sound propagation which depends on medium through which the sound propagates, nobody asks that for obvious reason<br /><br />after many years of pondering the speed of light I came to the conclusion and worked out a theory that there is a medium everywhere - an aether - and light propagates in that medium and thus personally I have no problem with the speed of light anymore, no more that I have problem with the speed of sound propagation, only difference is that there is only one aether medium and we don't have a choice over that<br /><br />part of the theory is working out how aether medium fits in with special relativity theory and it does fit nicely, else I would have to abandon the idea of aether of course<br /><br />if you stop and consider the issue without prejudice the fact that the speed of light is an invariable constant is plain evidence which is just crying out for some medium responsible for how fast light propagates, else in the absence of any medium no speed could be guaranteed the way it is, it would be totally arbitrary and light would move at whichever speed or else it would be just a magical thing if it would set and maintain its speed at some constant value in all frames of reference and in that case also it would be no wonder that people would be asking why doesn't it go slower or faster and why just this speed and not other - that's precisely because their premises tell them it should be arbitrary (because they were told no aether exists)<br />Einstein didn't bother his young head with that problem or he just couldn't make head and tail of it, whatever it was he just accepted it as given that speed of light is invariable and built his theories upon the acceptance of that (or was it recognition as is more charitably said)<br /><br /><br />as to layman's explanation look at it this way - nobody asks why velocity is squared in the ordinary formula for kinetic energy and I buil <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>