>the original arguement that nothing could travel faster than light in my mind was always very shallow, showing an unnecessary limit to scientific thinking.

One common argument is that if it where possible to travel faster than light, it would also be possible to travel back in time. This makes sense (according to the Special Theory of Relativity), but of course, it isn't proven yet that you can't travel back in time, either. In fact, several serious scientists are considering this possibility right now. I read an interesting article about recent developments; I think it was in Scientific American (www.sciam.com).

> the truth is our understanding of the universe and all in it is increasing at a great rate but we still know almost nothing and understand less. i have been reading physics journals for about 10 years now and i am now reading about things that were said could not happen physically 10 years ago. like most things in life the lack of knowledge or old styles of thinking can limit the people on the cutting edge of research. superluminous particles, i think called tacheons (sorry for bad spelling), have been known about for years in the upper atmosphere, where on the edge of space and the earths atmosphere the relative speed of light chages but the speed of cosmic particles does not. I often wonder if those creating the theories really understand them themselves

All claims of the supposed impossibility of travelling faster than light really mean "faster than the speed of light in a vacuum", which is around 300,000 km/sec. The speed of light in other substances can be less. For instance, the speed of light in water might be around 200,000 km/sec. A particle emitted by an atom in the water, or a particle that enters the water, may go faster than 200,000 km/sec (but still slower than 300,000 km/sec, which is the speed of light in a vacuum). In this case, I understand it will eventually slow down to the speed of light in the water, emitting radiation in the process (Cherenkov radiation; not sure about the spelling).