According to our current understanding of physics, information cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This is a fundamental principle of special relativity, which posits that nothing, including information, can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum (approximately 299,792,458 meters per second).
Entanglement, a phenomenon in quantum mechanics, is often misunderstood as a means of faster-than-light communication or information transfer. However, entanglement does not violate the principle of special relativity because it does not enable the transmission of information faster than light.
In entanglement, two or more particles become linked in such a way that the properties of each particle are correlated with the others, regardless of the distance between them. When two particles are entangled, their states become intertwined, and measuring the state of one particle instantaneously provides information about the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.
This apparent instantaneous correlation might seem like faster-than-light communication, but it is crucial to note that no information is actually being transmitted in this process. The entangled particles' states are not determined until one of them is measured, and the act of measuring one particle's state collapses its quantum state, which, in turn, instantaneously affects the other entangled particle. However, this does not allow any useful information to be sent between the particles because the outcome of the measurement is random and unpredictable until the measurement takes place.
The entanglement phenomenon remains a mysterious aspect of quantum mechanics, and it is an active area of research. While it cannot be used for faster-than-light communication or information transfer, it plays a crucial role in understanding quantum mechanics and has potential applications in quantum computing and quantum communication systems. Nevertheless, the speed of light still represents an ultimate cosmic speed limit, and no information can be communicated faster than this speed in our current understanding of the universe.