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An answer here got me looking for the answer to this question.
I did find the related question Why are blaster bolts in Star Wars moving slower than speed-of-light? but it does not seem to address the reaction speed of the Jedi.
Jedis use Light Sabers to block things coming at them FAST while I am not an expert on how fast those might be coming. It would seem they would need to move at or near the speed of light to block some of the weapons. Can a Jedi move faster then the speed of light?
Remember what Qui-Gon said about Anakin's Pod-racing skills in Phantom Menace:
He can see things before they happen. That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It is a Jedi trait.
What you're perceiving as a reaction to a shot is actually the Jedi knowing about the shot before the shot is fired. It doesn't matter how fast a blaster travels if the Jedi is prepared to defend against the shot before the trigger is even pulled.
Well the average speed of a blaster bolt (according to this article) is around 78mph. This is far far below the speed of light, and is in fact about the speed of a baseball pitch.So a Jedi deflecting a single blaster bolt is about the same as a baseball player hitting a baseball.
As we see, Jedis don't just deflect one bolt, they deflect a barrage in a short space of time. So their reactions of clearly far greater than that of a human. But this is still far below the speed of light (the speed of light [3x10^8 m/s] is about 8.5 million times faster than the average blaster bolt in Star Wars [78mph/35m/s]).
Add in the fact that accelerating to near the speed of light requires a unfathomable amount of energy. Not to mention the inertia of accelerating to, and decelerating from, the speed of light in the space of a few metres. And that travelling at the speed of light is theoretically impossible. It's pretty conclusive that no, a Jedi can not move faster than the speed of light.
Remember the blast shield in A New Hope: Luke was deflecting bolts without seeing them. Using the Force a Jedi essentially "knows" where the bolt will be so the lightsaber is moved to position. A Jedi's quick reflexes are more proactive than reactive.
My entirely unsubstantiated view is that the Jedi are not reacting to the blaster being fired, they are reacting to the intent to fire on the part of the creature carrying the weapon. Consequently they have significantly more time than the bolt traversing the space between them and the gun in which to react - although it would still call for very fast reactions, obviously.
No, Jedis can sense where a shot will be fired and reacts before the shot. Here is Luke training blind with Obi Wan.
Blaster bolts don't move at the speed of light. Moogle mentions this but not why. It's because blaster bolts are not lasers, which do move at the speed of light. Blaster bolts consist of highly charged Tibanna gas particles that are shot out by magnetic propulsion and shaping. So it's more accurate to say that a blaster bolt is like a super-heated bullet.
To be fair, 78 mph seems too slow, since 78 mph is a slow pitch from a modern baseball pitcher (which ordinary humans can be trained to deflect), but pretty much nobody but Jedi actively dodge blasters (I'm not counting evasive maneuvers, only when somebody actively recognizes a bolt and dodges/blocks that bolt.)
It's still quite impressive that Jedi can block them, but it doesn't involve anything traveling at the speed of light.
Hmm... Maybe with Telekinesis (as seen in so many other Force powers), it would be possible to create a localized effect similar to an alcubierre field. Or they could be using the Force to slow down incoming blaster fire (see: Bullet Time). Or they could be dodging/diverting most of the bolts and only deflecting the ones that are too accurate/powerful to dodge/divert (which are few enough that they could see them coming and prepare a parry).
And this all assumes that they're using their Lightsabers to deflect blaster bolts, rather than it being a psychosomatic Force effect (like personal-scale deflector shields) that they need to use a Lightsaber as a focus for (that is, they're only pretending to deflect blaster bolts with a Lightsaber when it's actually a personal force field, and they've convinced themselves as well as everyone else). Or there's a giant Jedi conspiracy to convince people that they aren't as ludicrously powerful as they actually can be.
Yes - as long as the force is strong within the individual. The speed of light can be easily be defeated by the force.
"May the force be with you"
The Jedi can of course move faster then light but only under the retrospective Laws of Lucasneed. Being retroactive, these Laws are impossible to predict for us mere mortals since their alteration instantly alters past as well as future. Thus: we can never differentiate what has been changed by insouciant translight Jedi from that which has evolved by natural, well-crafted, sincere sub-Jedi endeavour. Some say the secret lies in Big Sur... most, sadly, are - metaphorically - wholly content with the I5.
Nothing can move faster than the speed of light. This is a fundamental law of Physics.
Quick layman's definition of the speed of light limits:
The speed of light, (or the speed of a photon) in a near-perfect vacuum is exactly 186,282 miles per second. We perceive photons (light) traveling at this speed because they are massless (the have no weight).
Every particle in our universe (including photons) move through the Higgs field. As a result of this interaction, particles acquire their mass. Different particles interact with the Higgs field with different strengths, which is why some particles are heavier (have more mass) than others. Photons move through, but do not interact at all with the Higgs field. Thus attaining no mass.
Since photons don’t interact with the Higgs field, it means they aren’t bound by any speed limit. They’re free to move at the fastest possible speed – their own “light” speed. Why isn’t the speed of light slower or faster than 186,282 miles per second? It’s because that exact speed is a fundamental constant of our universe.
Wondering why light doesn’t travel at a different speed is like wondering why gravity isn’t reversed or what it would be like if our universe only had 2 spatial dimensions instead of 3 (4 if you include time). Those constants, along with the speed of light, were set in place when our universe was created at the moment of the big bang.
So photons (light) is able to travel at light speed.
Well? This is all fine and dandy... What about the Jedi?
Particles that have mass require energy to accelerate them. The closer to the speed of light you get a particle, the more energy is required to go faster. This is because the particles themselves get more massive in proportion to the increased velocity. In short, the faster you go, the heavier you get.
Thanks to this, if you wanted to accelerate a single electron to light speed, you would need an infinite amount energy due to the electron becoming infinitely heavy. There isn’t enough energy in the entire universe to propel just a single electron to the speed of light. It's a catch 22.
If this is the case for a single electron, you can begin to see the problem with a Jedi moving faster than the speed of light. Let alone moving AT the speed of light itself.
