So the big hub bub in physics right now is unifying all the fundamental forces of nature. Electroweak theory has unified two of the forces so far and all that is left is to unify along with it are the strong and gravitational forces. Well I've been wondering how physicists plan to make a quantum theory of gravity. According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity the fastest possible speed is 299,792,458 m/s. So no object in the universe can travel faster than this speed. Well Einstein extended his Special Theory to include accelerated motion and developed the General Theory of Relativity which describes the gravitational force. Well the General Theory of Relativity predicts that light is bent by the presence of a gravitational field and this is experimentally verified. So this means that a quantum theory of gravity must also predict the bending of light under gravitational influence. Well since quantum mechanics describes forces in terms of particles/waves there must be an associated particle that mediates the gravitational force in a quantum theory of gravity. This has been dubbed the graviton. Now after that lengthy explanation I am ready to ask the question I've been leading up to. If the graviton, according to the Special Theory of Relativity, cannot go faster than the speed of light, then how does the graviton interact with a photon to bend its path if it can't ever catch up with it? Any comments on false assumptions I've made, methods for this interaction to occur or any other insight into this matter would be greatly appreciated.

I have two things to say in reference to your post. First I do not believe that the gravitons must move faster than light in order to influence their path. Think more in terms of the light passing through water, the water does not
Move as fast as light but it still has an influence on the path that the light takes.So as the light from our sun passes through the gravitational field
Surrounding say Jupiter it is bent.
Second ,I have great respect for Mr. Einstien and most of his theories. I have
Always been hesitant about the statement that "NOTHING can travel faster than light,for if it does it will be transformed into pure energy".I have always
Believed that there are no barriers which cannot be surrmounted.
Hopefully my meager oppinions can assist you with your querry,please respond
And tell me what you think.

Thank you for your input, to start with, I too have great respect for Einstein and his theories. I also am open to ideas that contradict his theories as well. After all, that's what physics is, trying out new ideas, and expanding them when we realize they aren't complete. In fact I have wondered myself if particles couldn't tunnel across the barrier of the speed of light. However, the problem is a bit more complicated, as would be expected, since quantum tunneling depends on the potential energy needed to go over the barrier in the first place. Well, the speed of light barrier would have to be regarded as an infinite potential well, making it difficult to figure out if quantum tunneling is possible for this barrier. Anyway, just speculations of mine.

I like your analogy of light passing through water to represent the way gravity bends light. According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, however, a particle can never be completely at rest since this would mean that its position was completely certain and its momentum would be infinitely uncertain. In otherwords the gravitons in a gravitational field would have to be moving, unlike the molecules in water. For water molecules, the light comes to them whereas with gravitons, the light comes to their area but they are not guaranteed to be there to interact with light. So then what happens if light goes through a really strong gravitational field but the gravitons aren't in the lights path at that moment. Does the light go unbent? I greatly appreciated your earlier insight and it just seems that I don't understand it well enough. If you wouldn't mind expanding on it a little I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

I would suggest going on to NASA's web sites and reading their articles.
I did manage to find a picture of a gravitational field in the gallery of Grace
At http://www.csr.utexas.edu./grace/ I hope this will help a little in understanding that the gravity fields surrounding objects are THICK and that
If light comes near them they will be affected