Please Help me With What a Tachyon is.

Science-do not know.
This article states that the slowest speed a tachyon can go is the speed of light.
That being said, how do we know what it is, has one ever been seen?
What would it's top speeds be?

scienceworld.wolfram.com...

If I remember correctly, it is a massless particle, so the speed that it travels is somewhat irrelevant, since it doesn't have the same constrictions that massive particles have. By massive, I mean 'having mass'... not 'super big'. It is not a real particle, at least not yet.

Actually it's a hypothetical particle physists use as a tool in certain thought experiments and various forms of String Theory. I highly doubt it exists as it's existance according to current theories on Tachyons would violate Causality, it would be able to send information about itself into it's own past cause a whole bunch of paradoxes like the Grandfather paradox to start cropping up. It would be very very neat if it did exist though as that would mean that there is MUCH more to reality then meets the eye.

has one ever been seen?

No it hasn't and it's very unlikely that we ever will. Of course I could be completely wrong but only time will tell.

en.wikipedia.org...

Here is a speculative discussion about Tachyon propulsion

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And here is a Science Fiction story written by the one and only SkepticOverlord, it's quite a good story so check it out.

The transmission of flight number eight

[edit on 25-1-2006 by sardion2000]

Thanks for replies.
I saw this on an outer limits show and it was discussed how a tachyon would, could got forward and backwards, it was fascinating as they were working on a blob of flesh that was living but had been irradiated by Chernobyl.
But in the end, the woman scientist caused it to become a tachyon as a small child..IF this could ever be REALLY be a reality..

Originally posted by sardion2000
Actually it's a hypothetical particle physists use as a tool in certain thought experiments and various forms of String Theory. I highly doubt it exists as it's existance according to current theories on Tachyons would violate Causality, it would be able to send information about itself into it's own past cause a whole bunch of paradoxes like the Grandfather paradox to start cropping up.

Casuality Paradoxes only apply to the universe if a single time-line exists. If multiple universes exist - one for every possible combination of universal events - then the grandfather paradox becomes obsolete. Basically, when you go back and kill your Grandfather, it wasn't really "your" grandfather - but a person who would have been the grandfather of a person very like, but not exact be, you.

Interesting thought just occured to me...

It is said that there is no reason that time couldn't run backwards, but that we'd never notice because to us it would appear to be going forwards. Perhaps tachyons travel backward in time because, to them, it's forwards in time - not backward. A sort of temporal-cosmic undertow if you will. It could be bringing information from the future to the past. Fascinating. But still, without proof of the tachyon's existance, such speculation as I have made is baseless.

Originally posted by Yarium
Interesting thought just occured to me...

It is said that there is no reason that time couldn't run backwards, but that we'd never notice because to us it would appear to be going forwards. Perhaps tachyons travel backward in time because, to them, it's forwards in time - not backward. A sort of temporal-cosmic undertow if you will. It could be bringing information from the future to the past. Fascinating. But still, without proof of the tachyon's existance, such speculation as I have made is baseless.

In 2001 Huw Price at the Univ. of Sydney discovered that information moves from future to past as well as the normal flow we think of. Ill try to paraphrase this from a book.

At the quantum level all energy waves have 2 parts; an "offer wave" emited by a particle (a photon of light for instance) which travels into the future along the normal path of time. This wave always interacts with a second wave coming in the opposite direction, future to past, and this is called the "echo wave" because it echos the signature of the first wave only in the other direction. This interaction between the two waves determines the reality we see in the present. The interaction is known as the "handshake" between the waves.

In the double slit experiment light is sent forward and travels through both slits because at a quantum level all possibilities have to be explored. Two offer waves are sent out. When a slit is closed the echo wave knows that it only travels through one slit, so only one echo wave is sent back. The offer wave and echo wave are reinforced in one slit, but the offer wave has traveled through both slits. The handshake crystalizes the reality of one slit being open.

The fact that theres only one echo wave shows that the event of one slit being closed was deteremined in the future, and this information had been traveling backwards in time to reach the moment that one slit was closed and the echo wave met its offer wave. (page 220 in "Breaking the time barrier" by Jenny Randles)

So here is an event happening because it has already happened.

(Sorry but i wanna throw something else in: an experiment used pre recorded tapes of random lengths of pleasant and unpleasant sounds. These tapes were sent to people and they were told to concentrate on hearing more pleasant sounds. When the tapes were sent back, they had more pleasant sounds on them then unpleasant ones. The test subjects had altered the recording of sounds on these tapes which was carried out weeks before they ever heard the tape!)

Sorry this doesnt have anything to do with tachyons, but I thought u guys would be interested. Heres some stuff on tachyons:

Richard Gott, an astrophysicist from Princeton, calculated that if tachyons do exist, they would move at just above light speed, for subatomic distances and for very short periods of time.

Anything with mass could not accelerate to the speed of light, it would require all the energy in the universe and its mass would become infinite (because when the barrier of light speed is reached all the energy going into making it go fast could not be used to accelerate anymore and that energy would turn back into mass via e=mc^2 since energy equals mass).

However Einstiens equations showed negative numbers in calculations of faster than light speeds. These negatives imply a whole range of particles that mirror normal matter. This would indicate particles, like tachyons, that only go faster than light and cannot be slowed down even to light speed.

Some experiments involving particle collisions in supercolliders show new particles that could be tachyons, but have yet to be proven. An interesting experiment using photographic plates to record high-energy particles hitting the Earth in cosmic ray showers found that some particles were hitting the plates before the shower even started. These may have been particles moving so fast that the reached the plates before they even left.

I hope this new big toy at the CERN would help find answers about Tachions:

public.web.cern.ch... " target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">
public.web.cern.ch...

I was a child when i look at Star Blazer series... and they talk about the "Tachion Engine"...In the college i still looking for answer and the only one i find
was "Tachion particules are only a mathematical concept that help i some theories..." until tonight i forgot about tachions. Nice to find it here on ATS.
Gonna search more stuff...on the net...Thanks siriuslyone

Tachion particules are only a mathematical concept that help i some theories..." until tonight i forgot about tachions. Nice to find it here on ATS.

Thank you, let me know of your results.
The theory is fascinating, but so is the Universe being lifeless--NOT