TACHYONS

 

Imagine a particle that can zoom faster than the speed of light, travel back in time, and mess up the order of cause and effect.

Sounds like a plot device for a sci-fi thriller, right? Well, not exactly.

Such particles, called tachyons, are actually a scientific possibility that emerges from Einstein's theory of special relativity.

So, how can tachyons come into existence without breaking the cosmic speed limit in the process?

Tricky question, because according to special relativity, nothing with mass can ever reach the speed of light, let alone go beyond it.

It would require an infinite amount of energy to do so, and the mass of the object would grow to
infinity as well.

However, tachyons are not like ordinary particles with mass. They have what is called "imaginary mass", which is a mathematical term for the square root of -1.

This means that tachyons can never travel slower than the speed of light, and they would need an infinite amount of energy to slow down to it.

In fact, the more energy you take away from a tachyon, the faster it goes.

So, tachyons do not come into existence by breaking the speed of light barrier. They are born beyond it, and they stay that way.

Now, some physicists have speculated that tachyons could be created in high-energy collisions, such as those in particle accelerators or cosmic rays.

Others have suggested that tachyons could be leftovers from the early universe, when the speed of light was higher than it is today.

But there is a big problem with tachyons: they defy causality.

That is, they can cause effects before their causes, or create paradoxes such as killing your own grandfather before you are born.

This is because tachyons can travel backwards in time, as predicted by special relativity.

If you send a signal with a tachyon, someone in another reference frame could receive it before you send it.

This makes tachyons very hard to detect or communicate with. Even if they exist, we may never know for sure.

Some physicists have argued that tachyons are impossible or inconsistent with quantum mechanics.

Others have tried to find ways to avoid or resolve the paradoxes they create. The debate is still ongoing.

Verdict:

Tachyons come into existence without accelerating past the speed of light because they have imaginary mass and are always faster than light.

But whether they actually exist or not is an open question that challenges our understanding of physics and reality.