A hypothetical faster-than-light particle known as a tachyon could be linked to the theory of special relativity, lending credence to its existence, according to a team of physicists.
What on earth is a tachyon?
Tachyons are a type of hypothetical particle whose existence is still subject to speculation. Tachyons are also known as ultra-finite particles and always travel faster than light. Hypothetical ultra-finite particles… I hope Lin-Manuel Miranda doesn’t make a musical about exotic physics.
As is the case with many particles proposed to exist in the universe, there is no evidence that tachyons exist. Some physicists believe that tachyons exist because they provide theoretical solutions to certain problems in particle physics and field theory. However, a recent team of researchers has found that tachyons are the first known particles to exist. Published this week’s Physics Review Dclaiming that previous doubts about the validity of tachyons were unfounded.
Special theory of relativity and the limit of the speed of light
In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which describes the relationship between space and time (picture=MC2—Sound familiar? The basic theory is that matter can approach the speed of light, but can never reach it.
Unlike other virtual particles, Axions and dark photonsBoth are unproven dark matter candidates, but there are several reasons why tachyons don’t exist. One of them, according to the University of Warsaw, is that: releasePreviously, the ground state of the tachyon field was thought to be unstable. Moreover, the number of particles observed varies depending on the observer’s position, and the particles may end up with negative energy values. In their recent work, the team hypothesizes that the problem with the particles can be solved by knowing both the initial and final states of the system. In that case, “the tachyon theory becomes mathematically consistent,” the release states.
The new research also creates a “new kind of quantum entanglement” that mixes the past and future, not present in conventional particle theory, according to the university’s announcement. “The idea that the future influences the present, rather than the present determining the future, is not new in physics,” Andrzej Dragan, a physicist at the University of Warsaw and co-author of the paper, said in the announcement. “But until now this kind of view has at best been an unorthodox interpretation of certain quantum phenomena, and now we’ve been forced to this conclusion by the theory itself.”
But nothing moves faster than light…right?
The short answer is that nothing travels faster than the speed of light, which is 983,571,056 feet per second, or 299,792,458 meters per second. The long answer is that it’s complicated, for example, by quasiparticles produced by a cloud of electrons. As if They move faster than lightBut that’s not the case.
And if we think about hypotheticals, if other intelligent life in the universe were to discover how to travel faster than light, evidence of their triumph might be detectable in the gravitational ripples created by their technology. Recently proposed by a team of physicists.
Like tachyons themselves, this research is highly speculative. But such is the realm of these hypothetical particles, studying anything that travels faster than light always requires imagination.
