How are tachyons supposed to work?

I haven't much idea other than they have imaginary mass, and to slow one down to the speed of light requires as much energy as accelerating normal matter to the speed of light. The lowest-energy tachyons travel at infinite speed. Beyond that, I have to say my life is complicated enough keeping track of REAL particles, let alone hypothetical phantoms no one has ever detected.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
Return to Ask the Astronomer.