Spirits are Tachyons that Move Faster Than Light?


Tachyons: Superluminal Particles

written by SPI Agent Mathwizard, 12 January 2003


Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity predicts that nothing can accelerate and exceed the speed of light, i.e. the speed of light, c, is the upper limit of speed in the universe. This is the direct consequences from relative mass equation:

It is obvious that when velocity, v approaches c, relative mass increases. Thus if any object can reach the speed of light, its relative mass will be infinite at that moment. It will then need infinite amount of energy to move. This is unimaginable. This is why ordinary object cannot travel at the speed of light. Superluminal travel ( faster-than-light travel ) thus remains to be science fiction.


Ordinary Particles

The graph below is sketched by Graphmatica Version 1.60e. It shows momentum (p) on the x-axis and energy (E) on the y-axis.

The two lines that cross the origin show the 'light cone'. For simplicity, we treat c to be 1 space unit per time unit. We also have to assume that space is one-dimensional. So, in real four dimensional spacetime, the light cone is a “hypercone”. Here, the equation is E = ± p.

The region above and below the two lines is known as 'timelike', and the region to the left and the right is known as 'spacelike'.

We have E2 = m2c4 + p2c2 from Special Theory of Relativity. Note that m here refers to rest mass or . Since we have already assumed that c = 1, we reduce the equation to E2 = m2 + p2.This is an equation that describes a parabola, as shown in the graph below:

To sketch this graph, m is taken to be 2. But it depends on the mass of the given particle. The parabola crosses the E axis at m. This is indeed consistent with since c = 1. These ordinary particles move at subluminal speed, and are called tardyons or bradyons ( "slow particles" ).

Massless particles are called luxons, i.e. “light particle” and they travel at the speed of light – on the light cone itself. Examples of luxons are photons, gravitons ( theorized particles that transmit gravitational force ) and possibly neutrinos ( some physicists think that they have very small mass ).


Property of Tachyons

Now we will consider a class of extraordinary particles: tachyons. These particles travel faster than light! Now how is that possible? Isn’t special relativity does not allow particles to exceed speed of light? No. This is not true. It was predicted that nothing can accelerate and exceed the speed of light. Nothing was mentioned about particles that are already traveling faster than light since they are created. They don’t have to accelerate to exceed the speed of light since they are always traveling at such speed. These particles can never slow down to the speed of light or below the speed of light, or else it will contradict the special relativity. For tachyons, c is the lower limit of speed.

From the equation

We see that for tachyons, v > c. And hence denominator is imaginary. The mass of tachyons is therefore imaginary. From , it follows that there energy must be imaginary as well. Thus E2 = m2 + p2  becomes  p2 - E2 = M2, where M is real. The solution to this equations are again parabola as shown below:

Note that the solution set is below the p-axis as E < 0 for tachyons. What is the observation that we can make from the graph? Well, we see that when their energy decreases, the momentum of tachyons increases! This is really weird.

Tachyons will not contain any electrical charges. This is because charged particles will gives off energy as it moves through a transparent medium with superluminal speed. The energy is called Cherenkov radiation. This will decrease their energy, and thus accelerate them. This leads to endless emission of energy. From quantum physics, we know that tachyon and anti-tachyon pairs were formed spontaneously in vacuum. The energy released in this manner will cause the vacuum to become very unstable.


Transmitting Information From The Future?

Some people will argue that psychics might be using some special tachyons to bring information for future, and hence predicting the future. However, even if psychics have real ability to predict the future, they are not using any tachyons as messengers.

If we can send information by tachyons, it really leads to some paradoxes. For an example, we can invent a machine that can send out tachyons containing information to blow itself up into the past ( according to Special Theory of Relativity, time stops at the speed of light, and reverses when one exceed the speed of light ) before the tachyon is sent out!

Fortunately we might not be able to build such machine anyway due to known law of physics. The mathematics is beyond the scope of this article. It suffices to say that it is impossible to send a message using tachyons.


Reference:
 http://www.morleysoft.freeserve.co.uk/physics/tachyons.html


 
Answering Mysteries

1. What is ghost made of? Pure energy or some elementary particles? Quantum physicists had discovered many types of particles. Could some particles ( probably yet undiscovered ) be the building blocks for ghosts? And if such particles exist, what are their properties: do they have electric field, magnetic field, and mass ( which some particles like neutrino lacks, and therefore capable of traveling at the speed of light ).

If ghosts ( or souls for that matter ) are not physical matter, then what are their nature? Pure energy? What kind of energy? If the speculation that spirits can move about unbounded by the speed of light is true, then spirit matter is not only mass-less ( which can only move at the speed of light), but has other weird property. If spirit matter travels beyond the speed of light ( so called tachyonic particle ), then by Special Relativity ( if the theory is indeed valid ), it cannot travel slower than the speed of light, and hence cannot interact with ordinary matter. So if spirits can indeed travel unbounded by the speed of light, it will not be tachyonic particle. The remaining possibility is that they are capable of teleporting by will. This may be possible by quantum physics.

2. How do ghosts relate to EMF? Do spirit particles have electromagnetic field on their own? Or do spirits somehow generate EMF? Or do spirits only manifest at places that somehow produce EMF? Does EMF made people see ghosts?

3. If ghosts look like what people see, i.e with clothing and so on, why would clothing ( which is believed to be soul less ) exist in spirit form? If ghosts do not look like what people see, are they capable of manifest themselves in whatever form they like? If so, how can spirit matter which is invisible take on a visible form? What is the transformation that take place in spirit matter to allow this process to occur? Or is it possible that all sighting of ghosts are images in the brain, somehow transmitted by the entities to human recipients?

4. Are orbs, ectoplasm and vortices really related to ghosts? If so, are they the entities themselves, or the by-product of the manifestation? Or perhaps they are energy-based life form as yet undiscovered by science? If this is the case, does this sort of life form reproduce? If so, how?

These questions, whatever the answers are, will require proof in order to be presented to the scientific community. But this is not possible at the moment
 

Come share your view with us!


Main Menu

Should you have any comment about this SPI Article, we would like to hear from you by email.
 

All the photos are the property of SPI.  Illegal copying is strictly prohibited.
Published by Singapore Paranormal Investigators
All rights reserved (C) 2002-2003 www.spi.com.sg