bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (08/20/85)
Expires: Quoted from <154@iitcs.UUCP> ["Re: FTL Travel"], by draughn@iitcs.UUCP (Mark Draughn)... +--------------- | school of thought, this may or may not make FTL travel impossible.) I don't | know what "imaginary mass" means in the real world, and I don't think anyone | else knows either. +--------------- There is one possibility: Some quantum physicists feel that, since by quantum theory it IS possible for particles to move backward in time (!) but we have never seemed to detect such, these reverse-time particles are the one kind of unusual particle we DO see: anti-particles. Now, we all know that FTL implies traveling backwards in time... Therefore, tachyons just might be identical to antimatter. What kind of mass does an antiparticle have? --bsa -- Brandon Allbery, Unix Consultant -- 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131 decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa; ncoast!bsa@case.csnet; +1 216 524 1416; 74106,1032 -- -- "Well, we can't go dragging around the universe with a dormant Gravis on the console!" --Tegan, FRONTIOS
throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (08/22/85)
> Now, we all know that FTL implies traveling backwards in time... > > Therefore, tachyons just might be identical to antimatter. What kind of mass > does an antiparticle have? Nope. Tachyons are particles with a space-like world-line (and have never been observed). Antiparticles have a time-like world-line, but it is (or may be) "going" pastwards relative to particles. Antiparticles have good old regular, ordinary, positive mass. -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw