The discussion explores the differences between tachyons and antiparticles, addressing their theoretical implications and the misconceptions surrounding their properties, particularly in relation to time travel and speed.
Participants generally agree that tachyons and antiparticles are distinct concepts, but there remains disagreement regarding the implications of their properties, particularly concerning time travel and the nature of antiparticles.
Some statements reflect misconceptions from popular science, and there is a lack of clarity regarding the definitions and implications of time travel in relation to both tachyons and antiparticles.
Hi! Are the anti particles in some sense the hypothetical resultant entities of quantum interaction between the photons and the anti-matter of the universe they travel through?Orodruin said:That is a misconception (on both accounts) from popularised science. Tachyons are hypothetical and would travel faster than the speed of light. If they exist, then you could in principle use them to send a message to your past. Whether or not they "travel" backwards in time would be a question of reference frames.
Anti-particles are a different story all-together. There is a very particular sense popular science authors are using to say that they are "particles traveling backwards in time", but they very often fail to specify what that sense is. Anti-particles are associated with the corresponding particles and have the same mass. They travel at subluminal speeds (or at light speed if massless). Tachyons have nothing to do with normal particles and would travel at superluminal speeds.