Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Tachyon
/ˈtækiɒn/noun
A hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light.
The Greek roots
ταχύς
takhús
swift, fast
Literally: “the swift one”
Follow a root:ταχύς3 words
The story of the word
Gerald Feinberg named it in 1967, taking the word from a Blish short story he admired. No tachyon has been detected, and quantum field theory now treats a tachyonic mass as a sign that a field is sitting in an unstable state rather than as evidence of a particle. The name survives mostly in fiction, where it powers a great deal of implausible communication.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1967
Same family
tachycardiatachometertachygraphy
In a sentence
A tachyon would appear to arrive before it left, which is the whole problem.
The Higgs field starts tachyonic and then settles, which is what breaks the symmetry.