Tachyon Spaceship

If all matter is divided into three general classes:


 * Tardyons can move at any velocity less than c = speed of light (normal matter)
 * Luxons can travel only at c (photons and neutrinos)
 * Tachyons can only be superluminal, greater than c. They speed up as they lose energy. At zero energy they have infinite velocity and are present everywhere in the universe at the same time (transcendental tachyon)

An electron and a positron, both tardyons, undergo "annihilation" when brought together with the release of gamma-ray photons, which are luxons. A neutron, a tardyon, can decay into an antineutrino, which is a luxon. A gamma-ray (luxon) striking an atomic nucleus gives rise to an electron/positron pair (both tardyons). Conversion between tardyons and luxons are common, and conversion from tardyons to tachyons and vice versa are moderated by luxons.

A tachyon spaceship must be converted from tardyon matter into tachyon matter at the start of the journey and then back again at the destination.

There are a few techniques for a tachyon FTL drive:


 * Placing all the ship’s atoms in excited tachyon states so that they could all be triggered at the same instant is done by optimizing the transition from tardyons to tachyons. Complex modulated electromagnetic waves can control the transition using microelectronic components.
 * Using quantum mechanical tunneling, a particle with insufficient energy to pass "over" a barrier instead passes "through" it. If a ship can get close enough to the lightspeed barrier, it may be possible to "tunnel" across using tachyons, and then the ship will have to lose energy to go faster.
 * Wave phenomena can be represented by complex or imaginary numbers. Since tachyons have imaginary mass, a full 90o rotation would correspond to a conversion to tachyons. Getting a spaceship off the real-line in complex space and onto an imaginary-line would require that it makes a right angle turn in mass space, turning the ship into a tachyon.

Tardyon and tachyon interactions obey the laws of relativity and possess symmetric equivalence. Travelers in tachyonland should observe what appears to be another tardyonic universe. That is, a tardyon starship moving at 0.5c in our universe which suddenly converts into tachyons will be traveling at an effective 2c relative to our universe; but in the tachyon regime, where the vessel really is, it will still appear to be moving only at 0.5c.