Tachyonic antitelephone

A tachyonic antitelephone is a hypothetical device in theoretical physics that could be used to send signals into one's own past. Albert Einstein in 1907[1][2] presented a thought experiment of how faster-than-light signals can lead to a paradox of causality, which was described by Einstein and Arnold Sommerfeld in 1910 as a means "to telegraph into the past".[3] The same thought experiment was described by Richard Chace Tolman in 1917;[4] thus, it is also known as Tolman's paradox.

A device capable of "telegraphing into the past" was later also called a "tachyonic antitelephone" by Gregory Benford et al.[5] According to the current understanding of physics, no such faster-than-light transfer of information is actually possible.

  1. ^ Einstein, Albert (1907). "Über das Relativitätsprinzip und die aus demselben gezogenen Folgerungen" [On the relativity principle and the conclusions drawn from it] (PDF). Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik. 4: 411–462. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  2. ^ Einstein, Albert (1990). "On the relativity principle and the conclusions drawn from it". In Stachel, John; Cassidy, David C; Renn, Jürgen; et al. (eds.). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2: The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 252. ISBN 9780691085265. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  3. ^ Miller, A.I. (1981), Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. Emergence (1905) and early interpretation (1905–1911), Reading: Addison–Wesley, ISBN 0-201-04679-2
  4. ^ R. C. Tolman (1917). "Velocities greater than that of light". The theory of the Relativity of Motion. University of California Press. p. 54. OCLC 13129939.
  5. ^ Gregory Benford; D. L. Book; W. A. Newcomb (1970). "The Tachyonic Antitelephone" (PDF). Physical Review D. 2 (2): 263–265. Bibcode:1970PhRvD...2..263B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.2.263. S2CID 121124132. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-02-07.