Tachyonic antitelephone

A tachyonic antitelephone is a hypothetical device in by:

theoretical physics that could be used to send signals into
ones own past. Albert Einstein in 1907[1][2] presented a
thought experiment of how faster-than-light signals can BA
t = t1 t0 = .
lead to a paradox of causality, which was described by a
Einstein and Arnold Sommerfeld in 1910 as a means to
Here, the event at A is the cause of the event at B. How-
telegraph into the past.[3] The same thought experiment
ever, in the inertial frame moving with relative velocity v,
was described by Richard Chace Tolman in 1917;[4] thus,
the time of arrival at B is given according to the Lorentz
it is also known as Tolmans paradox.
transformation:
A device capable of telegraphing into the past was
later also called a tachyonic antitelephone by Gregory
Benford et al. According to the current understanding t1 vB/c2 t0 vA/c2
of physics, no such faster-than-light transfer of informa- t = t 1 t 0 =
1 v 2 /c2 1 v 2 /c2
tion is actually possible. For instance, the hypothetical
tachyon particles which give the device its name do not 1 av/c2
= t.
exist even theoretically in the standard model of particle 1 v 2 /c2
physics, due to tachyon condensation, and there is no ex-
It can be easily shown that if a > c, then certain values of
perimental evidence that suggests that they might exist.
v can make t' negative. In other words, the eect arises
The problem of detecting tachyons via causal contradic-
[5] before the cause in this frame. Einstein (and similarly
tions was treated scientically.
Tolman) concluded that this result contains in their view
no logical contradiction; he said, however, it contradicts
the totality of our experience so that the impossibility of
1 One-way example a > c seems to be suciently proven.[1]

2 Two-way example
A more common variation of this thought experiment is
to send back the signal to the sender (a similar one was
given by David Bohm[7] ). Suppose Alice (A) is on a
spacecraft moving away from the Earth in the positive
x-direction with a speed v , and she wants to commu-
nicate with Bob (B) back home. Assume both of them
have a device that is capable of transmitting and receiv-
ing faster-than-light signals at a speed of a c with a > 1
. Alice uses this device to send a message to Bob, who
sends a reply back. Let us choose the origin of the co-
ordinates of Bobs reference frame, S , to coincide with
This was illustrated in 1911 by Paul Ehrenfest using a Minkowski
the reception of Alices message to him. If Bob immedi-
diagram. Signals are sent in frame B1 into the opposite directions ately sends a message back to Alice, then in his rest frame
OP and ON with a velocity approaching innity. Here, event the coordinates of the reply signal (in natural units so that
O happens before N. However, in another frame B2, event N c=1) are given by:
happens before O.[6]

Tolman used the following variation of Einsteins thought
experiment:[1][4] Imagine a distance with endpoints A and
B . Let a signal be sent from A propagating with velocity
a towards B. All of this is measured in an inertial frame
where the endpoints are at rest. The arrival at B is given
(t, x) = (t, at)
To nd out when the reply is received by Alice, we per-
form a Lorentz transformation to Alices frame S moving
in the positive x-direction with velocity v with respect to

1
2 3 NUMERICAL EXAMPLE WITH TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION

the Earth. In this frame Alice is at rest at position x = L meaning that this is the moment the signal catches up with
, where L is the distance that the signal Alice sent to Earth Bob. So, in her frame Bob receives Alices message at x
traversed in her rest frame. The coordinates of the reply = 360, t = 450. Due to the eects of time dilation, in her
signal are given by: frame Bob is aging more slowly than she is by a factor of

1
= 1 (v/c)2 , in this case 0.6, so Bobs clock only
shows that 0.6450 = 270 days have elapsed when he re-
t = (1 av) t ceives the message, meaning that in his frame he receives
it at x = 0, t = 270.
x = (a v) t When Bob receives Alices message, he immediately uses
The reply is received by Alice when x = L . This means his own tachyon transmitter to send a message back to
L
that t = (av) and thus: Alice saying Don't eat the shrimp!" 135 days later in his
frame, at t = 270 + 135 = 405, he calculates that since the
tachyon signal has been traveling away from him at 2.4c
1 av in the x direction for 135 days, it should now be at po-
t = L
av sition x = 2.4135 = 324 light-days in his frame, and
since Alice has been traveling at 0.8c in the x direction
Since the message Alice sent to Bob took a time of La to for 405 days, she should now be at position x = 0.8405
reach him, the message she receives back from him will = 324 light-days as well. So, in his frame Alice receives
reach her at time: his reply at x = 324, t = 405. Time dilation for inertial
observers is symmetrical, so in Bobs frame Alice is ag-
( ) ing more slowly than he is, by the same factor of 0.6, so
L 1 1 av Alices clock should only show that 0.6405 = 243 days
T = +t = + L
a a av have elapsed when she receives his reply. This means that
2a
she receives a message from Bob saying Don't eat the
later than she sent her message. However, if v > 1+a 2 shrimp!" only 243 days after she passed Bob, while she
then T < 0 and Alice will receive the message back from wasn't supposed to send the message saying Ugh, I just
Bob before she sends her message to him in the rst place. ate some bad shrimp until 300 days elapsed since she
passed Bob, so Bobs reply constitutes a warning about
her own future.
3 Numerical example with two-way These numbers can be double-checked using the Lorentz
communication transformation. The Lorentz transformation says that if
we know the coordinates x, t of some event in Alices
As an example, imagine that Alice and Bob are aboard frame, the same event must have the following x, t co-
spaceships moving inertially with a relative speed of 0.8c. ordinates in Bobs frame:
At some point they pass right next to each other, and Al-
ice denes the position and time of their passing to be at ( vx )
position x = 0, time t = 0 in her frame, while Bob denes t = t 2
it to be at position x = 0 and time t = 0 in his frame (note c

that this is dierent from the convention used in the pre- x = (x vt)
vious section, where the origin of the coordinates was the
Where v is Bobs speed along the x-axis in Alices frame,
event of Bob receiving a tachyon signal from Alice). In
c is the speed of light (we are using units of days for time
Alices frame she remains at rest at position x = 0, while
and light-days for distance, so in these units c = 1), and
Bob is moving in the positive x direction at 0.8c; in Bobs
= 1 2 is the Lorentz factor. In this case v=0.8c,
frame he remains at rest at position x = 0, and Alice is 1(v/c)
1
moving in the negative x direction at 0.8c. Each one also and = 0.6 . In Alices frame, the event of Alice send-
has a tachyon transmitter aboard their ship, which sends ing the message happens at x = 0, t = 300, and the event
out signals that move at 2.4c in the ships own frame. of Bob receiving Alices message happens at x = 360, t
When Alices clock shows that 300 days have elapsed = 450. Using the Lorentz transformation, we nd that
since she passed next to Bob (t = 300 days in her frame), in Bobs frame the event of Alice sending the message
she uses the tachyon transmitter to send a message to Bob, happens at position x = (1/0.6)(0 0.8300) = 400
saying Ugh, I just ate some bad shrimp. At t = 450 days light-days, and time t = (1/0.6)(300 0.80) = 500
in Alices frame, she calculates that since the tachyon sig- days. Likewise, in Bobs frame the event of Bob receiv-
nal has been traveling away from her at 2.4c for 150 days, ing Alices message happens at position x = (1/0.6)(360
it should now be at position x = 2.4150 = 360 light- 0.8450) = 0 light-days, and time t = (1/0.6)(450
days in her frame, and since Bob has been traveling away 0.8360) = 270 days, which are the same coordinates for
from her at 0.8c for 450 days, he should now be at po- Bobs frame that were found in the earlier paragraph.
sition x = 0.8450 = 360 light-days in her frame as well, Comparing the coordinates in each frame, we see that in
 3

Alices frame her tachyon signal moves forwards in time 4 Paradoxes

(she sent it at an earlier time than Bob received it), and
between being sent and received we have (dierence in Benford et al.[5] wrote about such paradoxes in general,
position)/(dierence in time) = 360/150 = 2.4c. In Bobs oering a scenario in which two parties are able to send
frame, Alices signal moves back in time (he received it at a message one hour into the past:
t = 270, but it was sent at t = 500), and it has a (dier-
ence in position)/(dierence in time) of 400/230, about The paradoxes of backward-in-time com-
1.739c. The fact that the two frames disagree about the munication are well known. Suppose A and
order of the events of the signal being sent and received is B enter into the following agreement: A will
an example of the relativity of simultaneity, a feature of send a message at three o'clock if and only if
relativity which has no analogue in classical physics, and he does not receive one at one o'clock. B sends
which is key to understanding why in relativity FTL com- a message to reach A at one o'clock immedi-
munication must necessarily lead to causality violation. ately on receiving one from A at three o'clock.
Bob is assumed to have sent his reply almost instanta- Then the exchange of messages will take place
neously after receiving Alices message, so the coordi- if and only if it does not take place. This is a
nates of his sending the reply can be assumed to be the genuine paradox, a causal contradiction.
same: x = 360, t = 450 in Alices frame, and x = 0, t =
270 in Bobs frame. If the event of Alice receiving Bobs They concluded that superluminal particles such as
reply happens at x = 0, t = 243 in her frame (as in the tachyons are therefore not allowed to convey signals.
earlier paragraph), then according to the Lorentz trans- In recent decades, there have been various proposed ways
formation, in Bobs frame Alice receives his reply at po- to possibly remove such paradoxes, either by invoking the
sition x' = (1/0.6)(0 0.8243) = 324 light-days, and Novikov self-consistency principle or through the idea of
at time t = (1/0.6)(243 0.80) = 405 days. So evi- branching timelines in the context of the many-worlds in-
dently Bobs reply does move forward in time in his own terpretation.
frame, since the time it was sent was t = 270 and the time
it was received was t = 405. And in his frame (dierence
in position)/(dierence in time) for his signal is 324/135 5 In popular culture
= 2.4c, exactly the same as the speed of Alices original
signal in her own frame. Likewise, in Alices frame Bobs
Steins;Gate, a visual novel dealing with the concept
signal moves backwards in time (she received it before he
of a tachyonic antitelephone
sent it), and it has a (dierence in position)/(dierence in
time) of 360/207, about 1.739c. All You Need Is Kill, a light novel dealing with the
Thus the times of sending and receiving in each frame, concept of a tachyonic antitelephone
as calculated using the Lorentz transformation, match Go God Go, a South Park episode featuring a time
up with the times given in earlier paragraphs, before we phone.
made explicit use of the Lorentz transformation. And by
using the Lorentz transformation we can see that the two Prince of Darkness, a horror lm where warnings are
tachyon signals behave symmetrically in each observers sent from the future via tachyon transmissions
frame: the observer who sends a given signal measures it xkcd,[9] a has a comic which explores the possible
to move forward in time at 2.4c, the observer who receives uses of a tachyonic antitelephone
it measures it to move back in time at 1.739c. This sort
of possibility for symmetric tachyon signals is necessary
if tachyons are to respect the rst of the two postulates of
special relativity, which says that all laws of physics must
6 See also
work exactly the same in all inertial frames. This implies
that if its possible to send a signal at 2.4c in one frame, it Grandfather paradox
must be possible in any other frame as well, and likewise Ansible
if one frame can observe a signal that moves backwards
in time, any other frame must be able to observe such Temporal paradox
a phenomenon as well. This is another key idea in un-
derstanding why FTL communication leads to causality
violation in relativity; if tachyons were allowed to have 7 References
a preferred frame in violation of the rst postulate of
relativity, in that case it could theoretically be possible to [1] Einstein, Albert (1907). "ber das Relativittsprinzip und
avoid causality violations.[8] die aus demselben gezogenen Folgerungen [On the rela-
tivity principle and the conclusions drawn from it] (PDF).
Jahrbuch der Radioaktivitt und Elektronik. 4: 411462.
Retrieved 2 August 2015.
4 7 REFERENCES

[2] Einstein, Albert (1990). On the relativity principle and

the conclusions drawn from it. In Stachel, John; Cassidy,
David C; Renn, Jrgen; et al. The Collected Papers of Al-
bert 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 Einsteins special theory of rel-

ativity. Emergence (1905) and early interpretation (1905
1911), Reading: AddisonWesley, 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. Physical Re-
view D. 2: 263265. Bibcode:1970PhRvD...2..263B.
doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.2.263.

[6] Ehrenfest, P. (1911). Zu Herrn v. Ignatowskys Behand-

lung der Bornschen Starrheitsdenition II [On v. Igna-
towskys Treatment of Borns Denition of Rigidity II].
Physikalische Zeitschrift. 12: 412413.

[7] David Bohm, The Special Theory of Relativity, New York:

W.A. Benjamin., 1965

[8] Kowalczyski, Jerzy (January 1984). Critical com-

ments on the discussion about tachyonic causal
paradoxes and on the concept of superluminal
reference frame. International Journal of The-
oretical Physics. Springer Science+Business Me-
dia. 23 (1): 2760. Bibcode:1984IJTP...23...27K.
doi:10.1007/BF02080670.

[9] xkcd: Local News. xkcd.com. Retrieved 2017-03-01.

 5

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