Particles beyond the light barrier

MAY 01, 1969

Despite almost universal belief that particles cannot move faster than light, one can think of negative‐energy particles traveling backward in time whose speed exceeds that of light. Experimenters are looking for these faster‐than‐light particles.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3035574

Olexa‐Myron Bilaniuk

E. C. George Sudarshan

FOR MANY DECADES now the view has prevailed that no particle could possibly travel with a velocity greater than the velocity of light in vacuum, ${c = 3×10}^{8} m / \sec .$ It is generally held that this limitation is a direct consequence of the special theory of relativity. Albert Einstein himself has said so in his original paper on relativity.

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More about the authors

Olexa‐Myron Bilaniuk, Swarthmore College Faculty.

E. C. George Sudarshan, Syracuse University.