Hunting the Faster than Light Tachyon, and Finding Three Unicorns and a Herd of Elephants

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
	4. Theories of Everything and Anything
		Tachyons? “Sure, Why Not”
		The Standard Model of Particle Physics
		A Zoo of Hypothetical Particles and the Uniqueness of Tachyons
		Beyond the Standard Model
		What Monsters Might Be Lurking There?
		Replacing Particles by Vibrating Strings and Membranes
		Loop Quantum Gravity
		Gerald Feinberg: An Accidental Futurist
		Oliver Heaviside: An Accidental Time Traveler
		Pavel Cherenkov: An Accidental Nobel Laureate
		FTL Observers and Warp-Drive Spaceships
		Cosmic Inflation
		Dark Energy, Antigravity, and Tachyons
		The Evidence for Dark Energy and an Accelerated Expansion
		Mirror Universes
		Other Alternatives to the Standard Cosmology
		Entanglement: The Effect Einstein Found Spooky
		Superdeterminism and Bell’s Theorem
		The Most Famous Failed Experiment in History
		Einstein’s Ether
		Making Tachyonic Neutrinos Less Obnoxious
		Logical Inconsistency of Experimental Results
		Summary
		References
Preface and Acknowledgements
About the Author
1. Three Weird Entities: Tachyons, Neutrinos, and Me
	Hidden Unicorns
	How not to Reach FTL Speed
	E = mc2: The Most Famous Equation in the World
	“Meta” Relativity
	You are Now Traveling at the Speed of Light
	Phantom of the OPERA
	My Journey through Time
	Finding My Passion
	Maverick Jack Steinberger
	The Two-Neutrino Experiment
	Good and Evil Tachyons
	Seeing Things
	Black Swans
	The Neutrino as a Unicorn
	Models of the Three Neutrino Masses
	Other Tachyon Possibilities
	Using Ockham’s Razor Can Be Dangerous
	Sending Messages Back in Time
	My Message from the Future
	Summary
	References
2. Faster than Light and Backwards in Time
	Tachyons in Fact and Fiction
	A Lazy Dog That Could Not Find an Academic Job
	The Block Universe and Its Worldlines
	Challenges to the Block Universe Concept
	Worldlines and the Light Cone
	The Lorentz Transformation
	Backward Time-Traveling Tachyons
	Chasing a Tachyon
	Searching for Tachyons
	Messengers from Space
	Locating the Sources of the Cosmic Rays
	The Mysterious Cygnus X-3
	The Proton–Neutron Decay Chain
	An Unsettled Mystery
	A Failed Collaboration: Glupyy Amerikanets!!
	The Field of Cosmic Ray Physics: A Work in Progress
	Contacting Your Earlier Self
	A “More Feasible” Way to Contact the Past
	Fictional Examples
	Wormhole Time Machines
	Where Are the Time Travelers?
	Searching for Wormholes
	A Wormhole in the Solar System?
	Parallels between Wormholes and Tachyons
	Summary
	References
3. Supernova SN 1987A and Its Three Unicorns
	Supernovae
	The Threat from Exploding Stars
	The Birth, Life, and Death of Stars
	How to Detect Neutrinos
	The SN 1987A Neutrino Burst
	SN 1987A and the 3 + 3 Model of Neutrino Masses
	The Tachyonic Third Mass in the Model
	Balancing a Seesaw with Nothing on One Side
	Seeking Validation for the 3 + 3 Model
	Dark Matter Holds Galaxies Together
	First Confirmation of the 3 + 3 Model Masses
	Revisiting the Mont Blanc Neutrino Burst
	The Neutrino Detector That Failed to “Bark”
	Dark Matter in the Stellar Core and 8 MeV Neutrinos
	Support for the Z’-Mediated Reaction
	Challenges to the Z’-Mediated Reaction Model.
	Finding the Unicorn Hidden in the Background
	Reliability of the Background
	The 8 MeV Line Revealed
	Physics and the Nature of God
	Summary
	The Three Unicorns
	References
5. Weighing the Gravitophobic Neutrinos
	Introduction
	Weighing the Muon Neutrino
	A Scale for Measuring Imaginary Mass
	The Beta Decay Spectrum and the Electron Neutrino Mass
	How to Get a “Kinky” Spectrum
	The Beta Spectrum Shape for a Tachyon
	Neutrino Mass Experiments
	An Embarrassing Episode
	The KATRIN Experiment
	Measuring the Electron Energy in the Spectrometer
	Taking Data with Your Eyes Closed
	Dealing with Controversial Results
	My Overactive Imagination
	A Big Letdown
	Consistency of KATRIN Initial Data with 3 + 3 Model
	A Stay of Execution
	Hearing the Grim Reaper’s Footsteps
	KATRIN and Tachyons – Six Possibilities
	Fitting an Elephant or a Whole Herd
	Hiding Elephants
	Summary
	References
6. Lessons Learned
	A Bright Spot in the Darkness
	A Third Approach to Physics Research
	Pros and Cons of Data Prospecting
	Negative Evidence and Reviews
	Fake or Predatory Journals
	Making as Many Mistakes as You Can
	Spotting Promising Anomalies
	Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
	Dyson Spheres
	Are We Alone?.
	Our Chances of Making It to a “Post-Human” Era
	Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
	Guessing the Odds
	How Could We Tell?.
	My Belief That I Am Living in a Simulation
	Some Concluding Thoughts
	Summary
	References
Index