A
tachyon or
tachyonic particle is a hypothetical
particle that always moves
faster than light. The word comes from the pronounced
tachy , meaning rapid. It was coined in 1967 by
Gerald Feinberg. The complementary particle types are called
luxon (always moving at the
speed of light) and
bradyon (always moving slower than light), which both exist. The possibility of particles moving faster than light was first proposed by O. M. P. Bilaniuk, V. K. Deshpande, and
E. C. G. Sudarshan in 1962, although the term they used for it was "meta-particle".