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I know that none of the experiments which have been conducted by physicists to conclusively prove the existence of tachyons have been successful. This got me thinking. What if, we cannot find tachyons if they are not here? Now, I know this sound incredibly stupid, but bear with me. What if, instead of looking for tachyons here, we looked for them somewhere else? Somewhere, perhaps, where the very nature of the environment is strikingly similar to the tachyons themselves? My point is, maybe, tachyons do exist, just not here. Maybe they exist at the edge of the universe. The reason for this hypothesis is the fact that the only thing we know for certain to have greater-than-light velocity is the velocity at which the edges of the universe is expanding. Of course, this also means that we will never be able to physically get evidence of their existence, but there's always Math.

Qmechanic
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Rishan Guhathakurta
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Magnetic monopoles are another particle that has been searched for without success. It might or might not exist. All we know is they weren't found,

It might be like looking outside and not finding snow. Or it might be like not finding Santa Clause.

Physicists sometimes look for at things where they are very sure they know the answer. Sometimes they look for things they strongly doubt exist. You might find surprises either way, so it might be worth checking.

Tachyons are near the the doubt-they-exist end of the spectrum.

mmesser314
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It is one of the fundamental principles in cosmology that the universe is (on average) the same everywhere. The edge of the universe is not actually an edge - it's just the farthest distance we can see. If you were an alien living on a planet at the edge of the universe the universe around you would look the same as it does here on Earth. You'd be looking at the Milky Way through your alien equivalent of the James Webb telescope and thinking "hey those guy are on the edge of the universe", when of course we aren't.

Since the universe is the same everywhere we expect tachyons to be equally common everywhere - if they exist. That means if we cannot detect them here we cannot detect them on a planet 13.7 billion light years away either.

It is commonly said that objects beyond the edge of the universe are moving faster than light, but this is a meaningless statement. Once you start working with general relativity (which you need to do if you want to describe the whole universe) the term velocity becomes complicated as it depends on the coordinate system you choose. In general the only physically meaningful velocity is the four-velocity, and this turns out to be constant and always equal to the speed of light.

For more on this see Can space expand with unlimited speed? (though some of the answers there are rather technical).

John Rennie
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