So tachyons enter the conversation at SFN once again, and I was looking over the wikipedia article

And it says, in part, “the same formulae that apply to regular slower-than-light particles (“bradyons”) also apply to tachyons”

Bradyons? That’s a new one on me.

Obviously there are two types, or genders. They show bunching behavior. The first generation has one particle while the second generation has three. One gender has the property of brown hair, while the other is gold. The last one in the second generation in curls. And then there’s the interaction-regulator, or “housekeeper” particle, known as “Alice.” (OK, I recently saw the scene in “Hot Shots” where they are using the Brady Bunch theme as a cadence, so I still had this in the buffer somewhere)

But really, I wanted to know if I was out of the loop or if something was funny here. I know there are plenty of terms in particle physics that aren’t particularly familiar, but tachyons are recognized in a much wider circle. So why hadn’t I heard of bradyons before? (At first I thought it was a typo and bad physics, and the author meant baryon. But that was not it.) When I Googled I got about 4,200 hits for bradyon (and, while I got more than 2,000,000 for tachyon, many of the bradyon hits I saw were discussing the validity of the term or not about physics. Tachyon probably isn’t anyone’s name — though I readily admit to underestimating the “creativity” of some folks in naming their children) but there’s probably a lot of sci-fi hits. A Google scholar search shows 141 hits, spread out in time with some dating back to 1974, but about 8,500 for tachyon.

So I suspect it’s someone who keeps interjecting the term, hoping it will catch on, and the wikipedia pages are just another attempt, trying to draw attention to it.

I suspect Jan.