The Tachyon

The adjective ταχυς (tachus) means quick or swift and is the opposite of βραδυς (bradus), slow. It's formally unclear where this word may have come from. There is no obvious Greek noun that describes a proverbial fast thing (the noun ταχος, tachos, speed, derives from our adjective; see below), and likewise no Proto-Indo-European root that may have yielded our adjective.

But the Greek alphabet derives from the Hebrew one, and here at Abarim Publications we often propose that along with the alphabet, the Greeks also imported some basic abstract terms, to jump-start the later so celebrated Greek sense of abstraction (see our lengthy article on Hellas for more on this). Hence, a much more likely candidate for the source of our Greek adjective is the Hebrew verb חוש (hush), to hurry or hasten, and more specifically its derived noun תחש (thahash), meaning "hurrier," the word for some animal whose hides provided the outer cover of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:14) — see our article on the name Thahash.

Note that the Hebrew letter ח (heth) often transliterates into Greek as the χ (chi). The name Ahab, for instance, is אחאב ('ah'ab) in Hebrew, Αχααβ (Achaab) in the Greek Septuagint, and Achab in the Latin Vulgate. Likewise, the name Thahash, hurrier, is תחש (tahash) in Hebrew and Τοχος (Thochos) in Greek, albeit Tahas in Latin.

From our adjective ταχυς (tachus), quick, comes the invented term tachyon, which describes a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light — which requires it to have negative mass, which obviously makes it not-a-particle. A particle-that-is-not-a-particle can obviously not exist in the material universe, but since the human mind is both massless and capable of traveling back in time (when we review past events, which is really all a consciousness does) we here at Abarim Publications like to go on record as to postulate the tachyon as quantum of mind. A thought experiment is in order:

Imagine two physicists who want to measure the speed of light. For this they have built an installation that makes it possible to wait for an electromagnetic signal to arrive after it was sent from its source, when the sending physicist pushes the send-button. Here's the catch: there is nothing in the material universe than can run ahead of that signal, so as to warn the measuring physicist that something is coming. Only a plan hatched by clever humans can result in something waiting for light to arrive. All other beings in the universe are always surprised by the arrival of light. That means that a scheming human mind is able to outrun light, and thus goes faster than light and thus goes back in time.

Since a contemplative mind thinks in words, and words are required to entertain conscious thoughts, words are tachyons. Societies that have no script usually only have words for things that can be seen and pointed at (so as to agree upon what to call those objects). For a society to entertain abstract things (love, anger, war, heaven), a script is required that gives these things physical reality (a written word) to point at. Pre-script societies solve this problem by inventing gods, but as soon as script takes on the role of giving physical reality to abstract things, deities quickly go out of vogue. But ultimately, words are massless things that form a continuum in which journeys faster than light, and thus journeys into the past, are perfectly possible.

Because of their negative mass, tachyons can only be spiritual and cannot be material (tachyons are pneumatons, if you will). Particles that have zero mass and thus travel as fast as light (photons and gluons, and possibly gravitons) have been lovingly dubbed luxons, after the Latin lux and the Greek λευκος (leukos), both meaning light; see the names Luke and Lucifer. Particles that have positive mass and thus travel slower than the speed of light (that's pretty much all of the rest of them) are called bradyons (see for more exiting physics our article on Relativity Theory).

Our adjective ταχυς (tachus) occurs just once in the New Testament, namely in James 1:19 only, but from it derive:

The noun σταχυς (stachus) describes an ear of grain. It occurs 5 times (in four verses) in the New Testament; see full concordance.

It's unclear where our word comes from, but in our article on the noun σειρα (seira) we discuss the curious tendency of the Greek language to create words by adding (or dropping) a leading sigma to or from a word of similar or comparable meaning. That would suggest that standing grain was perhaps known for being a quick snack (Matthew 12:1), or else named after its proclivity to be moved and tossed about. A similar sentiment is expressed in Matthew 11:7, where Jesus asks, "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?"

Another possible association that a creative polyglot may have made is with the Hebrew verb שטה (sata), to turn aside, which in turn relates to the verb שוט (sut), to swerve or fall away, and even the familiar noun שטן (satan), adversary or opposer.

But whatever the etymology of our word, ears of standing grain remind of the shibboleth scene in Judges 12:6, where dominant Gileadites demand of refugees from Ephraim to pronounce the word שבלת, which their dialect turned into סבלת. We moderns have no idea how either word may have sounded (to either group of people), but the story implies that the Gileadites showed the Ephraimites their word in writing, and the whole to-do is also about the formation and thus competition of language standards — as Jesus is both the Logos, the Word, and the Bread of Heaven, which comes from grain (hence the parable of the seeds: Matthew 13:3). That would make an ear of standing grain a metaphor for a small set of words: a letter.

The collective word for grain is the noun σιτος (sitos). The word for dough is φυραμα (phurama) and to knead is μασσω (masso). The word for bread is αρτος (artos), which looks rather similar to the adjective αρτιος (artios), meaning precisely right.

For more on the Bible's elaborate discussion on the battle of the languages systems, see our article on the Philistines.