How do you get a tachyionic particle and how are they faster than light

Tachyons are studied in an area called particle physics, and I must say this is a bit out of my league, but I'll give you some general thoughts. Tachyons are hypothetical particles resulting from what physicists call a thought experiment. Back in the 1960s, some physicists wondered what would happen if matter could travel faster than the speed of light, something that is supposed to be impossible according to the Theory of Relativity. So these particles may or may not exist because they have not been proven or disproven by real experiment as of yet. What people have done is apply existing formulas to the unique properties of tachyons (like imaginary mass!). What comes out is a particles that go faster when they lose energy with a MINIMUM velocity of the speed of light and a maximum velocity of infinity! Hope that helps Ben, theoretical physics is a weird place and is not too far off from philosophy.