Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2025 May 25

Language desk
< May 24	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 25

Ultrarelativistic

If hyper- or ultrarelativistic is the formal or technical term used to describe something that is travelling very close to lightspeed, what would be the opposite of this; what would be the formal or technical term used to describe something that is faster than lightspeed?

If no such term exists in real-life sciences due to the impossibility of the feat, for the sake of let's say, a fictional work; what would a proper term for energy, objects, electromagnetic radiation, etc. that travel faster than light would be constructed like (for example, would it make more sense to borrow from Latin or Greek)? 72.234.12.37 (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One term that's been used is superluminal. See the article Faster-than-light. Deor (talk) 16:30, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard of that term, but I assumed it was an invention by science-fiction creatives, rather than coined by any scholar, physicist, or scientist of some repute. 72.234.12.37 (talk) 17:12, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The OED's "earliest evidence" of it is in the writings of Karl Popper in 1959. I too would have guessed it to be earlier, and possibly from a Science Fiction author, but the latter would not make it 'disreputable' – a number of scientifically accepted terms originated in Science Fiction, and of course some SF writers did and do have academic science qualifications and even were/are practicing scientists.

Astronomers were observing apparent faster-than-light motion from as early as 1901, so it would not be surprising if someone had coined the fairly obvious term 'superluminal' well before the 1950s. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 19:27, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction lists a number of terms used in fiction here. I am surprised at the absence of terms using the prefix trans-, such as transwarp in Star Trek. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:54, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

transwarp is a recent coinage and not popular among readers or writers of science fiction or even Star Trek fans who are neither, not least because it is more than usually meaningless, even for television technobabble. Orange Mike | Talk 15:19, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also wikt:tachyonic 122.56.85.105 (talk) 03:01, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]