Complex speeds and special relativity

The quest to find faster-than-light particles has intrigued physicists for decades, though it has yet to turn up any real candidates. Even if a superluminal universe does exist, we have no way to reach it given that we must go through the speed of light, which to the best of our knowledge is impossible, In this paper, I show that by making, speed complex, we can go around the speed of light in a manner analogous to the way a car faced with an infinitely tall road block might leave the road to go around that barrier. The treatment is a mathematical device; no known physical interpretation exists for the imaginary part of a complex speed. However, it can provide an entertaining problem in special relativity, one that may encourage students to think about the connections between equations and the physical universe. (C) 1996 American Association of Physics Teachers.