## Negative latencies

I’ve been thinking for a while that our obsession with reduction of latency in computing and storage could be ameliorated by exploiting a negative latency design. A negative latency design would be one where a hypothetical message would arrive at a receiver before the sender completed sending it.
There are a few issues with this. First off is how on earth, or elsewhere, is this possible? Second, aren’t there issues with causality violations? Third, won’t the FBI/SEC/DOJ take actions against organizations using negative latency trading systems?
Ok … to start with question 1, we need a quick review of some “elementary” special relativity.
Einstein had postulated the the energy associated with a particle had rest mass and momentum components. His infamous equation is written as
[mathjax]
$$E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m_0^2 c^4$$
For which there are, as every student of basic algebra knows, two solutions. The positive energy solution, everyone is familiar with. Its the negative energy solution that has interesting properties. For this solution to exist, given that $$p^2 >= 0$$
$$c^2 >= 0$$
we would need a so-called imaginary mass, as in factors of
$$i = sqrt(-1)$$
mass. This would be an imaginary number. Not a made up number or a fantasy number.
These solutions are called tachyons, and have interesting properties. The most interesting property is the superluminal transmission rate.