Physicists Attempting To Test 'Time Crystals'

ceview writes "This story at Wired seems to have lots of people a bit confused: 'In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek decided to go public with a strange and, he worried, somewhat embarrassing idea. Impossible as it seemed, Wilczek had developed an apparent proof of "time crystals" — physical structures that move in a repeating pattern, like minute hands rounding clocks, without expending energy or ever winding down. ... [A] Berkeley-led team will attempt to build a time crystal by injecting 100 calcium ions into a small chamber surrounded by electrodes. The electric field generated by the electrodes will corral the ions in a "trap" 100 microns wide, or roughly the width of a human hair. The scientists must precisely calibrate the electrodes to smooth out the field. Because like charges repel, the ions will space themselves evenly around the outer edge of the trap, forming a crystalline ring.' The experimental set up is incredibly delicate (Bose Einstein Condensate), so it implies this perpetual motion effect can't really be used to extract energy. What is your take on it? It's unlike to upend anything, as the article suggests, because at a quantum level things behave weirdly at the best of times. The heavy details are available at the arXiv."

Comments

Bose never got a Nobel

[backslashdot]

How the heck is it that Satyendar Nath Bose didn't get a Nobel prize?

I guess back then they didn't know how awesome his ideas were?

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[flayzernax]

They still don't now... I barely understand what is on his wiki page. It bears further research.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[fahrbot-bot]

How the heck is it that Satyendar Nath Bose didn't get a Nobel prize?
I guess back then they didn't know how awesome his ideas were?

Actually, he only created speakers. Generally awesome speakers, yes, but just speakers none-the-less.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well, there are four sides to that question. It's going to take simultaneous 24-hour corner days to come up with an answer.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally awesome speakers

I was always under the impression that BOSE meant Buy Other Sound Equipment

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[crutchy]

if runaway government spending gets you a nobel prize in economics, i shudder to think what kind of experiment is required to win the physics category

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[crutchy]

bose makes girly sound systems

real men spend thousands of dollars trying to cram four 18 inch subwoofers into their supra, along with nitro and a v12 chevy... no hood required

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[VortexCortex]

If the sound system doesn't give you involuntary bowel movements, it's not a real sound system.

Is that a "true sharts, man" argument?

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[Muad'Dave]

I guess it would be similar to winning a Nobel Peace Prize by running an experiment in 'peace' by a president with a kill list and an apparent case of latent bloodlust.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[operagost]

I thought the trendy economists were all deranged fruitbat rightwing extreme free-marketeers at the moment?

Nope. Pretty much only hear more belligerent Keynesian neofascism from Krugman these days.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[crutchy]

like fdr and his debt, this debt too will shrink massively soon as the economy starts to expand

it's funny how keynesians hold fdr in such high regard, and how they think his policies made everything better... nothing i say could ever change their clouded view of the world, but their ignorance must surely be bliss

if only we could all be so happy... oh hang on a minute it's a bit hard when everyone's either broke and indebted or bankrupt

but of course we should all be out there spending more of what little money we have, just to keep the keynesian gravy train going

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[Jherek Carnelian]

Why the hell would I buy form ANY company that can't release tech specs such as S/N ratio, THD, etc. for their products??

You know those numbers are pretty much arbitrary anyway, right?

The test conditions matter more than the actual equipment and basically no manufacturer conforms to any sort of standardized test conditions when taking those measurements. The best you can hope for is that they used the same conditions for different models in their own line-up so that you can at least compare models from the same manufacturer.

But even that is dicey since the test conditions themselves are rarely ever spelled out so you don't even know if conditions changed from one test to the next, much less what the conditions actually were.

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[crutchy]

Is that anything like getting the Nobel peace Prize for ending the Vietnam War in 1973?

that would be the opposite of what is going on today

if only ron paul was president

Re:Bose never got a Nobel

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Why yes, I do! But I'm not going to give you the URL. Finding it on your own will be the first test of whether you're ready to break free from the educated stupid ONEist snotbrain propaganda machine.

Implies? "Can't really"?

[vistapwns]

Can we get something more definite than that? I mean if the submitter doesn't know, and it sounds like he doesn't, why even say anything.

Re:Implies? "Can't really"?

[rot26]

Silence doesn't get you funding.

Re:Implies? "Can't really"?

[jfengel]

Yeah, that sentence is bogus. The pure physics all by itself says that you can't extract energy from it.

What the delicacy of the setup "implies" is that it's not immune to the second law of thermodynamics, or the first law of motion. The "time crystal" is only perpetual as long as nothing else impinges on it. Which is precisely the same as the frictionless pendulum you saw in first-year physics.

The remarkable part of this experiment has zilch to do with perpetual motion, either in the "free energy" sense or the "first law of motion" sense. It's about a remarkable quantum effect involving transitions even at the lowest possible energy, which wouldn't be allowed by classical physics but is allowed by quantum mechanics. The rest is just mainstream science writers who don't know what they're talking about and are trying to make it sound like magic to attract eyeballs.

Newton?

[backslashdot]

From the article: "How can something move, and keep moving forever, without expending energy? It seemed an absurd idea — a major break from the accepted laws of physics. "

Isn't that what Newton's first law of motion says? Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Clearly the article isn't explaining this properly.

Re:Newton?

[Fluffeh]

That makes sense if you don't take into account that these puppies will be going around in a circle - without the initial velocity. First law of motion works for orbits - the objects are effectively moving in a straight line but the curviture of space around the planet/body/star is making their straight line circular. From what I can understand of this article (I haven't read the arxiv version, nor will it likely make sense to me anyhow) the interesting thing is that the scientists aren't starting them in a spin - they expect that they will start spinning on their own.

Re:Newton?

[flayzernax]

From what I can read in the linked article, the energy is supposed to be taken out of the system by laser cooling. At a low energy state the ions are then supposed to develop a cyclical motion, rather then a continuous one. Such that they wouldn't be moving at a constant velocity. Without adding energy this is not supposed to happen as we understand it. Or thats the idea behind the experiment, to see if it will. I don't grasp what made Wilczek think they would behave this way in the first place, other then crystals having certain spatial properties because of the charge of their ions.

Re:Newton?

[shadowmas]

If i understand the article correctly it's not just going round in a circle like a planet but "jumping" around specific point around the circle like a clock hand. it appears from one point to the other without being in between. But rest of your point still applies.

Re:Newton?

[ozmanjusri]

They also can not perform work,

Being observed is performing work.

Re:Newton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being observed is performing work.

That's not what my boss says!

Re:Newton?

[yahwotqa]

Yeah, just ask any stripper.

Re:Newton?

[Anonymous Coward]

IANA Physicist, but I think you're mistaken. To observe a particle you are adding or taking away energy. Your measurement device is performing the work.

I'm going way out on a limb now becuase I don't know what the hell I'm talking about but...
I think the idea here, though is that they are going to be applying the continuous, uniform magnetic field, the initial application of which which should cause the rings to move through their channel in the device. Ddespite what the article says, it won't be the motion, but the variations of the motion that they'll attempt to prove. An increase or decrease in rotation when the field's strength and uniformity has not changed, for instance.
I am having a hard time understanding how this experiment can be done on earth though. It would seem to me that at such a small level, the slightest variation of the density of mass of anything around them would affect space-time and throw everything off.
But then again, I don't understand quantum mechanics and can say I only barely have a real understanding of general relativity thanks to my college roommate physics major, who left his books out a lot.
( Any PhD's out there that want to correct me, I'd appreciate it, I'm merely a fan and follower of science )

Re:Newton?

[Culture20]

Your measurement device is performing the work.

If you perform work on an object, it must perform work back to give your measuring device something to read. Action-equal-opposite-reaction.

Re:Newton?

[DrProton]

From the article: "How can something move, and keep moving forever, without expending energy? It seemed an absurd idea — a major break from the accepted laws of physics. "

This is a real groaner to a physicist. Is there any solid matter near you right now? Matter does seem to be real, doesn't it? In the classical regime, accelerating electrons radiate energy. According to Newton, matter should collapse into itself. The electrons should spiral in until they hit the nucleus.

Electrons in atomic orbits move without losing energy. The orbits are stable. Negatively charged electrons are attracted to the positive nucleus, yet they don't combine. Matter does not collapse on itself. It's not Newton, it's quantum mechanics, in particular, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Heisenberg uncertainty explains the solidity of matter.

What is different here is the size and mass scale has been upped by orders of magnitude from electron orbits in atoms and molecules in this supercooled atom trap. It remains to be seen if the experiment will produce results. The scientific jury is out.

Isn't this just a frictionless surface?

[Karmashock]

I didn't know that anyone had a problem with perpetual motion on frictionless surfaces. After all... isn't that how galaxies keep spinning forever? If there's no friction then there's no entropy and of course you can keep doing it.

Am I missing something here?

Re:Isn't this just a frictionless surface?

[vistapwns]

Well, the galaxy is not spinning as you think of it with stars at a constant orbit. What happens is the galaxy's gravitational field is pulling everything towards everything else in the galaxy, very slowly, so it's more like water going down a huge drain, where it circles a few times then goes poof. Same principle with our sun and planets (or your golf ball example), it appears they spin forever at constant distance, but they are slowly being sucked into the sun. So yea the galaxy collapses into the black hole, but the black hole is just a manifestation of the gravity that caused the thing to circle in the first place, and then swallowed it all up so it spins no more. Point is, galaxies are not an eternal event no matter how it plays out, and it must always die and become useless. Where as this thing in the article, possibly does works forever.

Re:Isn't this just a frictionless surface?

[JustinOpinion]

Here's my understanding (I'm a physicist though not in a field at all related to the described work):

As usual, the summary and the article somewhat mis-state the interesting part. They talk about 'perpetual motion' but there are lots of examples of things that move seemingly without end: e.g. a planet orbiting a star. However if you think about it a bit more, you'll realize that those kinds of motion can't be used to get "free energy" and actually are not even perpetual. If you try to extract energy from some kind of bound system that exhibits motion, you decrease the energy of the system and alter the motion. So you can extract energy from a planetary orbit (in principle), but then the planet will have less energy, and orbit more slowly (its orbit will decay). As other posters mention, all kinds of natural processes inherently perform this kind of "energy extraction": e.g. random collisision with space-dust, or tidal interactions between planetary bodies, will slowly alter these 'perpetual' orbits. Even if you imagine a highly idealized system (perfectly rigid objects orbiting one another in perfect vacuum), we have reason to believe that such a system will radiate away energy (slowly) by emitting gravitational waves.

What this all amounts to is saying that the system has some 'extra energy' that could be extracted. In physics we would say that the system is not in its ground state, or "minimum energy state". This is the key phrase that the quoted physicists use which the article doesn't properly explain.

The idea is that a system in its ground state will have lost all the energy it can possibly lose. There is no extra energy left. And, conventionally one would assume that a system in the ground state would no longer exhibit any kind of motion: because any motion is extra energy that could be extracted, obviously. So an idealized orbital system has motion, but is not in the minimum energy state. What Wilczek is proposing is that he's discovered kinds of systems which exhibit motion in their ground state. In other words, the system oscillates as a function of time, and yet one cannot extract energy from this oscillation. Cool!

The analogy to crystals is this: as you cool atoms, they vibrate less and less, and eventually they settle into their minimum energy state. This state is usually a crystal, where all the atoms are frozen into perfect rows. This is the minimum energy state. Interestingly, at high-temperature the system was spatially homogeneous (a gas has atoms all over the place), whereas the ground state has spontaneously broken space-translational symmetry: the atoms exist in well-defined positions and don't occupy intervening points. Thus the ground state spontaneously breaks a symmetry (space-translation). Wilczek's proposed states, if they really exist, would upon cooling to their ground state (no excess energy left) settle into an arrangement where they are in motion. Thus along the time axis the system is not constant/homogeneous. The system has spontaneously broken time-translational symmetry. Hence this is like a crystal along the time axis: a 'time crystal'.

I'm not qualified to say whether this is right or wrong. It would be exciting if true. But it doesn't seem to violate any known laws (e.g. you can't use it to violate conservation of energy, so no 'perpetual motion' in the 'free energy' sense), so it seems possible that these states could exist.

Wait. What?

[fahrbot-bot]

What is your take on it?

Yes, Any other Nobel Prize-winning physicists / Slashdoters with Bose Einstein Condensate experience please chime in.
But first, let me get some pop corn ... /sarcasm

Re:Wait. What?

[six025]

But first, let me get some pop corn ... /sarcasm

Unlike the experiment, I predict a great deal of energy will be expended by lay people chiming in.

Like the experiment, I proclaim this energy to be perpetual while at the same time achieving nothing. ;-)

Re:Wait. What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading TFA brought to mind phosphorescence. Traditional thinking is that forbidden quantum states prevent rapid emission of stored energy. But (for example) very fine crystals of zinc sulfide with a copper activator might in fact be exibiting this "time crystal" effect. The break in the symmetry of time might be what allows the energy to escape.

So in short, this research may lead to new phosphorescent chemicals or a better understanding of them.

What does this have to do with time?

[Nyder]

I'll admit I'm not the brightest of people (public school education), but I can't figure exactly what this has to do with time. Any chance of you higher educated science folks want to explain this a bit better?

Re:What does this have to do with time?

[H0p313ss]

Don't feel too bad, I have a bachelors degree in computer science, I took the first year physics courses for engineers, my father has a Phd in Metallurgy and a Masters in Engineering.

Let's just say I've been steeped in science since I was 10.

And that shit went right the fuck over my head.

Re:What does this have to do with time?

[narcc]

Well, after we produce 6 time crystals we can assemble the key to time. Frank Wilczek is really the Black Guardian in disguise, but the Berkeley physicist heading up the project won't figure this out until the last Slashdot article in the series.

Re:What does this have to do with time?

[akh]

IINAScientist but here's how I understand it. Three-dimensional crystals form a regular, repeating lattice in the three spacial dimensions. These lattices are stable and need no energy input to retain their structure. Hypothetically, time crystals extend that lattice into a fourth dimension (time), treating time more-or-less as a spacial dimension. Given that the structure is crystalline, no energy is needed to maintain it even though its 3-dimensional structure, dimensions, etc. may appear to vary over time. Such structures are so far only hypothetical; the goal of this experiment is to attempt to create one.

Re:What does this have to do with time?

[negablade]

Well, a crystal is a repeating arrangement in space where each atom occurs in certain regular positions in the crystal structure. If you look along any direction in the crystal the crystal lattice is repeating and predictable. A time crystal is the same idea but it is repeating in the direction of time. For instance any shape that changes but repeats that same pattern over time in a regular and ordered way would be a time crystal. I'm sure this is a simplification. For instance, I suspect a simple mechanical device (such as a clock) wouldn't constitute a time crystal any more than a tank full of loose balls would constitute a spacial crystal. In fact, I suspect the time crystal would need to be self organising in the same way that a spacial crystal self organises. In other words, the time crystal cycle is self perpetuating, hence the link to perpetual motion and the rather uncomfortable feeling that something might not be correct in the theory. In a spacial crystal it is the charges in the atoms and ionic bonds that self organise the crystal. For a time crystal (and I'm speculating here since I haven't read the arXiv article), maybe the transfer of energy or spin around the crystal would self organise the time crystal.

Re:What does this have to do with time?

[tehcyder]

The explanation is that if you can hint at time travel or faster than light travel in an article, it generates interest, and therefore pageviews, and therefore advertising revenue.

Sad. Super Duper Sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

It always saddens me when scientists are afraid of looking like fools. Fortunately this one over came his fear.

Its the auditors...

[shadowmas]

OMG the auditors are back at it. Somebody find Susan.

Yuck

[oldhack]

All these times we've been complaining how the "editors" were trolling with their crap story selection. And now, for once an editor selects an interesting and relevant story, and all the comments are at the level of 4chan crap.

Slashdot really has fell off the cliff.

Re:Yuck

[delt0r]

/. was always off the cliff. You just old enough to notice now.

How is this different to harmonic oscilator?

[Grantbridge]

In all chemical bonds the ground state has non-zero energy which results in a vibration of the two atoms. They will vibrate backwards and forwards forever as there is no lower quantum state to lose energy to. This doesn't really seem all that different, other than they're making a rotating non-zero ground state.

Re:How is this different to harmonic oscilator?

[Richard Kirk]

Ok, I'll have a stab at it. First of all, ignore the 'crystals of time' hoopla. This is not helpful.

Imagine a hydrogen atom with one electron and a fixed nucleus. The electron will be in a certain orbital. If you are thinking of the atom according to the Bohr model, the the electron is going around the nucleus like a planet around the sun. However, the position of the electron, or rather the probably of finding the electron in any particular position, is determined by a wave-function. This wave-function is a complex number that varies with space, and possibly with time too. You cannot measure this complex function directly, but if you can detect the particle somehow, you might learn something about the value the wave function had before the measurement started.

Actually, the stable hydrogen atom wave-function is simple and calculable, and just like the simple harmonic oscillator, it does not change with time. The electron is in a stable orbit, and will need to lose energy or gain energy to go to a different orbit. The same is true for many much more complex wave-functions. If you have a current running in a superconducting loop, then all the electrons in the superconducting band can be described by a single giant wave-function. You still have all the individual electrons, but they are all moving in a coherent manner, so they are not losing energy. Indeed, they probably got into that state by taking energy from the giant wave-state, until it reached some local stable minimum. And even though you may have billions of electrons in the wave-state, the wave-function does not change with time unless something disturbs it.

Okay, the idea of sucking out energy until a particle or a system reaches a stable state is pretty common, but it is not necessarily universal. You could have two hydrogen atoms, one with the electron in the ground state, and one with the electron in an excited state; and the second atom loses its energy to the first one, and after a while, the first atom gives it back to the second one again, and so it goes on. In real life, the atom would probably emit a photon that would not get caught by the other one, and that would be the end of it. But if you could somehow constrain the photon to just bounce between the two atoms, then you have two electron wave functions that are perpetually flipping between two states in such a way that energy is preserved. This cyclic flipping would mean that the whole system gets back to where it was a short while ago: it is something that happens at regular intervals in time, hence the 'crystals in time' bit. Ugh. Can we describe the whole system, including whatever it is that constrains it by a bigger wave-function that does not change with time, like our superconductors? It's a bit unlikely, because the jumping between states and emitting or absorbing a photon is a sudden transition, where the super-electron interactions were smooth and continuous. But there might be a way.

Thiotimoline

[djl4570]

Wasn't all of this in "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" by Asimov?

perpetual motion OK, but won't generate energy

[dltaylor]

At the quantum level, a "ring around the rosie" dance of atoms (really just nodes of a complex wave function) in a BEC is a freebie, however delicately balanced. Provided the containment isn't perturbed, there's no input energy required to keep things "moving". However, any attempt to extract energy from the setup will cause it to collapse. Even extracting information, such as the spin of the BEC will have to provide all of the energy in the probe.

Big stumbling block

[davidbrit2]

How exactly do they plan to first resurrect both Jim Henson and Madeline L'Engle?

Thiotimoline, or a Shipstone, perhaps?

[rocket rancher]

Wasn't all of this in "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" by Asimov?

heh...glad I'm not the only one who made that connection. That was a specific carbon compound, IIRC, that dissolved 1.12 seconds before water hit it, and Asimov's clever scientists and engineers figured out how to power a stardrive with it. Wonder what would happen if engineers figured out how to move energy into this time cube and then extract it later on. Might be a shipstone in the making... :) (I like Asimov a lot, but Heinlein is a better story teller.)

Crystal structure

[Coppit]

He also found that the crystals were cubes.

TimeCube

[goombah99]

Can we get something more definite than that? I mean if the submitter doesn't know, and it sounds like he doesn't, why even say anything.

it means they can finally build a lattice for the TimeCube. http://www.timecube.com/

Analogy

[Rixel]

So, it is sort of like the Windows 7 busy cursor. Goes round and round forever.