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Scientist Investigate A Brand New Form of Matter: Time Crystals (sciencealert.com)
The discovery of "non-equilibrium matter" could re-write the rules of physics. Long-time Slashdot reader jasonbrown quotes ScienceAlert: For months now, there's been speculation that researchers might have finally created time crystals — strange crystals that have an atomic structure that repeats not just in space, but in time, putting them in perpetual motion without energy. Now it's official — researchers have just reported in detail how to make and measure these bizarre crystals. And two independent teams of scientists claim they've actually created time crystals in the lab based off this blueprint, confirming the existence of an entirely new form of matter.
Both teams -- one at Harvard and the other at the University of Maryland -- have submitted their findings to peer-reviewed publications, according to the article, and "the fact that two separate teams have used the same blueprint to make time crystals out of vastly different systems is promising."
Both teams -- one at Harvard and the other at the University of Maryland -- have submitted their findings to peer-reviewed publications, according to the article, and "the fact that two separate teams have used the same blueprint to make time crystals out of vastly different systems is promising."
Let me guess, all you need is bleach, ammonia, a penny, and blowing bubbles in it with a soda straw to grow these amazing 'time crystals'?
Perpetual motion is one of Newton's Laws...
This sounds too much like an April Fool's post!
just to invent that time machine to go back in time and correct the recent u.s. election anomaly. keep at it guys, you're one step closer!
http://timecube.2enp.com
While cool i agree, and i can see perhaps some esoteric use beyond basic research, what sort of practical day-to-day use for the common man would there be?
Anything that moves or vibrates radiates some energy. Hence such crystals would provide "free" energy and that is very, very, very unlikely to be possible in this universe.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
in their ground state.
However, that would violate quantum electrodynamics, because then you would know the atoms exact momentum and location.
???
The two lasers that were periodically nudging the ytterbium atoms were producing a repetition in the system at twice the period of the nudges, something that couldn't occur in a normal system.
When they're saying 'twice the period of the nudges', do they mean twice the frequency of the nudges, or twice the duration of the nudges? What I'm after here is, is whether or not they're actually implying that there's more energy coming out of this than is being put into it, and by the way unless I'm totally misreading it, it sounds like this isn't 'perpetual motion' at all, not in the sense I think of 'perpetual motion', because they have to 'nudge' it with a pulse from a laser to cause this effect to occur -- unless what I'm missing here, is that all they have to do is 'nudge' it once, and it starts a self-sustaining oscillation? Even if it's self-sustaining once started, isn't it then in a state of equilibrium regardless, and any attempt to tap into the energy of that oscillation would cause it to stop?
... so my watch can use even less energy with the "perpetual moving crystal" as a time base. What, you say it has to be cooled to 0K to actually behave fundamentally different from conventional crystals? Too bad...
Stopped reading after that doozy. It's every other day those laws re getting rewritten if you listen to the hype merchants.
Variat1ons on the Assholes, as they Consider worthwhile ransom for their than a fraction
These are just oscillatory systems, of a particular form that have structural integrity as of the dynamics of the system instead of rigidity. Thermodynamics and time going forward are still the same, it's a bit naive to say it's a new form of matter when it's a system of elements.
Perpetual motion machines are allowed by the laws of physics. The galaxy is one for example, it perpetually rotates effectively forever, and by definition beyond what we can measure.
What IS impossible, is to remove energy from the system. If you do that, any machine stops, eventually, unless you add it back in somehow.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I remember reading about some sci-fi author who wanted a huge interstellar space ship millions of miles long but the control system would take hours to affect a course correction so some physicist postulated a cable made of a material with a 4th dimensional component thus cutting communication time way down.
( I hope these researchers are certain about their findings ... )
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... but yeah, it sounds like time cubes.
What do you think all the crystals are in the Final Fantasy games?
#DeleteFacebook
I got bunch of 16MHz time crystals in my electronic parts box.
It is embarrassing, really.
Galaxy do not rotate forever, as they are led by gravity, and the matter rotating will lose energy with time. The rate suns and matter rotating lose energy is very slow, but a galaxy will not rotate forever. There is no such thing s as PMM in real physic, because there is always energy loss and entropy factoring in. Yes even in space where the the energy loss are minimal, they do exists.
Bose-Einstein Condensate has exactly the same property,except the regularity. The overlap of the particle wave means that the system moves inevitably, re-creating the bulk through time on the same organisation as the space bulk organisation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This sounds interesting to say the least, but I'd be more interested to hear about what potential applications these "time crystals" might be used for.
High-density storage? Super-batteries? Time portals?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Asimov clearly covered this ground in his brilliant paper "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline".
Nothing to see here. Move on.
When I finally get round to sorting out the optional extras for my flying car kick-starter, time crystals is well on the list.
Look at the time cube illustration -- it's crystalline!
Dilithium has the same sort of structure.
If you want to cleave a dilithium crystal you have to whack it last month, hit it now, and tap it lightly a week from next tuesday.
Can't find the citation on memory alpha; must have been one of the novels.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Let's give something a sensational name like Time Crystals. That will make Slashdot. Lots of press, lots of research money. Profit!
#AlernativeFacts maybe?
Call Uncle Rico!!!
Now I can finaly be the god of a 99cent store
The two lasers that were periodically nudging the ytterbium atoms were producing a repetition in the system at twice the period of the nudges, something that couldn't occur in a normal system.
When they're saying 'twice the period of the nudges', do they mean twice the frequency of the nudges, or twice the duration of the nudges?
I read it as twice the period. Continuing with the rest of the section you quoted:
"Wouldn't it be super weird if you jiggled the Jell-O and found that somehow it responded at a different period?" said Yao.
Not at all:
- If the jello jiggles at 2 Hz and you tap it every half-second, It's not hard at all to get it to dance indefinitely at four times the rate, one quarter the period, of the periodic stimulus. Ditto a high-Q resonator - like a bell. Hit it at the corresponding phase every Nth cycle, often enough that it doesn't
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...
"Wouldn't it be super weird if you jiggled the Jell-O and found that somehow it responded at a different period?" said Yao.
Not at all:
- If the jello jiggles at 2 Hz and you tap it every half-second, It's not hard at all to get it to dance indefinitely at four times the rate, one quarter the period, of the periodic stimulus. Ditto a high-Q resonator - like a bell. Hit it at the corresponding phase every Nth cycle, often enough that it doesn't decay appreciably, and the bell will appear to ring merrily at N times the frequency of the stimulus, forever.
- Getting something to react periodically at HALF, or 1/Nth, the rate of the stimulus, is a bit more difficult but still not hard. With Jello, for instance, you'd have to hit it in a way that would encourage it to continue in it's way in either half-cycle. Imagine a Jello tower leaning right and left, and tapping its base upward to encourage it to lean more just as it passes the middle going in either direction. That would keep it pumped up.
There are lots of ways to get that latter to work, even without a period tuned to a natural frequency of the thing being provoked:
- A flip-flop divide by two counter. Clock once, changes state. Clock again, changes back to the other state.
- A platform with a slinky in the bottom of one end of an upside-down U-shaped tube. Thump the platform up, and the slinky loops into the other leg of the U. Mechanical flip-flop.
- A wooden platform with, say, a surface feature consisting of a ring of five similar segments shaped so that, if you put a bead in the low spot of one segment, a thump makes it jump to and settle into the next segment around the loop. Put one (or some combination of up to five identical or distinguished - like by color - beads, into the low spots and the pattern of beads moves around among different configurations, returning to starting point every fifth stimulus.
I could go on for hours.
The point is that it may not be immediately obvious, but there's nothing "new physics" about a system stimulated at one rate and going through a set of state transitions that repeats periodicly, to achieve a "wiggle" of an integer fraction of the stimulus.
= = = =
And I suspect that is what is happening here. As I read it, a real time crystal would oscillate without any external stimulus.
It looks to me that, in trying to create their "time crystal", they oversimplified by making a small part of a much larger (perhaps infinite) candidate and using the lasers to simulate the boundary conditions from its connection with the rest of the candidate structure. In doing so they risk creating, instead, something like the divide-by-N situations I described above, with the boundary condition simulator providing the clock for the counter.
Call me when they get one to run without any lasers (or other external pump), say by bending their "conga line" into a circle or folding it into a polygon.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
lol
No. It's scientists* investigate.
There are two teams. This is not one scientist. How does the OP not know the difference between singular and plural?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
So is a rotating fan a time crystal?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What I always feared as a kid was that the Timesplitters were/are/will be real. This might be it.
At least Dr. Jacob Crow wasn't part of the research team.
Galaxy note 42 :
It has just been announced that the new replacement wearable computer will use the energy produced from this to power its latest device.
Unfortunately due to an error in production the Universe exploded
I can't imagine time crystals but can I buy a bag of them to go? What could a man do with 20 lbs. of time crystals?
Can I cast fireballs with them? Or mix potions? Or will they capture the soul on critical strike, so it could be used to enchant my sword?
I would rather see boobs jiggled.
and no reference to Blinx.
You know, I really liked that game.