Slashdot Mirror
Yale Physicists Find Signs of a Time Crystal (yale.edu)
Yale physicists have uncovered hints of a time crystal, a form of matter that "ticks" when exposed to an electromagnetic pulse, in a child's toy. The discovery means there are now new puzzles to solve, in terms of how time crystals form in the first place. Yale News reports: Ordinary crystals such as salt or quartz are examples of three-dimensional, ordered spatial crystals. Their atoms are arranged in a repeating system, something scientists have known for a century. Time crystals, first identified in 2016, are different. Their atoms spin periodically, first in one direction and then in another, as a pulsating force is used to flip them. That's the "ticking." In addition, the ticking in a time crystal is locked at a particular frequency, even when the pulse flips are imperfect.
Monoammonium phosphate (MAP) crystals are considered so easy to grow that they are sometimes included in crystal growing kits aimed at youngsters. It would be unusual to find a time crystal signature inside a MAP crystal, [Yale Physics professor Sean Barrett] explained, because time crystals were thought to form in crystals with more internal "disorder." The researchers used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to look for a DTC signature -- and quickly found it. Another unexpected thing happened, as well. "We realized that just finding the DTC signature didn't necessarily prove that the system had a quantum memory of how it came to be," said Yale graduate student Robert Blum, a co-author on the studies. "This spurred us to try a time crystal 'echo,' which revealed the hidden coherence, or quantum order, within the system," added Rovny, also a Yale graduate student and lead author of the studies. The findings are described in a pair of studies, one in the journal Physical Review Letters and the other in the journal Physical Review B.
Monoammonium phosphate (MAP) crystals are considered so easy to grow that they are sometimes included in crystal growing kits aimed at youngsters. It would be unusual to find a time crystal signature inside a MAP crystal, [Yale Physics professor Sean Barrett] explained, because time crystals were thought to form in crystals with more internal "disorder." The researchers used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to look for a DTC signature -- and quickly found it. Another unexpected thing happened, as well. "We realized that just finding the DTC signature didn't necessarily prove that the system had a quantum memory of how it came to be," said Yale graduate student Robert Blum, a co-author on the studies. "This spurred us to try a time crystal 'echo,' which revealed the hidden coherence, or quantum order, within the system," added Rovny, also a Yale graduate student and lead author of the studies. The findings are described in a pair of studies, one in the journal Physical Review Letters and the other in the journal Physical Review B.
Call The Doctor
discrete time crystal
it's what we teach our techs to say at a customer's location when something goes awry, rather than "oh shit". It also fits when the conversational topic is above my pay grade.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
So, they're "locked at a particular frequency."
How accurate is it? Is it better than atomic transitions (hydrogen maser, cesium or rubidium clock), or even as good as a quartz or ceramic oscillator?
I scanned the links, with no obvious answer.
It's interesting in and of itself, but that's the first practical application which comes to mind. Are there other applications I'm missing?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
In Star Trek, dilithium crystals were in fact ordinary quartz, but with a four-dimensional crystaline structure.
Once again, reality is stranger than fiction.
Apparently, slashdot posted a few submissions last year where
Harvard and University of Maryland managed to do this as well as Princeton.
I suppose Yale was destined to get around to this eventually, I suppose they just needed more time...
Turns out it was right next to the Time Cube.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
What the actual goddamned fucking hell is that supposed to mean?!
Some hippy crystal shit right there. Like, the universe remembers, man.
Quantum physics still makes no sense, I could barely find one sentence in that summary I even understood, and it still makes no sense.
Is this shit actually science or is it gibberish like string theory?
The chances of a resonance cascade scenario are highly unlikely. They assured the administrator that nothing would go wrong...
My 1980 quartz crystal watch...
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
Yes, it's called quartz, you apply a current, it "ticks" in a very precise interval .... OMG.
What would happen if someone placed time crystals in a Ocarina and blew on it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If these things change spin then all we need to do to get faster than light communication is to find out how to get a pair of quantum entangled time crystals.
Now the kits can say "Grow Your Own TIME Crystals"
My Name is Crystal and myfavorite color is clear, like my mind:)
The universe is under no obligation to make any sense to you.
When I read that title, I thought they found some kind of time-traveling crystal. Oh well... back to the future I suppose...
Having a hard time believing that Syd Barrett found a Time Crystal ticking in a child's toy... When did they re-unite?
All the years I knew the press was hiding something from us.