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Are time crystals just a mathematical curiosity, or could they actually physically exist? Physicists have been debating this question since 2012, when Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek first proposed the idea of time crystals. He argued that these hypothetical objects can exhibit periodic motion, such as moving in a circular orbit, in their state of lowest energy, or their "ground state." Theoretically, objects in their ground states don't have enough energy to move at all.
In the years since, other physicists have proposed various arguments for why the physical existence of time crystals is impossible—and most physicists do seem to think that time crystals are physically impossible because of their odd properties. Even though time crystals couldn't be used to generate useful energy (since disturbing them makes them stop moving), and don't violate the second law of thermodynamics, they do violate a fundamental symmetry of the laws of physics.
However, now in a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, physicists from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Microsoft Station Q (a Microsoft research lab located on the UCSB campus) have demonstrated that it may be possible for time crystals to physically exist.
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According to the physicists, it should be possible to perform an experiment to observe time-translation symmetry breaking by using a large system of trapped atoms, trapped ions, or superconducting qubits to fabricate a time crystal, and then measure how these systems evolve over time. The scientists predict that the systems will exhibit the periodic, oscillating motion that is characteristic of time crystals and indicative of spontaneously broken time-translation symmetry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday September 13 2016, @09:10PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:56AM
If you merge Time Cube and Flat Earth together, I think it actually makes more sense than either one alone.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:36PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:33PM
I hope that site never goes down. It should, now that I think about it--be hosted on all four corners of the globe, as a sort of poetic validation for the time cube itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:49PM
$ dig timecube.com
; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4 <<>> timecube.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 20799
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1
Noooooooooooooo!