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posted by janrinok on Monday July 06 2015, @06:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-it-made-of-kyber? dept.

From New Scientist

Ordinary crystals are three-dimensional objects whose atoms are arranged in regular, repeating patterns – just like table salt. They adopt this structure because it uses the lowest amount of energy possible to maintain.

Earlier this year, Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speculated that a similar structure might repeat regularly in the fourth dimension – time.

Wilczek has also theorised that a working time crystal could be made into a computer, with different rotational states standing in for the 0s and 1s of a conventional computer.

The article includes a description (by Tongcang Li from the University of California, and others) of how such a time crystal could be built. Though it will be tricky because building the crystal will need temperatures close to absolute zero.

While Wilczek points out that the heat-death of the universe is, in principle, "very user friendly" for this kind of experiment because it would be cold and dark, there are other issues to consider.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 06 2015, @10:42PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 06 2015, @10:42PM (#205877) Journal

    I'm reading the full paper now, you can enjoy it too since library genesis isn't closed yet [soylentnews.org]. Just go there, click "Scientific articles" and search for "Quantum time crystals". I won't post the link here to avoid making troubles for our site. You have to figure it out yourself.

    Translation: I'm too lazy to post a link of the page I have up in my other browser window.

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  • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:54AM

    by cosurgi (272) on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:54AM (#206065) Journal

    Not really, maybe I'm weird, but I was trying to play it safe :)

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