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Berkeley News reports on a Jan. 18th paper about time crystals:
If crystals have an atomic structure that repeats in space, like the carbon lattice of a diamond, why can't crystals also have a structure that repeats in time? That is, a time crystal? In a paper published online last week in the journal Physical Review Letters, the UC Berkeley assistant professor of physics describes exactly how to make and measure the properties of such a crystal, and even predicts what the various phases surrounding the time crystal should be — akin to the liquid and gas phases of ice.
This is not mere speculation. Two groups followed [Norman] Yao's blueprint and have already created the first-ever time crystals. The groups at the University of Maryland and Harvard University reported their successes, using two totally different setups, in papers posted online last year, and have submitted the results for publication. Yao is a co-author on both papers.
Time crystals repeat in time because they are kicked periodically, sort of like tapping Jell-O repeatedly to get it to jiggle, Yao said. The big breakthrough, he argues, is less that these particular crystals repeat in time than that they are the first of a large class of new materials that are intrinsically out of equilibrium, unable to settle down to the motionless equilibrium of, for example, a diamond or ruby. "This is a new phase of matter, period, but it is also really cool because it is one of the first examples of non-equilibrium matter," Yao said. "For the last half-century, we have been exploring equilibrium matter, like metals and insulators. We are just now starting to explore a whole new landscape of non-equilibrium matter."
Discrete Time Crystals: Rigidity, Criticality, and Realizations (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.030401) (DX)
Viewpoint: How to Create a Time Crystal
Observation of a Discrete Time Crystal
Previously:
Blueprint for a Time Crystal
Time Crystals Might Exist After All
(Score: 3, Informative) by qzm on Monday January 30 2017, @08:01AM
If they are 'kicked periodically' then they are not 'time crystals', any more than a pendulum is a time crystal for a while..
they are just matter in a forced oscillation.
And stating something is a new phase of matter doesnt make it so.
Discovering something that oscillated without external input forever would of course be much more interesting, and
some of these claims could well apply, but this is just silly, really.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 30 2017, @11:22AM
Well, thats like saying that a spatial crystal is "just a bunch of lego bricks lined up in a regular structure". Sure, but doing it at the atomic scale means that your material has some very interesting properties. If you have a lattice of atoms/molecules all oscillating in phase, that can have neat properties (but no one knows what yet).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @01:58PM
(but no one knows what yet)
Survey says?
X--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:41AM
> no one knows what yet
Actually there's lots of awesome stuff happening right now. Same-frequency (base states most clearly, hence the earliest superconductors being low temperature) and in-phase (lot of $ in quantum entanglement engineering atm).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @09:45PM
Your objection to the driven periodicity is not an issue [aps.org]. I'm afraid you have not read the link, or if you did you did not understand what it was saying.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:18AM
...do they, perchance, take the shape of a regular hexahedron?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @02:47PM
If so, they would have created 4 simultaneous separate 24 hour days within a 4-corner rotation of Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @02:50PM
Not only that, but each regular hexahedron exists as four separate regular hexahedrons leading to four simultaneous time phase oscillations...!
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:48AM
You mean, a cube?
(I know, there's some fictional reference I'm not getting here)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @07:34PM
TimeCube, the original crank site to end all crank sites.
(Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday January 30 2017, @10:27AM
sort of like tapping Jell-O repeatedly to get it to jiggle
So you're saying it's kind of like wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey ... stuff?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday January 30 2017, @11:01AM
Ordinary spacetime is like jello pudding. It's wobbly, gelatinous, but too cloudy to actually see through and pretty weak imo. Time crystals, now that's some good spacetime. Very stable structure, easy to serve to old people, delicious flavor. Especially the yellow ones.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday January 30 2017, @11:13AM
How about fish fingers... and custard?
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday January 30 2017, @11:52AM
Man, do you /know/ how long it's been since I had fish fingers?!
Because I don't, but I want some now! Bastard :)
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday January 30 2017, @12:03PM
Yeah, between two chunky slabs of white bread, with brown sauce...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 30 2017, @11:57AM
Imagine you puked in the toilet, but the toilet is actually a wormhole. If you can squeeze yourself in and flush yourself through parallel dimensions (the sewers), you could exit into a universe that does not have fish sticks in your mouth. Or wake up on somebody's bathroom floor. Or both.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday January 30 2017, @02:22PM
I think I did all of that last time I drank boiliermakers.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @04:34PM
sort of like tapping Jell-O repeatedly to get it to jiggle
Am I the only one who finds this quote inexplicably arousing?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @07:50PM
I think that sentence got away from you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday January 30 2017, @10:27AM
Thiotimoline research is finally being taken seriously.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 30 2017, @06:56PM
I am only interested if the Time Crystal is a Cube.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Monday January 30 2017, @09:35PM
Haha! I am so happy someone made a Time Cube reference! :-D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @01:42AM
It's already been made... half a day ago. [soylentnews.org] :)
Hint: cube is a common name for a regular hexahedron.