SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.