Title | Blueprint for a Time Crystal | |
Date | Monday July 06 2015, @06:42PM | |
Author | janrinok | |
Topic | ||
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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