Time crystals are structures that have the ability to move through time. They can change shape without using any energy and always go back to their original state eventually. Although this would essentially beat the second law of thermodynamics, Nobel Laurette and theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek still imagined these time crystals back in 2012. Another aspect of time crystals is that are constantly in a state of perpetual motion thanks to a fracture in time’s symmetry.
Crystals are the only form of matter that breaks the spatial rule of nature by repeating themselves over and over again in lattices which form random shapes. Because of this, they’re able to move continually and revolve at regular intervals breaking the law of temporal symmetry as they do. Even though colleagues first dismissed Wilczek’s time crystal theory for being impossible, a recent paper suggests that they may have been a little too quick to judge.
Researchers at the University of California and Microsoft’s research lab station Q got together to see how they could prove the existence of time crystals. Once this blueprint had been made the team then decided to make sometimes crystals themselves. The first was created at the University of Maryland, and the second was at Harvard University. During the University of Maryland’s experiment, a laser was used to create a magnetic field around ten ytterbium ions whose electron spins were entangled. When a second laser was used to push their atoms, they started moving together because of their entanglement and in doing so created a pattern of lattices as they went. After a short while, the pattern of movement became different to when the laser was pushing the atoms. They were now reacting eve though the laser hadn’t touched them.
This is an exciting time for Wilczek and his team and could change everything we know about physics. If we are only now discovering this new state of matter, how do we know there aren’t more out there just waiting to be uncovered? New discoveries could lead to the development of better technology or the creation of qubits to be used in quantum computing. Studying these crystals may just reveal clues about how the universe started and how we got to where we are today. And in the words of Wilczek, discovering time crystals would be like discovering a “new continent.” So, here’s hoping to a whole new world then.
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