21–30 of 130 posts
What are time crystals? Try this: Physicists Predict The Existence of Time Crystals https://www.technologyreview.com/s/426917/physicists-predict...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does that mean it is continuously changing in a repetitive fashion?
apparently yes, but because it's in a low energy state, it's impossible to extract any energy from it and do work (otherwise it would be a perpetual motion machine.)
it does seem to be breaking some rules.. but I guess that's the achievement here. Intuitively there should be some concept of friction/heat loss but maybe on this scale things are different. Maybe it could be exploited as a battery? A way of capturing energy into a stable kinetic "state". (Like a flywheel..)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
apparently yes, but because it's in a low energy state, it's impossible to extract any energy from it and do work (otherwise it would be a perpetual motion machine.)
It's interesting it is a perpetual motion machine, but it works only as long as you don't use it.
Can someone explain what computations using __zero energy__ from related article [1] actually means ? [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/426917/physicists-predict... """ Another is the possibility that it may be possible to exploit time crystals to perform computations using zero energy. As Wilczek puts it, “it is interesting to speculate that a…quantum mechanical system whose states could be interpreted as a col…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can any old oscillator be called a time crystal?
No - oscillators need constant energy input in order to operate. Time crystals require no energy for temporal repetition.
But normally that oscillation represents stored energy.
They key to a time crystal is that it's oscillating while it's in a minimum energy state. It would take energy to make it stop moving.
Ugh, that title though... WTH is a time crystal, and who decided to call it that? I'm not clicking the bait to find out.
The core idea is not too strange, actually. A "normal" crystal has a repeating structure in space; a time crystal is a construct with a repeating temporal structure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can any old oscillator be called a time crystal?
No - oscillators need constant energy input in order to operate. Time crystals require no energy for temporal repetition.