Loopholes in the Laws of Physics: Can Time Crystals Actually Exist? Turns out yes, yes they can.
43 replies, posted
So when do I get into install a time crystal into my computer? Will it hurt?
[QUOTE=NixNax123;51193562]For everyone not understanding what this means / wants to get past the sensationalist name (which actually isn't that sensationalist):
short:
Long:
[editline]12th October 2016[/editline]
And no, this doesn't break thermodynamics.[/QUOTE]
Ok, but what is time?
Time to Split?
When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit.
Do we have to mine a small island off the coast of Scotland to get them?
Nobody here is asking the real questions.
For example, what kind of vacuum would I need to suck these up?
[QUOTE=NixNax123;51193562]Long:
[quote]To fully understand time crystals, you must know a bit about electrons. Electrons have a property called "spin". Spin just describes how an electron likes to orbit around the nucleus of an atom. A fundamental understanding would be thinking about this like how earth orbits the sun, but also rotates on it's axis at the same time. So, in the way the earth orbits the sun so do electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom. The way that they "rotate" on their axis is their spin. There are two types of spin: up and down.
**(This is of course not exactly how spin works, but is good for a fundamental understanding)[/quote]
[/QUOTE]
Yech, even the disclaimer can't save that explanation.
[editline]12th October 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Bradyns;51193250]ArXiv is for pre-print journals which means generally that the journal hasn't been published, nor that it has had scrutinous peer review.
Take anything this somewhat sensationalist article is espousing with a side of salt.[/QUOTE]
That said, since Wilczek showed that they're theoretically sound back in 2012, there's no need to really be too super skeptical.
[editline]12th October 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Alice3173;51193221]I don't really get them myself but from what I do understand of them it sounds like they have absolutely nothing to do with traveling through time.[/QUOTE]
Well, they do in a more mundane sense than you probably mean. A particle sitting still in empty space looks the same now, ten seconds from now, and ten million years from now unless you do something to it. It has time translation symmetry. This is a system which is in its ground state, so the lowest energy it can have, but it doesn't have time translation symmetry. It moves around. So it doesn't have anything to do with sci-fi "time travel" but it has everything to do with "travelling through time."
[QUOTE=Alice3173;51193221]It kinda sounds more like they're something that would always be moving while not expending energy to do so, though I'm pretty sure that would violate some of the laws of physics.[/QUOTE]
Nope, it was predicted on a theoretical basis before this. It doesn't violate any laws, except naively. It's not a triviality that they exist, though, and thinking about it without serious scrutiny definitely can make one suspect that they shouldn't exist, even if you have some knowledge of quantum mechanics (and Wilczek has a lot of that).
Why does it always turn out that these cool quantum discoveries end up only being helpful at developing theoretically better computers but practically nothing else?
Guess that electronics is the only domain which really benefits research into how infinitely small shit works.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;51195262]Well, they do in a more mundane sense than you probably mean. A particle sitting still in empty space looks the same now, ten seconds from now, and ten million years from now unless you do something to it. It has time translation symmetry. This is a system which is in its ground state, so the lowest energy it can have, but it doesn't have time translation symmetry. It moves around. So it doesn't have anything to do with sci-fi "time travel" but it has everything to do with "travelling through time."
Nope, it was predicted on a theoretical basis before this. It doesn't violate any laws, except naively. It's not a triviality that they exist, though, and thinking about it without serious scrutiny definitely can make one suspect that they shouldn't exist, even if you have some knowledge of quantum mechanics (and Wilczek has a lot of that).[/QUOTE]
I'm still not sure I get it to be honest. The first bit of your response makes it sound like I was more or less correct with the second bit of my post you quoted other than the part about it violating physics.
Calling spin "spin" was the greatest mistake of 20th century physics.
A news article about time crystals and no one has made a timesplitters reference?
I am disappointed in FP
[QUOTE=Kumari24;51199182]A news article about time crystals and no one has made a timesplitters reference?
I am disappointed in FP[/QUOTE]
Well on this thread there's like, 3?
[QUOTE=Kumari24;51199182]A news article about time crystals and no one has made a timesplitters reference?
I am disappointed in FP[/QUOTE]
Did you even read the thread? Cause I saw at least 2-3 on the first page.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51198779]Calling spin "spin" was the greatest mistake of 20th century physics.[/QUOTE]
There's a very good reason for it, though. Take the classical angular momentum, make it a quantum operator. Pick the quantum field you're interested in, and apply your angular momentum operator to the state of that field with one particle. What do you get? The spin of the particle. So there is a real sense in which it is just an angular momentum carried by the particle.
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