For The First Time, Physicists Have Filmed The Oscillation of a Time Crystal

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[–]Zapped 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

This article helps by explaining what time crystals are.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgkzmx/ok-wtf-is-a-time-crystal

And I still don't fully understand what's going on.

[–]Rpguy04 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Read the article still dont really get it but it sound like the crystals can change their particle arrangement and whats freaking out the scientists is that if they stimulate the crystals with lets say a laser the crystals will shift but its random. One pulse of the laser can have them shift once, twice, three times. Its random and they don't know why?

[–]Vigte 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

An actual random number generator sounds look a good first application then.

I'm glad you could at least get something of it, all I got was a headache, lol.

[–]iDontShift 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

they seem to be making more of it than I can see a reason too.

like they are tacking on all the probability shit for reasons I can't see.

To take up the coin example again, when the time crystal breaks time-translation symmetry that means that it is making a particular period in time special, which would be like having a 50/50 chance with the coin now, but knowing that if you waited a certain interval of time, say 10 seconds, those odds would change to 75/25.

if you can predict it, then it isn't useful for random numbers.

but whatever...

2016 that a group of physicists working at Station Q, a Microsoft research facility at UC Santa Barbara, figured out a way to correct the theoretical problems with Wilczek's time crystals and provided the stepping stone to actually make them

if microcrap is involved.. it is probably not good.