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But have you heard of the state of matter called time crystals?
Time crystals are one of the many states of matter that have been observed in experimental laboratory conditions, but not yet confirmed in natural settings. This is attributed to the very specific conditions needed in order for time crystals to form and be observed. Time crystals are complicated, but the idea with them is they break time translation symmetry. What this means is that the driving force dictates that in a normal system, a periodic motion would happen every x amount of time, but in a time crystal the periodic motion actually takes longer. It would happen on a multiple, often 2x longer, but sometimes 3x or 4x longer (or even more, but that becomes more rare). Once the system time is that of a normal system, it’s no longer considered to be behaving a time crystal.
For example, as an analogy, you push a pendulum in a normal system and it completes a swing every 2 seconds, which is the timing in a regular system. But in a time crystal example, you push it exactly the same, with the same driving force and outside factors, but the pendulum takes 4 seconds to complete a swing instead of 2. This means it has broken the time translation symmetry, but not the laws of physics. This is a super simplified description, but that’s the most distinctive aspect of time crystals compared to other states of matter that have been observed.
Time crystals are one of the many states of matter that have been observed in experimental laboratory conditions, but not yet confirmed in natural settings. This is attributed to the very specific conditions needed in order for time crystals to form and be observed. Time crystals are complicated, but the idea with them is they break time translation symmetry. What this means is that the driving force dictates that in a normal system, a periodic motion would happen every x amount of time, but in a time crystal the periodic motion actually takes longer. It would happen on a multiple, often 2x longer, but sometimes 3x or 4x longer (or even more, but that becomes more rare). Once the system time is that of a normal system, it’s no longer considered to be behaving a time crystal.
For example, as an analogy, you push a pendulum in a normal system and it completes a swing every 2 seconds, which is the timing in a regular system. But in a time crystal example, you push it exactly the same, with the same driving force and outside factors, but the pendulum takes 4 seconds to complete a swing instead of 2. This means it has broken the time translation symmetry, but not the laws of physics. This is a super simplified description, but that’s the most distinctive aspect of time crystals compared to other states of matter that have been observed.