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Crystals are found in many different places throughout nature. Examples of natural crystals include things like quartz, which is made up of a repeating structure of material that develops naturally over time.
Not too long ago, the concept of a time crystal was proposed, which is a system that repeats naturally in time. It is important to point out that this must be a spontaneous repeating, so creating something like a clock or a machine that performs an action repeatedly would not count.
The existence of time crystals has only been proven for about a decade, but they have drawn a lot of attention since then specifically for their potential use in quantum systems.
According to a study published in the journal Physical Review Letters, researchers have found a way to use acoustics to make things levitate, and with that, time crystals can occur. Not only that, but they can be seen by normal eyesight.
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When researchers take two beads of a light material such as Styrofoam that are slightly different in size, they can cause them to levitate using sound waves. This is nothing new. What is new, however, is that when the size of the two beads are just right, the sound waves are reflected back in such a way that results in four separate dynamical states. Two of them can be time crystals.
It is slightly confusing, but the lead author of the study, Mia Morrell, an NYU graduate student, explains in a statement:
“Sound waves exert forces on particles – just like waves on the surface of a pond can exert forces on a floating leaf. We can levitate objects against gravity by immersing them in a sound field called a standing wave.”
Then she points out the importance of the different sizes:
“Think of two ferries of different sizes approaching a dock. Each one makes water waves that pushes the other one around – but to different degrees, depending on their size.”
If you don’t quite grasp how this creates a time crystal, you aren’t alone. This is a highly specialized field that is very complex. The important thing is that, at least according to the study, it does create these crystals. The fact that they can be set up so easily, and observed with normal vision, makes them even more useful for practical tools.
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Physics Professor David Grier is the director of NYU’s Center for Soft Matter Research and the paper’s senior author. He said:
“Time crystals are fascinating not only because of the possibilities, but also because they seem so exotic and complicated. Our system is remarkable because it’s incredibly simple.”
Allowing future researchers to create and experiment with time crystals in such an easy way will make advancement in this field much more rapid.
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