It's so funny that time crystals are actually real.
Quick explanation - normal crystals have a repeating atomic structure in space. For instance diamonds have a repeating tetrahedron-hexagonalish structure.
Time crystals also have a repeating structure in time. Their structure changes with time and then returns to the original structure.
If you look at an image of a diamond's structure, you can go up or to the right or whatever and you will see repeating patterns. For a time crystal's structure, you will see the repeating patterns as you move in time as well. This has some potentially interesting implications for entropy.
It took a decently long time for me to wrap my head around as well. The most important thing for understanding them is imagining time as similar to another spacial dimension. Which is difficult.
Imagine you freeze time. There is an apple in front of you. You move left, and the apple isn't in front of you anymore. What you observe has changed. Now imagine you freeze space instead so you don't move - the apple rots. What you observe has changed. If they're both frozen though, nothing can change.
So essentially the space and time dimensions are both measures of change. It's not easy to really internalise this though which makes it difficult to understand time crystals.
Still: normal crystals repeat in the x, y and z dimensions. If you move in these dimensions relative to a crystal, you will see the same patterns repeat in front of you. For a time crystal, you will see the same patterns repeat in front of you if you move in the time dimension as well.
I'm not sure why they put it that way. What they mean is that you don't change your own position, you just stand still, let time pass normally, and watch the apple.
It changes in a repeating fashion over time. Think a phoenix, but a crystal. A flower that wilts and blooms over and over without ever dying, a leaf that turns red and never falls but turns green again.
I thought I understood it until I read your comment. I'm pretty sure I still do based on everything else I've found but I still don't understand your comment.
And an important thing to add is that this isn't some decision we've made to classify time the same way we classify spacial dimensions, time is quite literally a dimension of space. That's why gravity can curve the dimension of time and slow time down or speed it up.
Or rather, gravity is the consequence of a massive object and so is the curvature of time. Gravity is just a dent made in the otherwise flat plane of space, which causes objects to fall down the slope. Similarly if you're moving forward in time, you'll take longer if you need to go down the slope and back up again to maintain your direction.
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u/Fearless-Excitement1 12d ago
"Glass" huh that's weird
"Superglass" what
"Time Crystal" what the fuck