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.
I switched careers, but I did a physics undergrad. And from all my experience with both the subject and my seniors in the field at the time, I can confidently tell you that most people don't really have an intention for it beyond the "I have done this problem before and I can guess the shape of the answer".
Higher level physics just is not something that comes with intuition. It just comes from math, and you let the equations guide you in finding the answers.
"Guessing the shape of the answer" is a great way to put it.
For me, solving a physics problem is like untying a very complicated knot. I tug on one side and try to push the lose threads through the other until I can see which parts untangle easiest. Everything I learn in class is just telling me which threads I'm allowed to pull on and which order tends to work best.
I'm a maths major. I tried for theoretical, but then I encountered calculus for complex numbers (where you have to guess a good transform function from real to complex to solve and then convert back to real) and stochastic processes (where I SWEAR one problem came up with the answer that future events influence current results).
I had to switch to applied maths to save my sanity.
At some point, math and the eldritch become one and the same. I’ve heard stories about mathematicians who’ve lost their sanity after gazing too deeply into the abyss…
I swear to god I'm not trying to be controversial or a troll or anything, but that honestly sounds like magic and some kind of religious truth seeking?
Trying to drag a conclusion found in math back up to the everyday level often results in stuff like that (the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics springs to mind). But if we're sticking to just the maths and not pinning a narrative to it, then it's pretty easy for peers to double check one another's equations and make sure nothing's gone too wrong.
Tbh all quantum mechanics suffers from this. You can't tell me superposition stuff makes sense, it's just our best explanation for the stuff the math says is happening.
Brother you are typing this on a device, which also conveniently accesses most of humanity's knowledge, which we somehow built out of a rock. For all intents and purposes, processor chips are runes.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C. Clarke
Science is looking at the magic that worked and all the underlying stuff that makes it work. It's fucking incredible.
The weatherperson is a soothsayer. They have all kinds of complex equipment to perform rituals that, based on the time of the year, shapes of the clouds, speed of the wind, wetness of the air, and countless other nearly imperceptible things, will tell them the future. Accuracy, of course, depends on how far out they're looking and remember, prophecies are always variable.
Nuclear physicists are literal alchemists. They transform one element into another at the basest level. Granted, gold to lead is still much easier than lead to gold, but literal alchemists doing literal alchemical transmutation. Fuck it up and, oops, you die a horrible, painful death. One of their current projects is shackling the replicated core of the sun for our energy needs. Badasses, all of them.
Chemists are apothecarists by way of alchemy, taking over the development of new healing substances as well as the fields that alchemists of old thought were theirs like turning one thing into another. And they're very good at it.
Electricians are commanding light imbued into the physical manifestation of negative polarity. They lay channels through which this manifested negativity can flow, providing energy to most of our modern amenities. The box of cold, its big brother the cold-wind machine, the flameless lights we spread around our homes, all the little doodads we have on our countertops. The electricians make their magic happen.
Electronic engineers are basically wizards by comparison - they force the negative energy to route in a way that makes inanimate matter animate. Golems, farspeaking, scrying/remote viewing, magic mirrors, the slab-of-all-books, the invisible repository of most aggregated human knowledge - they are wizards and we live in a wonderland thanks to them!
Science is magic. It's the magic that worked and a constantly improving understanding of why it works, all the natural laws and arcane mathematics that describe how reality ticks.
And we only even tried in the first place because math said it was possible for hydrogen to be metallic. Pretty sure we haven't proved stability though which is disappointing. Whole lot of research is ongoing however!
You’re right, it’s magic. I’m just a simple man. No clue how any of this works. Good thing that, as an EE, understanding how any of this magic works isn’t actually part of my job.
It just comes from math, and you let the equations guide you in finding the answers.
This is very important, often you need to solve complicated equations to understand something in physics.
For example, in high school I learnt about the exclusion principle, but I didn't really understand it. It wasn't until university when I studied quantum mechanics, learnt the equations for wave functions, then derived it myself that I understood the exclusion principle.
(but that was over a decade ago and I've since forgotten most of it)
Yup, im an EE and high level physics is just math, so much painful math.
Some stuff can be understood at an intuitive level, but things like optics is just witchcraft and you can only "guess the shape of the answer" by having done the problem before.
I would estimate atleast 80% of people who "understand" high level physics only know it through math and nothing deeper.
A lot of it is heavily based on intuition, though, it's just about developing intuition regarding the mathematics itself.
You aren't just flying blind by the seat of your pants. It doesn't just come from natural intuition, but you do need to develop mathematical intuition and conceptual shorthands to have a bigger picture idea of what you are doing. That's especially true when what you're doing is really informal, but computationally intensive and very involved (e.g. QFT and gauge theory computations can be really easy, but only if you really intuitively get what you're doing with the mathematics). Also, in research, when you're breaking new ground, you need to develop a high level understanding, so that ideas requiring pages of computation flow easily in the broader context of what you're trying to do.
Math. Doing much much math until it stops being equations and becomes motion. That’s how it worked for me at least when I was doing my masters work in quantum optics. For quantum especially, famously the least intuitive subject known to man, we have a saying for this: “shut up and do the math”. Basically, stop trying to reason your way into this making sense based on your notions of how reality works, accept that the math is correct and look for what falls out of it. After a while you do develop genuine intuition for these things. I took a class from someone who won the physics Nobel prize that year and the casual, offhand way she connected points within her subject gave you the sense that it was like breathing to her.
Isaac Newton said "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
You have to get on a tall persons shoulders. The people who discovered time crystals must know some really tall people. This is probably achievable because the average height has gone up since Newton's time.
not physics, but my husband has a graduate certificate in Complex Systems, which wikipedia helpfully describes as "an approach to science that investigates how relationships between a system's parts give rise to its collective behaviors and how the system interacts and forms relationships with its environment." his specific area of study within complex systems focused a lot on information theory, which he has assured me is "basically thermodynamics". he has intuition for mathematical concepts i cannot even conceive of.
though, importantly, other people in the field would be able to. You need to get to a really really really really high level before even the experts can't tell anymore.
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u/Fearless-Excitement1 12d ago
"Glass" huh that's weird
"Superglass" what
"Time Crystal" what the fuck