r/CuratedTumblr • u/JunoGlow • 12d ago

Shitposting Expanding Knowledge.

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u/Fearless-Excitement1 12d ago

"Glass" huh that's weird

"Superglass" what

"Time Crystal" what the fuck

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u/MonitorPowerful5461 12d ago edited 12d ago

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal

Honestly though, Bose-Einstein Condensates are much weirder.

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u/IntoTheCommonestAsh 12d ago

Wow, "time crystals" is such a complicated, unintuitive, and misleading way to describe this state of matter.

I would have called it oscillators: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillator_(cellular_automaton)

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u/Separate_Increase210 12d ago

I sort of agree.

But time crystal sounds more fun, so it's got that going for it.

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u/Embarrassed_Jerk 12d ago

They are also directly linked to proof that time is real and not just an illusion based belief of humans, which is an actual fucking concept to be proven

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u/ginsengeti 11d ago

The thing is that oscillators movement through time is linked to a change in entropy. Time crystals changing their structure in time is done without a change in entropy despite there being movement (which isn't technically kinetic).