Saturday, January 28, 2017

Time Crystals! - Perpetual Motion Without Energy?


Sci fi fantasy is rapidly becoming science fact as time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future. Scientists have confirmed a brand new form of matter that appear to have movement even at their lowest energy state, known as a ground state. It's also called the zero-point energy of a system. It means "movement" should be theoretically impossible, but it's happening anyway. Ground state, zero point energy, movement, wha??

To help illustrate what this means, the Science Alert article by Fiona Macdonald, asks us to "...Imagine it like jelly (jello?) - when you tap it, it repeatedly jiggles. The same thing happens in time crystals, but the big difference here is that the motion occurs without any energy..." -  (No poker around to jiggle it, so how is it jiggling on it's own?) -  ..."A time crystal is like constantly oscillating jelly in its natural, ground state, and that's what makes it a whole new form of matter - non-equilibrium matter. It's incapable of sitting still."

Why is this a big deal? Well, according to Fiona Macdonald, this first example of non-equilibrium matter could - "lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of the world around us, as well as new technology such as quantum computing."

And as any Sci-Fi fan may tell you, quantum computing has been linked to....time travel. Cue the Twilight Zone music.


To read the rest of this very interesting Science Alert article by Fiona Macdonald...

Hit That Link!:
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-announced-a-brand-new-form-of-matter-time-crystals


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