Eureka! A research team featuring dozens of scientists working in partnership with Google‘s quantum computing labs may have created the world’s first time crystal inside a quantum computer.These scientists may have produced an entirely new phase of matter. I’m going to do my best to explain what that means and why I personally believe this is the most important scientific&nbsp;breakthrough in our lifetimes.

Time Crystals

However, for the sake of clarity, there’s two points I need to make first:<ol><li>Time crystals are a wickedly difficult concept to understand and even harder to explain.</li><li>The Google team might have created time crystals. This is pre-print research and has yet to receive full peer-review. Until the rest of the scientific community has time to review and replicate the work, we can’t say for sure it’s legitimate.</li></ol>In colloquial terms, it’s a big screw you to Sir Isaac Newton.Time crystals are a new phase of matter. For the sake of simplicity, let’s imagine a cube of ice.

When you put a cube of ice in glass of water, you’re introducing two separate entities (the ice cube and the liquid water) to each other at two different temperatures.Everyone knows that the water will get colder (that’s why we put the ice in there) and, over time, the ice will get warmer and turn into water. Eventually you’ll just have a glass of room-temperature water.We call this process “<a href="https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Thermal_equilibrium#:~:text=Heat%20is%20the%20flow%20of,or%20out%20of%20the%20system." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">thermal equilibrium </a>.”Most people are familiar with <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/newtons-laws-of-motion/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Newton’s first law of motion </a>, it’s the one that says “an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in&nbsp;motion tends to stay in motion.”

According to classical physics, the universe is always <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-biology1/chapter/reading-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/">moving towards entropy </a>. In other words: if we isolate an ice cube and a room-temperature glass of water from all other external forces, the water will always melt the ice cube.The entropy (the movement towards change) of any system will always remain the same if there are no processes, and it will always increase if there are processes.Since our universe has stars exploding, black holes sucking, and people lighting things on fire – chemical processes – entropy is always increasing.

Crystalline structures form in the physical world because, for whatever fundamental scientific reason, the atoms within them “want” to exist in certain exact points.A time crystal is a new phase of matter that, simplified, would be like having a snowflake that constantly cycled back and forth between two different configurations. It’s a seven-pointed lattice one moment and a ten-pointed lattice the next.What’s amazing about time crystals is that when they cycle back and forth between two different configurations, they don’t lose or use any energy.

Time crystals can survive energy processes without falling victim to entropy. Most importantly, they can do this inside of an isolated system. That means they can consume the cake and then magically make it reappear over and over again forever, without using any fuel or energy. Nearly every far-future tech humans can imagine, from teleportation to warp drives and from artificial food synthesizers to perpetual motion reactors capable of powering the world without burning fuels or harnessing energy, will require quantum computing systems.

Quantum computers can solve really hard problems. Unfortunately, they’re brittle. It’s hard to build them, hard to maintain them, hard to get them to do anything, and even harder to interpret the results they give. This is because of something called “decoherence,” which works a lot like entropy.Computer bits in the quantum world, qubits, share a funky feature of quantum mechanics that makes them act differently when observed than when they’re left alone. That sort of makes any direct measurements of qubit states (reading the computer’s output) difficult.

But time crystals want to be coherent. So putting them inside a quantum computer, and using them to conduct computer processes could potentially serve an incredibly important function: ensuring quantum coherence.What Google‘s done, potentially, is prove that humans can manufacture time crystals. In the words of the researchers themselves:These results establish a scalable approach to study non-equilibrium phases of matter on current quantum processors.Basically they believe they’ve proven the concept, so now it’s time to see what can be done with it.

Time crystals have always been theoretical. And by “always,” I mean: since 2012 when they were first hypothesized.If Google‘s actually created time-crystals, it could accelerate the timeline for quantum computing breakthroughs from “maybe never” to “maybe within a few decades.”At the far-fetched, super-optimistic end of things – we could see the creation of <a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/new-physics-research-boldly-indicates-warp-drives-may-be-possible" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a working warp drive </a>in our lifetimes. Imagine taking a trip to Mars or the edge of our solar system, and being back home on Earth in time to catch the evening news.

A team of physicists working with Google claim, in pre-print research, they've created actual time crystals inside a quantum computer. This could be huge!

Science

Google may have achieved a scientific breakthrough: Time crystals

<ul><li>Researchers have recently reported that water is one of the least understood materials on this planet.</li><li>Water, according to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, equals effortless strength as well as grace and suppleness.</li><li>When water is heated enough and becomes invisible in the vapour form, it has enough pressure to break any object.</li></ul>Water appears fine-tuned towards all kinds of climate, ecosystems, animals and plants, having numerous properties and features yet not fully understood.

Water Isn’t Fully Understood Yet

Self Improvement

Water is deceiving by its very nature.
The legendary martial artist, philosopher and actor, Bruce Lee, once took a break from his meditation and gung fu practice and went sailing. At that time he was just a teenager, displaying his teenage angst by punching water with his fist.
He was surprised at the soft water taking his blow effortlessly. He tried to grasp water with his bare hands but it slipped through. Bruce Lee was intrigued by the nature of water, realizing that though it looks frail and meek, it can defeat the hardest substance in the world.

Bruce Lee On Water

<ul><li>Water behaves differently when frozen, suddenly shifting from a ‘disordered’ structure of liquid into an open, wider structure of ice.</li><li>The ancient Greeks list water as one of the four essential elements, alongside, earth, air and fire.</li><li>Homoeopathy, a form of treatment, works by putting extremely tiny doses of disease-causing substances dissolved in water.</li><li>Many wellness practitioners claim that water when consumed in a structured form, can slow down ageing, as it penetrates our cell walls to give us many health benefits.</li></ul>

Magical Water

It’s striking that water can illustrate and elucidate a martial arts philosophy while also being, to this day, the “least understood&#8230;

Why Water Is Weird - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus

We usually check the time using smartwatches and smartphones, which have clocks tallying the time with signals from atomic clocks, some of which are installed on GPS satellites.
The signals from atomic clocks are now becoming increasingly accurate, allowing us to measure gravity waves in ways previously unimaginable.

Measuring Time

Time Management

The oscillator, invented by Christiaan Huygens and used in most mechanical clocks, measures time with resonance, a pendulum of a fixed length moving back and forth.
This frequency mapping of oscillating movement was improvised in the 18th century by John Harrison.

The Start Of Calculating Time

Quartz crystal, a tiny musical tuning fork of high frequency and stability, is used in most modern clocks. The atomic clock, which all our normal clocks check to discipline themselves, was first built by Louis Essen. It worked by calculating the flipping frequency of electrons in caesium atoms. The frequency is so sharp that one second is exactly 9,192,631,770 caesium electron spin flips.
GPS technology, something found on every smartphone, has the accuracy of atomic clocks built-in.

Modern Clocks: Quartz Crystal To Atomic

Ultra-fast lasers, linked to atomic clocks, creates a new kind of optical atomic clock that is being researched by scientists. It is about a hundred times more precise than previous atomic spin measurements.
Such hyper-accurate time using laser beams provides new ways for scientists to detect space-time distortion, volcanic eruptions, and distant gravitational waves.

Better Than Atomic Clocks

New research has tested the latest generation of atomic clocks.

Scientists are hoping to redefine the second – here's why

Crystals are at the forefront of recent fashion and wellness trends. Celebrities are putting traces into their new perfume products while stores advertise the crystals&#39; supposed healing powers and energy.
But people&#39;s fascination with crystals and other gemstones dates back for centuries. Poets and authors during the Middle Ages used the imagery of crystals in their writing. Some medieval poets also used crystals as a way to examine desire.

Crystals at the forefront

History

Pop Culture

<ul>
<li>The word &quot;crystal&quot; comes from the Greek krystallos, literally meaning &quot;coldness drawn together.&quot;</li>
<li>Crystals are both dark and transparent. You can see through them, but not quite. For this reason, crystals have been thought to have magical, healing effects, and energy.</li>
<li>In the Middle Ages, people thought crystals would bring a spiritual presence. People still have that need, explaining the popularity of crystals. In a way, crystals fulfill the spiritual need for some people.</li>
<li>Medieval troubadours used the stone and its qualities to describe the beauty of the main character&#39;s love interest in their stories. They also used it to describe different aspects of carnal desire and love.</li>
</ul>

Crystals used in past ages

Medievalist Marisa Galvez finds that crystals inspired the writing and poetry of some authors of the Middle Ages in unexpected ways.

Understanding people’s obsession with crystals

Entropy is the natural tendency of things to lose order and become less organized. Left to itself, it will always become less structured. Weeds overtake gardens. People age. Sandcastles erode or get washed away.
Over time, everything deteriorates. This is known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics and one of the fundamental laws of our universe. The second law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system will never decrease.

Entropy and Second Law of Thermodynamics

This insight - that disorder naturally increases over time but that we can use our effort to create useful types of order that can counteract the pull of entropy - reveals the core purpose of life.
You can pull the weeds in your garden. You can clean your room. But because everything in life naturally turns to disorder, you have to use energy to create stability and order.

Creating stability and order

When we consider the human body, the atoms that make up your body could be arranged in nearly any combination and lead to no form of life.
Mathematically speaking, the odds are against your presence. Yet, here you are. It is truly remarkable.

Entropy explains many mysteries and experiences

Artists can create a form of order and symmetry that the universe cannot replicate on its own.
The number of beautiful combinations is far less than the number of total combinations. We should treat it as something unique.

The beauty of art

Marriage can fail in many ways - financial stress, parenting problems, interference from an outside party, conflict in core values, lack of trust, and so on. A breakdown in any of these areas can ruin a family.
To be happy, you need some degree of success in each area. Happy families work towards order in all the areas.

Working towards order in the family life

You have a combination of talents, skills, and interests that are unique to you. But you live in a larger society that may not consider your abilities.
It is improbable that life is going to grant you a situation that perfectly matches your strengths. You may not be in the optimal culture for your interests. You may be exposed to the wrong subject or sport. Knowing this, you have to take an unsuitable condition and turn it into a well-matched one.

Designing optimal lives

Murphy&#39;s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
Entropy explains why Murphy&#39;s Law is so prevalent in life. Life can go wrong in more ways than it can go right. What is remarkable is not that life has problems, but that we have the ability to solve them.

Entropy and Murphy's Law

Entropy is one of the fundamental forces of our universe. And the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that it will never decrease. Read this to learn more.

classicalphysics

Time Crystals

Google may have achieved a scientific breakthrough: Time crystals

Water Isn’t Fully Understood Yet

Why Water Is Weird - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus