If google's computer generated "time crystal" turns out to be backed up by peer review what are some of the implications of such a discovery?
Recently it has come out in the news that Google's quantum computer has created a time crystal (the way i understand it it is a computer generated formulation and not the physical thing). I am no physicist so I could be wrong but a time crystal existing would mean that the second law of thermodynamics (changing and movement of matter expends energy) would be proven to not be true for all forms of matter.
Answers ( 2 )
So-called "time crystals" are a cool idea. Like really, really cool. But if they are confirmed, they still don't violate the second law of thermodynamics. They're a great way to describe a new state of matter, but they're not magic. As Wikipedia states:
Basically, the laws of thermodynamics are a set of theorems that are meant to be applied to sufficiently large numbers of molecules. The quantum behavior of a single particle often can be said to violate those theorems because it doesn't apply to them. And the time crystals are part of an open system and can't be isolated, so it's only a problem in theory but not in practice.
But on to their practical use implications. Because they are basically providing a more stable quantum environment (with time as the fourth dimension) than other quantum demonstrations, the most often proposed uses for time crystals seem to be in the creation of even more accurate clocks, better superconductors, and in constructing quantum computers. And those computers may themselves be used to design even burlier quantum computers. Computer inception! But if this is indeed validated, I'm sure there will be far more uses, and far more interesting ones.
I have not digested the concept of "time crystals" except to conclude that a different name would be preferable (because now you can be sure that all the cheap TV fantasies will be using them for "time travel" nonsense); but I do have a comment on the Second Law:
In Classical Thermodynamics it is an absolute law that no process can ever result in a net decrease of entropy. However, Statistical Mechanics (which can be used to derive Classical Thermodynamics) allows for decreases of entropy -- it is simple very unlikely. See e.g. http://jick.net/skept/Therm -- this was one of the issues that contributed to Boltzmann's suicide.