Google Just Made A Breakthrough ‘Time Crystal,’ Apparently. Now What?
Image via Google
According to fresh-baked research straight out of the oven, Google’s quantum computer has apparently just managed to build a ‘time crystal’—in other words, a new type of matter which throws Newton’s first law of motion right under the bus.
“An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion,” states the law. Events happen due to energy exchanges; for example, ice melts in water because of an energy exchange (heat) from the water to ice. Entropy remains the same if no processes are happening, and increases when they do.
Put simply, time crystals ignore this concept. They can be used in processes without succumbing to entropy; without losing or using energy.
The Next Web explains this using the analogy of a snowflake which “constantly cycled back and forth between two different configurations” whenever it “wants” to. It refers to the time crystal as being able to have its cake and eat it too. And the fact that this can occur inside an isolated system means that it can have and eat the cake, then make it reappear for an indefinite amount of time without using up any energy.
Before ruminating on what comes next, it’s important to note that it hasn’t been truly confirmed if Google has indeed created a time crystal, or if it even belongs to it. The research is yet to be peer-reviewed. But the prospect of a time crystal finally de-myths the existence of one, which has been hypothesized since 2012 but never proven.
So if it really is a time crystal, what does this mean for us? Quantum computers are designed for wildly challenging problems such as warp drives, interstellar travel, and medical breakthroughs. The discovery of such a crystal could work countless miracles and provide breakthroughs in virtually any field.
[via SlashGear, image via Google]
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