eli5 what are time crystals

Question

Are they as cool as they sound

In: 6

Answer 1

A crystal is an object with a repeating atomic structure in space. A time crystal is where instead of being a repeating structure in space, it’s a repeating structure in time. So the atoms keep rearranging themselves, but they cycle through the same patterns. Recently a spacetime crystal was also discovered, where it keeps rearranging itself, but those patterns it arranges itself into were themselves a crystal, so the pattern repeats itself in space and time.