Time crystals and their repeating nature
In: Physics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal
Crystalline structures are found everywhere within the natural world, from the structures of molecules to plant life. It’s much easier to think of this mathematically than physically, but essentially there are events or characteristics that occur in time that have crystalline structure. It’s hard to explain theoretical physics to a 5 year old
My understanding is that it’s a structure that continuously oscillates between two or more relatively (but not entirely) stable states.
A spatial crystal is a structure in which its component molecules or atoms occur in a continuous pattern in space. So two atoms in the crystal might be separated by, say, three units of space. The structure of it is such that it will always be atom – (three units of space) – atom; you *cannot* have an atom that’s two or four units of space between them. The time crystal is a similar idea, except mapped in time instead of space: the structure will achieve certain configurations in regularly occurring intervals.
There’s a whole lot more to it than that (something about requiring periodic kicks but the oscillation is longer than the kick, also how it doesn’t violate thermodynamics or lead to perpetual motion machines) but the rest of it goes way over my head.
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