Physicists Attempting To Test 'Time Crystals' 231
ceview writes "This story at Wired seems to have lots of people a bit confused: 'In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek decided to go public with a strange and, he worried, somewhat embarrassing idea. Impossible as it seemed, Wilczek had developed an apparent proof of "time crystals" — physical structures that move in a repeating pattern, like minute hands rounding clocks, without expending energy or ever winding down. ... [A] Berkeley-led team will attempt to build a time crystal by injecting 100 calcium ions into a small chamber surrounded by electrodes. The electric field generated by the electrodes will corral the ions in a "trap" 100 microns wide, or roughly the width of a human hair. The scientists must precisely calibrate the electrodes to smooth out the field. Because like charges repel, the ions will space themselves evenly around the outer edge of the trap, forming a crystalline ring.' The experimental set up is incredibly delicate (Bose Einstein Condensate), so it implies this perpetual motion effect can't really be used to extract energy. What is your take on it? It's unlike to upend anything, as the article suggests, because at a quantum level things behave weirdly at the best of times. The heavy details are available at the arXiv."
Wait. What? (Score:5, Funny)
What is your take on it?
Yes, Any other Nobel Prize-winning physicists / Slashdoters with Bose Einstein Condensate experience please chime in. ... /sarcasm
But first, let me get some pop corn
Re:Bose never got a Nobel (Score:5, Funny)
How the heck is it that Satyendar Nath Bose didn't get a Nobel prize?
I guess back then they didn't know how awesome his ideas were?
Actually, he only created speakers. Generally awesome speakers, yes, but just speakers none-the-less.
Re:Bose never got a Nobel (Score:5, Funny)
Well, there are four sides to that question. It's going to take simultaneous 24-hour corner days to come up with an answer.
Re:What does this have to do with time? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, after we produce 6 time crystals we can assemble the key to time. Frank Wilczek is really the Black Guardian in disguise, but the Berkeley physicist heading up the project won't figure this out until the last Slashdot article in the series.
Re:Wait. What? (Score:5, Funny)
But first, let me get some pop corn ... /sarcasm
Unlike the experiment, I predict a great deal of energy will be expended by lay people chiming in.
Like the experiment, I proclaim this energy to be perpetual while at the same time achieving nothing. ;-)
Its the auditors... (Score:4, Funny)
OMG the auditors [wikipedia.org] are back at it. Somebody find Susan.
Re:Bose never got a Nobel (Score:2, Funny)
bose makes girly sound systems
real men spend thousands of dollars trying to cram four 18 inch subwoofers into their supra, along with nitro and a v12 chevy... no hood required
Re:Yuck (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bose never got a Nobel (Score:5, Funny)
If the sound system doesn't give you involuntary bowel movements, it's not a real sound system.
Is that a "true sharts, man" argument?
Re:Newton? (Score:5, Funny)
Being observed is performing work.
That's not what my boss says!
Re:Newton? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, just ask any stripper.