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Science

Physicists Produce Biggest Time Crystal Yet (science.org) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the record-breaking dept.
sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: Physicists in Australia have programmed a quantum computer half a world away to make, or at least simulate, a record-size time crystal -- a system of quantum particles that locks into a perpetual cycle in time, somewhat akin to the repeating spatial pattern of atoms in an actual crystal. The new time crystal comprises 57 quantum particles, more than twice the size of a 20-particle time crystal simulated last year by scientists at Google. That's so big that no conventional computer could simulate it, says Chetan Nayak, a condensed matter physicist at Microsoft, who was not involved in the work. "So that's definitely an important advance." The work shows the power of quantum computers to simulate complex systems that may otherwise exist only in physicists' theories.

[Philipp Frey and Stephan Rachel, theorists at the University of Melbourne] performed the simulation remotely, using quantum computers built and run by IBM in the United States. The qubits, which can be set to 0, 1, or 1 and 0 at once, can be programmed to interact like magnets. For certain settings of their interactions, the researchers found, any initial setting of the 57 qubits, such as 01101101110 ..., remains stable, returning to its original state every two pulses, the researchers report today in Science Advances. [...] Whereas more than 100 researchers worked on the Google simulation, Frey and Rachel worked alone to perform their larger demonstration, submitting it to the IBM computers over the internet. "It was just me, my graduate student, and a laptop," Rachel says, adding that "Philipp is brilliant!" The entire project took about 6 months, he estimates. The demonstration isn't perfect, Rachel says. The flipping pattern ought to last indefinitely, he says, but the qubits in IBM's machines can only hold their states long enough to simulate about 50 cycles. Ultimately, the stabilizing effect of the interactions might be used to store the state of a string of qubits in a kind of memory for a quantum computer, he notes, but realizing such an advance will take -- what else? -- time.
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Physicists Produce Biggest Time Crystal Yet More

Physicists Produce Biggest Time Crystal Yet

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  • Hey Jim, do you have the time crystal? (Score:3)

    by mcnster ( 2043720 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @03:13AM (#62321279)
    "Yes, but not right now."

  • How big does it need to be... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How big does it need to be before we can put it in a cube and have real-life time cube?
  • The work shows the power of quantum computers to simulate complex systems that may otherwise exist only in physicists' theories. Pure writer. He will have the whole of quantum computing community on his back for letting this out.

    • Re:Please read the sentence below one more time (Score:5, Informative)

      by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:18AM (#62321363)

      Its a pretty bad description, especially since its not actually "simulating" the time crytal, it IS the time crystal.

      Better description here: https://www.science.org/doi/10... [science.org]

      • That too is somewhat misleading if I follow that paper correctly... it IS the time crystal because they loaded a program which coaxed the qubits in the machine to behave as a time crystal but only for a few cycles. In this case it is more a logical model of behavior than an external entity or 'thing' so it is no more or less inaccurate than calling a program which models digital logic on a computer a 'simulation.' Technically, if you model a NOR gate on a computer, it IS a NOR gate as well but we still cal

  • By this logic, George R. R. Martin produced an amazing substance that can burn almost anything - Wildfire. Maybe we should award him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

    • The article is terrible.

      The quantium computer "program" *IS* the time crystal. Because the qubits form a system of spatially entangled qubits that repeats temporally rather than spatially.

      Its not a "simulation", its the actual thing. People imagining a "crystal" you can hold in your hand are imagining the wrong thing. Its a temporal system not a spatial system.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BeerCat ( 685972 )

        Patterns that repeat temporally sounds like some of the shapes in Conway's game of life.

        Back in the 1980s, and that was about the limit of what people could do with their microcomputer (Commodore PET, TRS-80 era) based progarms.

        Now there are enough known repeating patterns that a digital clock can be done using the game of life rules
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        Wonder what will be done with these qubit patterns in 40 years

        • An interesting analogy with the game of life. If accurate (as an analogy can be), it would a wonderful one for the researchers to invoke when speaking with science writers to at least get them writing in something that vaguely resembles the right direction.

          Of course, it would inevitably lead to questions about whether time-crystal "travelers" could exist. Which I suspect is pushing the analogy too far - the Game of Life doesn't have conservation of energy as one of its rules.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        The article is terrible.

        The quantium computer "program" *IS* the time crystal. Because the qubits form a system of spatially entangled qubits that repeats temporally rather than spatially.

        Its not a "simulation", its the actual thing

        OK, but so what? I can write a while(true) loop. Who cares?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          OK, but so what? I can write a while(true) loop. Who cares?

          Scientists working with quantum computers care. Because it could be a way to keep qbit states around for longer, hopefully indefinitely.

      • People imagining a "crystal" you can hold in your hand are imagining the wrong thing.

        Why is it called a "time crystal" instead of a computer program?

        • A crystal is really a structure, not a thing per say. They call this a crystal because of the similarity in notion of uniform structure.

          The distinction is important here because it is more akin to a computer modeling digital logic than a 'simulation' per say, in that the underlying physical behavior is actually happening when the program runs, it isn't merely an abstraction of the behavior.
      • I think the article also confuses things unnecessarily by pointing out that the quantum computer was logged into over the internet. This isn't something you would do with your hands anyways (like spinning 20 plates on poles or something?) so the type of connection from your keyboard to the quantum computer is irrelevant.
      • The problem is that they are trying to hype the physics far, far too much that it actually obscures what they have done. If you drop all the "time crystal" and "time translational symmetry violation" hype it's just a complex, many-body quantum oscillator whose frequency changes over time. The interesting part is that it always remembers its initial state.

  • Philipp Frey and Time Crystal

    I was thinking: Philip Fry and Time Button ...

    (Meanwhile [wikipedia.org])

  • They have created an oscillator using very expensive parts!

    Make it turn!
  • Bullshit from a group of drunk scientists sitting around a bar or tavern trying to see which one can come up with the most absurd idea
  • Seems we need to get Sgt Cortez out of retirement. https://static1.thegamerimages... [thegamerimages.com]

  • The desperate search for something that quantum computers can actually do, is a bit strange...

    So here, they have a set of quantum particles. These particles are interacting in an interesting way. That's great, and possibly the system of interactions really is so complex that a digital computer would have difficulty simulating it in real time. So what? We can say that about a lot of things. Quantum particles are just doing what quantum particles do - they aren't simulating anything - they get this behavior

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbengt ( 874751 )

      So here, they have a set of quantum particles. These particles are interacting in an interesting way. That's great, and possibly the system of interactions really is so complex that a digital computer would have difficulty simulating it in real time. So what?

      So it's a start on trying to keep data in a quantum computer from being lost due to thermal noise.

      • That is exactly what it is.. or hopefully will eventually be since it only succeeded for 50 cycles. But it is being spun as many breakthroughs rather than an incremental step toward one potential breakthrough that could be years or decades away. $$$
  • Can it be used as a super battery to cure all of our problems? I haven't seen the daily super battery post yet..
  • What is this new technology, that makes up almost half of the summary, that allows you to access a computer remotely using only your laptop? Working remotely sounds like it could have several advantages. Has anyone thought about using this in business?
  • How many quantum computers would we need to create a Time Cube?
  • Uncle Rico will be pleased. One step closer to finally going back & getting into the NFL.
  • Simlations

    All

    The

    Way

    Down


    -in other words, nothing!
  • Now I know the answer to the Fermi Paradox. Every advanced civilization gets caught it a time loop. Quantum computing error mitigation self references and a black hole is created. Good-bye.

  • That is what is going to power the quantum leap reboot. Or has it started yet, I get confused because its all a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

    All we need now is a 1.21 jigawatts.

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