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Science

Strange New Phase of Matter Acts Like It Has Two Time Dimensions (phys.org) 81

Posted by BeauHD from the mind-bending-properties dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 in Nature. This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable, says study lead author Philipp Dumitrescu.

The approach's use of an "extra" time dimension "is a completely different way of thinking about phases of matter," says Dumitrescu, who worked on the project as a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City. "I've been working on these theory ideas for over five years, and seeing them come actually to be realized in experiments is exciting." Dumitrescu spearheaded the study's theoretical component with Andrew Potter of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Romain Vasseur of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Ajesh Kumar of the University of Texas at Austin. The experiments were carried out on a quantum computer at Quantinuum in Broomfield, Colorado, by a team led by Brian Neyenhuis.
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Strange New Phase of Matter Acts Like It Has Two Time Dimensions More

Strange New Phase of Matter Acts Like It Has Two Time Dimensions

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  • "By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer"

    Inspired by Fibonacci numbers? At atoms inside a computer?

    Try harder.

  • Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to understand it but it seems they're just firing lasers in a specific sequence, then click their heals 3 times , think of Kansas and for quantum/higher dimensions/pentose tiles/fibonnaci other theoretical buzzword bingo reasons that means it looks like the crystals could have 2 time dimensions if you squint at them in the right way.

    • If I understood correctly, this extra "dimension" is a bit like treating alternating current as a two-dimensional vector spinning around. The extra dimension isn't really there, but it makes things much easier mathematically.

      • It’s all fun and games till someone busts out the phasors.
      • left, right, up, down, forward, backward, tilt, jaw, pitch (and whatever their both sides are called). woah! 6 dimensions of.. space? oh, quarks dont really have colour, it just make things much easier mathematically.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Snard ( 61584 )
      We could probably understand the extra time dimension if we weren't all educated stupid.
      • Extra time dimensions would make laws of physics meaningless [wikipedia.org], so I'm not sure there'd be anything to understand.

        • Extra time dimensions would make laws of physics meaningless [wikipedia.org], so I'm not sure there'd be anything to understand.

          Well, what the popular discussion actually says is that the laser pulses have the time symmetry similar to projecting two dimensions onto one. It's like saying a (two-dimensional) drawing of a cube has three dimensions. No, it doesn't actually have three dimensions; it's just calculated from a projection of three dimensions.

          (the phasor example above is right on).

          • galileo made flat earth useless. geeks work against string theory is the same thing as the church working against science.
          • but a cube is just a 3d square? and a square is just a 2d point? just like division is just minus minused. and multiplication is plus plused. do they exist? and minus is just plus reversed. does minus exist? if you take two two dimensional drawings of a cube drawned from different angels, and use 3d glasses, is it a 3d object then? wow, does anyone even mention stephen hawking here? go back to writing ½D code of mediocre microsoft copies. autodidacts are great.
        • everyone calls einstein a douchebag. but he spent his later days trying to come up, with what would be the string theory. he researched a lot into multi-dimensions. the simplest string theory is 11 dimensions, with 2 dimensions of time. its sad people dont even understand quantum physics. slashdot reminds me of the registry. just a bunch of drunk englishmen in pubs, trying to be funny. i guess legalising weed wasnt such a good idea.
      • time before: only forwards, at a constant speed (1/4 dimension?). time as 1/2 dimension: can go forward, at different speeds. time as 1 dimension: can go forward and backward, and at different speeds. time as 2 dimensions: you can redo a change you didnt like (as seen in CERNs photon experiments). time as 3 dimensions: ?? ?? ?? ?? ??. if time is a dimension, can we photograph it? (weve got cameras to photograph gravitywaves, why not?). time as 0 dimensions: motion is only the speed at which atoms move aroun
    • Multidimensional time has been useful in many SF stories and films and the net has several contributions of personal experiences of people that moved in a different time line. I regarded this as amusing nonsense until I had a couple of very brief experiences in what might be explained as an adjacent time line so I am not sure anymore about the nature of our time-space.

      • I regarded this as amusing nonsense until I had a couple of very brief experiences in what might be explained as an adjacent time line so I am not sure anymore about the nature of our time-space.

        Occam's Razor says that you having a temporary bout of insanity is a vastly more likely explanation than a profound misunderstanding of laws of physics on humanity's part.

        • In my long life (I am 96) my occasional bouts are with sanity since, like most of the current world now facing extinction, insanity is my only recourse to retain some grasp of current reality.
        • to say it once again: have you ever drunk a beer? "reality" sure seemed weird then, huh? its a shame normies act like they dont know anything. what would you call that? normopathy? yep.
        • I'd think that the simplest explanation would be a vivid dream.

      • Multidimensional time has been useful in many SF stories and films

        ...because it's convenient science-sounding jargon that gives a pretext of "this is real science that you just don't understand" to make plots work.

        • There was no intended confusion in the film "Back To The Future", merely an attempt to play with a far fetched idea where a two dimensional time presented a surface instead of a line to permit multiple time lines and solidify the notion of probability.
      • if youve ever had a best friend, or been in love, youd understand. you know when people argue about seemingly meaningless things, because each side interprets things in polarity? paralell universes. i guess normies have never drank a beer.
        • Nevertheless, multiple universes are not totally dismissed, even within accepted science and fantasy speculations on realities is a fundamental element of all exploratory attempts to make sense of perceptions. Science is no different from any of the other arts to grapple with confusion and solve puzzles, even if that solution has a useful bu temporary utility.That one universe might also offer multiple branching solutions is not a particularly radical concept.
          • i have an older relative who does research on multi-dimensionality. not sure if i would want to meet him. hed probably not reveal anything. i know people who can see time. (they download your fate from the akashic library. [uhm is the powerword for the third transcendental chakra. you know when people try to remember what they were gonna say? they say.. uhm.. a lot] whatever you say to them, they see it from a 100 angles. you know how some people, always "freeze" when you talk to them? they see what you say
            • Thank you for giving me a glimpse of your universe, as well stocked with mysteries of rather different qualities than those that inhabit my own varieties of monsters and mice. We each devise a different set of tools to deal with our own menageries and some can be succumbed to eat out of our hand while others find our fingers delicious.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by noodler ( 724788 )

        I regarded this as amusing nonsense until I had a couple of very brief experiences in what might be explained as an adjacent time line

        The question is whether it is better explained by a (temporary) malfunction of the brain.
        Our brains, our perception, is full of flaws, and we regularly project the results of these flaws onto the world.

        • I had this brief experience twice. In walking down a familiar path in a nearby park I noticed the foliage was quite different and a familiar stream had a fallen tree in the water. Also, a trash can was in a very different position. I walked back to the beginning of that path and approached the stream from a parallel path to discover the fallen tree had vanished and the trash can was where it usually had been, Retracing my approach, everything had returned to normal. The whole experience took about 20 minute

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by noodler ( 724788 )

            I don't doubt you experienced these things in some way.
            But it is difficult for me to ascribe these experiences to something as astonishing as parallel time lines.

            First big problem is that if you managed to have this experience twice then it would be statistically extremely likely that people around the world would have these experiences all the time and we would have acknowledged this phenomenon as a part of reality. Science has found many much more subtle dynamics in the universe but hasn't found what you

            • I merely described what happened. The only emotion was surprise to notice the unexpected. My guess that it may have involved a parallel universe is the only thing that came to mind. The site at https://www.techeblog.com/biza... [techeblog.com] seemed to me as unlikely until my two occurrences. Now I'm not so sure.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by noodler ( 724788 )

                https://www.techeblog.com/bizarre-story-of-a-man-who-was-caught-in-a-time-slip/

                This sounds more like a good practical joke than anything else.
                Humans are eager to believe in bizarre stuff. Remember crop circles? Even after the people originally making them came forward about their joke, a lot of people kept believing in extra terrestrial origins of these circles.

                • The net is overflowing with all sorts of nonsense but this world is stranger than you think. Until the US recently set up an office to observe UFOs that also was generally considered nonsense - and a good deal of it still is.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by noodler ( 724788 )

                    UFO's are not nonsense. What is nonsense is ascribing alien origins to UFOs. The US has set up a program not because they believe in little green men, they are afraid that some country has technology they don't have nor understand.
                    Also, a lot of the publicly available 'evidence' presented by army sources is garbage. You know, the tic toc videos etc. Those are pretty much debunked as optical artifacts of various kinds.

                    • I've been following the UFO thing since the foo fighters back in 1944 in WWII and no doubt a good deal of nonsense was involved. But their behavior was frequently far different than human technology could manage.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by noodler ( 724788 )

                      But their behavior was frequently far different than human technology could manage.

                      It's near impossible to say anything sensible about these things as there is extremely little evidence (never mind actual proof), what evidence is there is incredibly vague ambiguous and dubious and the whole faulty brain thing still plays a major role in our perception.

                      One thing i'm sure of though, if there are extraterrestrial beings that have the technology to travel between stars they probably won't be doing whizzy fly-by's or crash hopelessly on earth. They'll be observing from a safe distance. There w

                    • Extraterrestrial might have possibilities other than interstellar as far as these conversations go. That they are different is likely. Where they originate is a different matter.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by noodler ( 724788 )

                      Extraterrestrial might have possibilities other than interstellar as far as these conversations go.

                      Sure, but that would make alien UFOs even less likely, right?

                      That they are different is likely.

                      Funnily enough extraterrestrials are usually described as extremely humanoid. And generally speaking, all these UFO stories smell of anthropocentricm.
                      In any case it's practically impossible that any of the UFO stories have anything to do with extraterrestrials.

                    • The ease with which impossibilities are embraced on almost total unknowns can sometimes be amusing when new facts are revealed. I am not embarrassed to declare myself too ignorant on the matter when nothing definite is acknowledged.
              • This also is a source that I believed was nonsense until my personal experiences. https://www.buzzfeed.com/chris... [buzzfeed.com]
    • As someone has already commented, the article does not say anything about time-dimension at all, much less claim two of them.

      On the other hand, many fundamental properties are synonymous to symmetries (as least the math works out the same and the symmetries has simpler math). I don't work in this stuff, but the cited reason: error control is related to the time-dimension is discussed (if for no other reason that errors happen over time). The paper probably had this in mind, but *wisely* skipped mentionin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ET3D ( 1169851 )

      "This arrangement, just like a quasicrystal, is ordered without repeating. And, akin to a quasicrystal, it's a 2D pattern squashed into a single dimension. That dimensional flattening theoretically results in two time symmetries instead of just one: The system essentially gets a bonus symmetry from a nonexistent extra time dimension."

      The title and preface are indeed pretty bad, and try to make this into something it isn't, but the rest of the article is IMO better, and does give an idea of what's going on.

  • Time Cube

  • Sorry folks, we haven't invented any time machines.

  • Where do I pour my trash in to power up the tachyon transmitter array?

  • Either I'm too stupid to understand this, it's really just all total bunk, or maybe both.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      I don't think you can really decide "it's really just all total bunk" based on this article. I think it's just REALLY bad journalism trying to take a metaphor as reality. But it's so bad that I'm not sure.

    • Or the reporter is too stupid to explain what the scientists told them.

      You are not reading a scientific paper, but an article.

  • but if the universe is a 9 dimensional sphere expanding from the initial explosion of the big bang it is this expansion that IS time. Time is movement. The sphere is 9 dimensional and it makes sense to think that 3 of those dimensions are time.
    • no. the vortex theory says everything is according to fluid mechanics. it was a big flood. of course time is movement. or else we would be photographs. you know, how dreams play out?
    • the more logical thing would be 12 dimensions. space is 6. height, width, bredth. but then, rotation on all these too. ever played a flight simulator? (remember the spaceorb?). and if time is movement, in.. time. it would have 6 as well. then we could factor in (de)acceleration. then theres 24. or 48. or 96. or 192. we also have gravity (gravity quarks). and it goes on like this..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by noodler ( 724788 )

        How is rotation a dimension? You can get to any rotation by applying transformations in just height, width and bredth.

  • Link to the paper (Score:5, Informative)

    by paazin ( 719486 ) on Saturday July 23, 2022 @09:58AM (#62727036)
    Looks like it's on arxiv, as it's paywalled by nature: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.096... [arxiv.org]

    • I took a look at that paper and it is readily apparent that the only people capable of understanding it are those with multiple, highly focused post-graduate degrees. I have a hard time finding even a single sentence in it that I can parse.

  • For the editor, read that summary again, and again, delete it and rewrite it in a way that is suitable for a site full of nerds hungry for actual and factual data.

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