Google's 'time crystals' could be the greatest scientific achievement of our lifetimes - The Next Web

A research team featuring dozens of scientists working in partnership with Google‘s quantum computing labs may have created the world’s first time crystal inside a quantum computer.

Time crystals are a new phase of matter.

Except when it comes to time crystals.

Time crystals don’t give a damn what Newton or anyone else thinks.

“Want” is a really weird word to use when we’re talking about atoms – I’m certainly not implying they’re sentient – but it’s hard describe the tendency toward crystalline structures in abstracts such as “why.”.

A time crystal is a new phase of matter that, simplified, would be like having a snowflake that constantly cycled back and forth between two different configurations.

As I wrote back in 2018, time crystals could be the miracle quantum computing needs.

Nearly every far-future tech humans can imagine, from teleportation to warp drives and from artificial food synthesizers to perpetual motion reactors capable of powering the world without burning fuels or harnessing energy, will require quantum computing systems.

It’s hard to build them, hard to maintain them, hard to get them to do anything, and even harder to interpret the results they give.

But time crystals want to be coherent.

So putting them inside a quantum computer, and using them to conduct computer processes could potentially serve an incredibly important function: ensuring quantum coherence.

Did you know we have a newsletter all about AI and quantum computing.

What Google‘s done, potentially, is prove that humans can manufacture time crystals

Basically they believe they’ve proven the concept, so now it’s time to see what can be done with it

Time crystals have always been theoretical

If Google‘s actually created time-crystals, it could accelerate the timeline for quantum computing breakthroughs from “maybe never” to “maybe within a few decades.”

Imagine taking a trip to Mars or the edge of our solar system, and being back home on Earth in time to catch the evening news

And, even on the conservative end with more realistic expectations, it’s not hard to imagine quantum computing-based chemical and drug discovery leading to universally-effective cancer treatments