11 ms·
Strange new phase of matter acts like it has two time dimensions
- andsoitis 4y ago"The best way to understand their approach is by considering something else ordered yet non-repeating: "quasicrystals." A typical crystal has a regular, repeating structure, like the hexagons in a honeycomb. A quasicrystal still has order, but its patterns never repeat. (Penrose tiling is one example of this.) Even more mind-boggling is that quasicrystals are crystals from higher dimensions projected, or squished down, into lower dimensions. Those higher dimensions can even be beyond physical space's three dimensions: A 2D Penrose tiling, for instance, is a projected slice of a 5-D lattice. For the qubits, Dumitrescu, Vasseur and Potter proposed in 2018 the creation of a quasicrystal in time rather than space. Whereas a periodic laser pulse would alternate (A, B, A, B, A, B, etc.), the researchers created a quasi-periodic laser-pulse regimen based on the Fibonacci sequence. In such a sequence, each part of the sequence is the sum of the two previous parts (A, AB, ABA, ABAAB, ABAABABA, etc.). 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."
- clord 4y agoDoes this then count as a sort of "holographic time"? Encoding two dimensions on a single stream of time.
- ttpphd 4y agoFeeling resigned to just not understanding this one as a lay person. Oh well, hope it leads to more cool things!
- im3w1l 4y agoIt's wrong to say that a quasi-crystal is crystal from a higher dimension. You apparently get a quasi-crystal if you project a higher dimensional crystal, which I guess is neat. But really they are just trying to hype up their own results.
- jerf 4y ago"Feeling resigned to just not understanding this one as a lay person." The biggest and most important step is to make sure you drop any mysticism about what a "dimension" is. It's just a necessary component of identifying the location of something in some way. More than three "dimensions" is not just common but super common, to the point of mundanity. The location and orientation of a rigid object, a completely boring quantity, is six dimensional: three for space, three for the rotation. Add velocity in and it becomes 12 dimensional; the six previous and three each now for linear and rotational velocity. To understand "dimensions" you must purge ALL science fiction understanding and understand them not as exotic, but painfully mundane and boring. (They may measure something interesting, but that "interestingness" should be accounted to the thing being measured, not the "dimension". "Dimensions" are as boring as "inches" or "gallons".) Next up, there is a very easy metaphor for us in the computing realm for the latest in QM and especially materials science. In our world, there is a certain way in which a "virtual machine" and a "machine" are hard to tell apart. A lot of things in the latest QM and materials science is building little virtual things that combine the existing simple QM primitives to build new systems. The simplest example of this sort of thing is a "hole". Holes do not "exist". They are where an electron is missing. But you can treat them as a virtual thing, and it can be difficult to tell whether or not that virtual thing is "real" or not, because it acts exactly like the "virtual" thing would if it were "real". In this case, this system may mathematically behave like there is a second time dimension, and that's interesting, but it "just" "simulating" it. It creates a larger system out of smaller parts that happens to match that behavior, but it doesn't mean there's "really" a second time dimension. The weird and whacky things you hear coming out of QM and materials science are composite things being assembled out of normal mundane components in ways that allow them to "simulate" being some other interesting system, except when you're "simulating" at this low, basic level it essentially is just the thing being "simulated". But there's not necessarily anything new going on; it's still electrons and protons and neutrons and such, just arranged in interesting ways, just as, in the end, Quake or Tetris is "just" an interesting arrangement of NAND gates. There's no upper limit to how "interestingly" things can be arranged, but there's less "new" than meets the eye. Unfortunately, trying to understand this through science articles, which are still as addicted as ever to "woo woo" with the word dimensions and leaning in to the weirdness of QM and basically deliberately trying to instill mysticism at the incorrect level of the problem. (Personally, I still feel a lot of wonder about the world and enjoy learning more... but woo woo about what a "dimension" is is not the place for that.)
- elil17 4y agoSo essentially this is somehow akin to a network with hypercube topology - it’s got a mathematical relationship to an extra dimension but there’s no physical extra dimension.
- philosopher1234 4y agoI don’t think anything is claimed about the existence or non existence of a corresponding physical dimension
- bordercases 4y agoIt's in the last sentence of the GP
- joenathanone 4y ago"The system essentially gets a bonus symmetry from a nonexistent extra time dimension."
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoBut that's saying that if you have something repeating in the same way along the X axis, you have two spacial dimensions. That's not the way most of us use "dimensions". (The math may work out for their usage to not be nonsense, but it's considerably less than a "real" extra time dimension.)
- Lucasoato 4y ago"There are no quasicrystals only quasi scientists" ~Linus Pauling
- venkat223 4y agoWill this affect the reliability and sustainability of quantum computing?
- venkat223 4y agoIs time is distorted space ???
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoTwo time dimensions? So the metric signature is (+,+,-,-)?
- Sharlin 4y agoApparently not in this case. But Greg Egan (of course it's Greg Egan) has written an entire novel about a civilization of sentient creatures inhabiting a universe with a (+,+,-,-) metric – time is still one-dimensional in their universe, but one of the spatial dimensions is hyperbolic: https://www.gregegan.net/DICHRONAUTS/DICHRONAUTS.html https://www.gregegan.net/DICHRONAUTS/DICHRONAUTS.html
- thatcherc 4y agoAnd in case anyone is new to Greg Egan, there's also the Orthogonal series (starting with The Clockwork Rocket) where the metric is (+,+,+,+) - the "time" dimension is just like the spatial dimensions. Pretty cool read with a bit of physics background!
- jacquesm 4y agoThat makes Flatland look tame.
- awsrocks 4y ago
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- 19f191ty 4y agoIt's still a single flow of time right? So more like two time-scales than two time dimensions? e.g. day and night cycle plus monthly cycles happening together on the same time variable. Have I understood this all wrong?
- dclowd9901 4y agoThat’s how I read it too. More that they’re encoding another aspect into their pulsing. But “multidimensional time atoms” is probably a much more appealing headline.
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- comnetxr 4y agoYep, this is it. The key is not that there are two time dimensions but two independent time translation symmetries, each which translates the system by a different period of time corresponding to the two frequencies in their pulse. The two time dimensions is an analogy that’s useful for the theoretical treatment of such a system.
- PartiallyTyped 4y agoI am way outside of my field, but what you describe sounds like Fouerier series.
- 19f191ty 4y agoFourier series is one way of separating out multiple time-scales, especially when they are regular and periodic. The example I gave will be amenable to that because the cycles are very periodic. But the different timescales don't have to be periodic. They can be quasi periodic, or completely irregular. They just have to run at different speeds.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
- roywiggins 4y agoThe "encoded" time dimension has a certain "Permutation City" flavor.
- dukeofdoom 4y agoSo is the Earth flat or not? That is, are there any mathematically possible ways the earth could be considered flat or two dimensional after all.
- ffhhj 4y ago2 dimensions of time would allow supertasks in our reality. A problem is solved in the perpendicular axis and the result is returned to our observer axis. No time travel paradoxes. Next thing after quantum computing.
- t_mann 4y agoDear quantum physicists, when will you stop messing with our minds? Just when we'd warmed up to superpositions over 2^n qubit states, you had to introduce extra time dimensions? Tbf, the quasi-periodic pulsing explanation is a lot more understandable than the headline had me think. Sounds like the second dimension is just a mathematical interpretation, just like you can reason about which higher-dimensional objects would give rise to a particular 2D pattern if projected onto a plane - it doesn't necessarily mean that the extra dimensions are really there, it just provides us with a new way of thinking about it mathematically (although I wouldn't be surprised if some quantum physicists came round the corner arguing that the second time dimension is actually there, sigh).
- altruios 4y agoI fully expect us to find multiple time dimensions to actually exist. But that is just a selfish hope for free will to exist. think about it: taps head If it's a time 'line' then you don't get to pick your direction - no choice is no free will, only if a line exists in a plane does choice come into the picture. /s
- t_mann 4y agoHaha, yeah this is missing a taps head meme. But we don't even need multiple time dimensions for free will to exist! I've heard more than one physicist argue that quantum uncertainty alone is enough to get us free will.
- jaynetics 4y agoI'd argue that a certain randomness of choice could indeed increase freedom of action, though it doesn't grant "free will" in the common sense. There's no need for quantum physics in this, though. A deterministic rand() will do just fine.
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- xwdv 4y agoCan someone attempt to explain what the implications of this would be on a more macro level?
- sedatk 4y ago"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"
- awinter-py 4y agonature article is paywalled, but looks like this arxiv from last year is the same? https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.09676 https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.09676 Dumitrescu et al not my area, but I think they're working with 'floquet systems' (the same platform used to build a time crystal) and 'mbl systems' (a kind of quantum system that can be temporarily protected from thermodynamic entropy). I'm reaching, but I think both kinds of systems show extended lifetimes when you drive them externally with a periodic laser. I think the Dumitrescu paper is building on work done in Else 2020 https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.03584 https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.03584 The Else paper is using two lasers with non-ratio frequencies to extend the lifetime of these systems. The new dumitrescu paper is discretizing that approach by using a fibonacci sequence instead? and somehow this buys them a few more seconds of system coherence?
- cohomologo 4y agoAs far as I understand it, either two incommensurate frequencies or the Fibonacci sequence ABAAB… approach produce similar physics. The Fibonacci sequence is easier to simulate numerically on a (classical) computer because there is a recursive property to it that allows you to jump forward in time in large steps, making it nice for theorists even if the experiments are fairly similar.
- inDigiNeous 4y agoInteresting article. The part that caught my attention was: "Even more mind-boggling is that quasicrystals are crystals from higher dimensions projected, or squished down, into lower dimensions. Those higher dimensions can even be beyond physical space's three dimensions: A 2D Penrose tiling, for instance, is a projected slice of a 5-D lattice." I've been working on creating digital mandala software for the past 10 years, and have created countless digital fractal mandala patterns during that time, and I've noticed that something really interesting can happen when you do that with a tool that enables quick and recursive creation of this kind of images. After creating a pattern for 4-5 hours for example, after that the patterns would continue be visualized inside my eyelids once I would close my eyes, evolving into new patterns that I did not draw on the screen, in a seemingly intelligent way, finding new shapes and patterns that I could not have created by myself, but some part of me continues visualizing these shapes into new, alive feeling forms inside my eyelids. Many times these patterns would continue living inside my eyelids when I go to sleep, and even sometimes continue right away when I awoke after that night. And this completely sober even. This effect can be magnified exponentially when combined with some mind altering entheogenics, but it works completely sober also. It is hard to describe, but the feeling has been many times that I am looking at an "2D shadow" of something that lives beyond this current moment, like I am seeing a slice of time represented in 2D about a higher dimensional form that is not possible to visualize with current tools. This article would push towards confirming my theories about forms existing that we only see parts of in slices of time, but somehow we can connect to those higher dimensional versions through the act of mandala creation. Just wanted to share some thoughts on the subject, it is not something I claim to understand at all. If you want to test this out yourself, we have a trial version of our software available at http://www.OmniGeometry.com http://www.OmniGeometry.com :-) Would be interesting to hear if you have some thoughts on this subject. The act of creating mandalas is something many spiritual traditions also have utilized to connect us to the coherence of the greater patterns, like the tibetan monks creating sand mandalas and then wiping them away.
- jacksnipe 4y agoThis isn’t any sort of crank theory, I think this is basically what string theory amounts to: we experience a 4-dimensional projection of an N-dimensional space. Also, in math, lots of things are projections of higher order objects into lower order spaces!
- Optimal_Persona 4y agoSays Dumitrescu, "I've been working on these theory ideas for over five years, and seeing them come actually to be realized in experiments is exciting." Wait, he only specified one of the time dimensions he's been working in...j/k, any experiment showing unexpected temporal properties is fascinating!
- fareesh 4y agoCan someone ELI5
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- brandmeyer 4y agoThey just need one more to catch up with the time cube guy.
- Sniffnoy 4y agoNote, the sequence used here is what's normally known as the Fibonacci word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_word
- pujjad 4y agoIn a world with two time dimensions there would be no such thing as causality: with a, b \in R^2 (the field of real numbers), a<b doesn't make sense, because two events can have the same distance from (0,0) but different angle \phi (modulo orientation of chosen frame of reference), and therefore I wouldn't be able to distinguish between past and future events in general. Causality breaks down. Propagating along a 1D trajectory (ie flow of time) would then be along a 2D "trajectory" through which I would experience indefinitively many events at once, unclear which one impacts on which others. But clearly I perceive me writing this post "right now", and am about to push the send button..
- humbleguy 4y agoCan't tell if trolling or not...
- pujjad 4y agoIt's an argument pro two-time scales and against two dimensional time just by looking at what math says about partially ordered sets. R^2 is clearly not partially ordered as opposed to R^1.
- _zywo 4y agoRelativity already has the inability to distinguish between past and future states built in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity I have no idea how 2D time would work, though.
- halter73 4y agoIt's possible to distinguish between past in future states if they exist in the same light cone. It says this in the wiki you linked to > However, if the events are causally connected, precedence order is preserved in all frames of reference.
- mjan22640 4y agoWhen you observe a particle, you see it in a superposition of a indefinite number of states. A photon moves at the speed of light, it does not experience the flow of time because of that, its whole lifetime is an instant from its point of view, and it "sees" the universe in the superposition of the states the universe goes through. Similarly, the indefinite number of states of the particle could be observing a development in a time dimension in which the time does not flow for the observer. They say, one man's instant, another man's eternity...
- blueprint 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_of_the_Beast_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_of_the_Beast_(novel...
- jroesner 4y agoDoes anyone also feel reminded of the TCAP or Transcapacitor or Transfer Capacitor story / hoax from 1998?