Physicists Built a Spacetime Crystal - And Then Watched It Melt
Physicists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have observed the melting process of a spacetime crystal using a tabletop experiment with vibrating plastic disks. The study reveals that this exotic state of matter melts in three distinct stages, providing new insights into phase transitions.
Why it matters
Understanding how spacetime crystals melt helps scientists better comprehend fundamental physical phenomena like symmetry breaking and quantum states of matter.
Add ScienceAlert on Google (Florencio Horcajo Alvarez/Canva) We tend to think of melting as a relatively straightforward process – a solid material's gradual slide towards liquid entropy.
There's at least one material in the Universe that has a different way of doing it.
In an exotic form of matter known as a spacetime crystal , time and space can melt independently.
Using a tabletop experiment in which hundreds of plastic disks dance on a vibrating plate, physicists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China observed a spacetime crystal melting for the first time – and found that the process unfolds in three distinct stages.
The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , offers physicists their first opportunity to watch how this unusual state of matter falls apart.
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