{"id":850557,"date":"2026-03-26T01:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/850557\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T01:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:47:19","slug":"physicists-create-levitating-form-of-time-crystal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/850557\/","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Create Levitating Form of Time Crystal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of scientists at New York University has created a version of the exotic phase of matter in which particles levitate acoustically and interact by exchanging sound waves.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Morrell<\/a><\/p>\n

Morrell et al. observed a new type of time crystal \u2014 one whose particles levitate on a cushion of sound while interacting with each other by exchanging sound waves. Image credit: David Song \/ NYU.<\/p>\n

Time crystals \u2014 a collection of particles that \u2018tick\u2019 \u2014 hold great promise for advancing quantum computing and data storage, among other uses.<\/p>\n

Particles in the new type of time crystal defy Newton\u2019s third law of motion, which states that for every action of an object, there is an equal and opposite reaction \u2014 meaning forces always occur in balanced pairs (i.e., equal in magnitude and opposite in direction).<\/p>\n

By contrast, these particles interact more independently and are not necessarily tied to balanced forces \u2014 they move nonreciprocally.<\/p>\n

Notably, these time crystals, which can be seen with an unaided eye, are suspended on a one-foot-high device that you can hold in your hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speakers emit sound waves and that allows us to place small particles in the pressure nodes of the wave, where they are levitated against gravity,\u201d said New York University undergraduate Leela Elliott.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s time crystal consists of styrofoam beads suspended in by sound waves, which served as an \u2018acoustic levitator\u2019 to initially hold the beads motionlessly in mid-air.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve discovered that a really simple system of two particles levitated in an acoustic standing wave can achieve spontaneous oscillations and a time crystal effect through their unbalanced interactions,\u201d said New York University graduate student Mia Morrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrucially, when these levitated particles interacted with each other, they did so by exchanging scattered sound waves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore specifically, larger particles scatter more sound than smaller particles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore a large particle will influence a small particle more than the small particle influences the large particle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, the interaction between a small and large particle is unbalanced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of two ferries of different sizes approaching a dock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEach one makes water waves that pushes the other one around \u2014 but to different degrees, depending on their size.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings expand the prospects that these crystals hold for technology and industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime crystals are a lot more autonomous in that they choose everything for themselves, and they keep themselves going,\u201d said New York University\u2019s Professor David Grier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are fascinating not only because of the possibilities, but also because they seem so exotic and complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur system, by contrast, is remarkable because it\u2019s incredibly simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings<\/a> were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Mia C. Morrell et al. 2026. Nonreciprocal Wave-Mediated Interactions Power a Classical Time Crystal. Phys. Rev. Lett 136, 057201; doi: 10.1103\/zjzk-t81n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of scientists at New York University has created a version of the exotic phase of matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3845],"tags":[242783,34484,242784,74,70,31274,242785,141352,16,15],"class_list":["post-850557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-acoustic-levitator","tag-crystal","tag-levitator","tag-physics","tag-science","tag-sound","tag-styrofoam","tag-time-crystal","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116292959976858652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}