{"id":221492,"date":"2025-09-06T03:29:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/physicists-create-a-new-kind-of-time-crystal-that-humans-can-actually-see"},"modified":"2025-09-06T03:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:29:58","slug":"physicists-create-a-new-kind-of-time-crystal-that-humans-can-actually-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/physicists-create-a-new-kind-of-time-crystal-that-humans-can-actually-see","title":{"rendered":"Physicists create a new kind of time crystal that humans can actually see"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4z4dY6qVrxo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Imagine a clock that doesn\u2019t have electricity, but its hands and gears spin on their own for all eternity. In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used liquid crystals, the same materials that are in your phone display, to create such a clock\u2014or, at least, as close as humans can get to that idea. The team\u2019s advancement is a new example of a \u201ctime crystal.\u201d That\u2019s the name for a curious phase of matter in which the pieces, such as atoms or other particles, exist in constant motion.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers aren\u2019t the first to make a time crystal, but their creation is the first that humans can actually see, which could open a host of technological applications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey can be observed directly under a microscope and even, under special conditions, by the naked eye,\u201d said Hanqing Zhao, lead author of the study and a graduate student in the Department of Physics at CU Boulder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine a clock that doesn\u2019t have electricity, but its hands and gears spin on their own for all eternity. In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used liquid crystals, the same materials that are in your phone display, to create such a clock\u2014or, at least, as close as humans can [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1512,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile-phones","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}