Context:

Physicists have created ‘Impossible’ Time Crystal by Blasting Atoms into Balloons.

Time Crystal

• Physicists have used lasers to blast rubidium atoms, exciting them into a puffy Rydberg state.
• This experiment has resulted in the creation of a time crystal, an exotic state of matter, generated from a room-temperature gas of rubidium atoms confined in a glass container.
• First proposed in 2012 by Nobel-prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek, time crystals are groups of particles that repeat in time, much like other crystals (such as table salt or diamonds) repeat in space.

Significance

• This breakthrough opens up a new way to explore the properties of time crystals, along with phenomena such as quantum fluctuations, correlation, and synchronization.
• These insights are crucial for the design and development of quantum computers.