The heat-death of the universe need not bring an end to the computing age. A strange device known as a time crystal can theoretically continue to work as a computer even after the universe cools. A new blueprint for such a time crystal brings its construction a step closer.
Ordinary crystals are three-dimensional objects whose atoms are arranged in regular, repeating patterns – just like table salt. They adopt this structure because it uses the lowest amount of energy possible to maintain.
Earlier this year, Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speculated that a similar structure might repeat regularly in the fourth dimension – time.
To translate the spatial symmetry of a regular crystal into the fourth dimension, the atoms in such a "time crystal" would have to constantly rotate and return to their original location. Crucially, they would also have to be in their lowest possible energy state as they do so, meaning that they would naturally continue to rotate even after the universe has succumbed to entropy and cooled to a uniform temperature – a state known as heat-death.
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