Remember when we said that "Doctor Who" fans eager to build their own TARDIS would first need to obtain an odd little item called a trachoid time crystal? The exotic item was first mentioned in a 1976 episode called "The Hand of Fear" as being key to the machine's ability to travel through space and time.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek (MIT) suggested such a thing might be mathematically possible, giving hope to aspiring Time Lords everywhere.
SLIDE SHOW: Introducing the Warpship
Wilczek was teaching a class on 3D crystals: think salt, snowflakes, ice and similar sustances where the atoms or molecules are tightly bound in a very precise lattice-type structure. He started wondering whether you could have a crystal-like structure in the fourth dimension of time -- i.e., a spacetime crystal. He concluded that you could. Theoretically, at least.
To read more, click here.