Researchers in Vienna have discovered something remarkable: crystals that don’t form in space, like diamonds or salt, but in time itself. Instead of atoms arranging neatly into repeating patterns, ...

Nature has many rhythms: the seasons result from Earth's movement around the sun, the ticking of a pendulum clock results ...

In their study, Zhao and Smalyukh created a space–time crystal in the nematic phase of a liquid crystal. In this phase the crystal’s rod-like molecules align parallel to each other and also flow like ...

First theorized in 2012, researchers are beginning to find new ways to implement this mind-bending technology.

Water, though familiar, still hides astonishing secrets. When squeezed into nanosized channels, it can enter a bizarre ...

Time crystals are physical systems that generate a special kind of order in time. Now scientists in Vienna discovered a new ...

Despite being one of the most familiar substances on Earth, water holds many secrets that scientists are still working to ...

Everything is born out of nothing. All you do is shine a light, and this whole world of time crystals emerges,” said University of Colorado Boulder physicist Ivan Smalyukh. In a field where most ...

A team at CU Boulder has made a curious state of matter in which particles move constantly—like a clock with hands and gears that spin forever, even without electricity to keep them going.

One particularly intriguing phase of confined water is called the “premelting state.” In this unusual condition, water appears to hover between freezing and melting simultaneously, resisting ...

Under a microscope, these liquid crystal samples resemble psychedelic tiger stripes ... in the years since, scientists have created phases of matter that get reasonably close. In 2021, for example, ...