Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal

Re:Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal by lisper on Friday October 07, 2016 @02:01AM (#12658522)

The difference between classical and quantum is not really analogous to the difference between digital and analog, it's the difference between real numbers and Turing machines (classical) and complex numbers (quantum).

But the ability of classical math to model all this is truly extraordinary.

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.htm...

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Re:Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal by nickpsecurity on Friday October 07, 2016 @11:31AM (#12661421)

Oh OK. Yeah, I assumed quantum did reals for probabilities. Might not apply if using complex numbers.

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Re:Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal by lisper on Friday October 07, 2016 @11:42AM (#12661514)

Probabilities are always real (by definition). QM uses complex numbers for amplitudes, not probabilities. The probability is the square of the absolute value of the amplitude. Why nature should choose such a weird rule is the Big Mystery. The best discussion of this that I know of is this one:

http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html

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Re:Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal by Jcol1 on Friday October 07, 2016 @12:41PM (#12661990)

Can you eli5?

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