Skepticism About Time Crystals

"In fact, in the meantime, Bruno offers a word of caution. "I believe that this field has attracted an interest from the broad audience media that is not really deserved, starting with Wilczek's original paper, which was plain wrong, and others which have organised considerable hype and storytelling about phenomena that are definitely interesting, but in no way revolutionary and paradigm-changing. I find this trend deeply disturbing and detrimental to the healthy development of science." https://thewire.in/114959/time-cryst...lczek-soliton/

The crucial question is whether external energy is necessary. In the absence of external energy supply time crystals are impossible. If the external energy is ambient heat, then the next Great Revolution in Science is just around the corner. If the external energy is different from ambient heat, then the respective time crystals are nothing but media hype.

In other words, only time crystals violating the second law of thermodynamics are "revolutionary and paradigm-changing". A time crystal of this type can easily be obtained by submerging a capacitor in a dielectric liquid, e.g.. water:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teachin...es/node46.html
"However, in experiments in which a capacitor is submerged in a dielectric liquid the force per unit area exerted by one plate on another is observed to decrease... [...] This apparent paradox can be explained by taking into account the difference in liquid pressure in the field filled space between the plates and the field free region outside the capacitor."

We have a high pressure between the plates and a lower pressure outside the capacitor so if we punch a small hole in one of the plates, there will be an ETERNAL FLOW through the hole, from inside (between the plates) to outside. That is, we will have a SYSTEM IN DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM. The eternal flow can be harnessed to do work, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

The pressure that emerges between the capacitor plates (in general, between opposite electric charges dipped in water) and reduces the electrostatic attraction between the plates (the opposite charges) will one day provoke one of the greatest revolutions ever seen in physics. This pressure is nonconservative and its appearance in electrostatic systems (where only electric forces act by definition) is awkward, to say the least. Scientists rarely discuss it and sometimes even call it "mysterious":

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Elec...iglink21401-20
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Melba Phillips, Classical Electricity and Magnetism, p. 114: "This means that if a system maintained at constant charge is totally surrounded by a dielectric liquid all mechanical forces will drop in the ratio 1/k. A factor 1/k is frequently included in the expression for Coulomb's law to indicate this decrease in force. The physical significance of this reduction of force, which is required by energy considerations, is often somewhat mysterious. It is difficult to see on the basis of a field theory why the interaction between two charges should be dependent upon the nature or condition of the intervening material, and therefore the inclusion of an extra factor 1/k in Coulomb's law lacks a physical explanation." p.115: "Therefore the decrease in force... cannot be explained by electrical forces alone." pp.115-116: "Thus the decrease in force that is experienced between two charges when they are immersed in a dielectric liquid can be understood only by considering the effect of the pressure of the liquid on the charges themselves. In accordance with the philosophy of the action-at-a-distance theory, no change in the purely electrical interaction between the charges takes place."

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-T.../dp/0763738271
Tai Chow, Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory: A Modern Perspective, p. 267: "Calculations of the forces between charged conductors immersed in a liquid dielectric always show that the force is reduced by the factor K. There is a tendency to think of this as representing a reduction in the electrical forces between the charges on the conductors, as though Coulomb's law for the interaction of two charges should have the dielectric constant included in its denominator. This is incorrect, however. The strictly electric forces between charges on the conductors are not influenced by the presence of the dielectric medium. The medium is polarized, however, and the interaction of the electric field with the polarized medium results in an INCREASED FLUID PRESSURE ON THE CONDUCTORS that reduces the net forces acting on them."

http://www.academia.edu/25650739/Flu..._and_stability
I. Brevik, Fluids in electric and magnetic fields: Pressure variation and stability, Can. J . Phys. (1982): "Fig. 1. Two charged condenser plates partly immersed in a dielectric liquid. [...] Fig. 2. The hydrostatic pressure variation from point 1 to point 5 in Fig. 1."

I have described second-law-violating time crystals in more detail in my comments in Natu

http://www.nature.com/news/the-quest...e-time-1.21595
"The quest to crystallize time. Bizarre forms of matter called time crystals were supposed to be physically impossible. Now they're not."

Pentcho Valev

A simple time crystal based on the property of catalysts to shift chemical equilibrium (note that, apart from the constant temperature gradient, there are also constant concentration gradients and resulting eternal flows of reactants that can also be harnessed to do work, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...SLTD-Fig1c.jpg

Explanations he https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan%27s_Paradox

That catalysts can shift chemical equilibrium was my first heretical idea, about 25 years ago. I believed my argument was convincing and enthusiastically submitted a short paper to Nature - they rejected it without reading it (let alone giving it to referees). My efforts to publish continued, mainly in The Journal of Physical Chemistry, and I was also active on Internet forums. The main result was this:

http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/valevfaq.htm
Athel Cornish-Bowden 1998: "Reading Mr Valev's postings to the BTK-MCA and other news groups and trying to answer all the nonsense contained in them incurs the risk of being so time-consuming that it takes over one's professional time completely, leaving none for more profitable activities. On the other hand, not answering them incurs the even greater risk that some readers of the news group may think that his points are unanswerable and that thermodynamics, kinetics, catalysis etc. rest on as fragile a foundation as he pretends. [...] Can a catalyst shift the position of an equilibrium? No. Absolutely not if it is a true catalyst present at very low concentrations. If it is present at a concentration comparable with that of one or more of the reactants then it may appear to shift the position of equilibrium by mass action effects. However, when it does this it is acting as a reactant, not as a catalyst. Mr Valev's claims to have shown otherwise..."

In my first article submitted to Nature the argument was essentially like this:

Consider the dissociation-association reaction

A - B + C

which is in equilibrium. Let us assume that the forward reaction

A - B + C

is exothermic while the reverse

B + C - A

is endothermic. We add a catalyst, e.g. a macroscopic catalytic surface, and it starts splitting A efficiently but is unable to get together B and C and join them into A. In other words, the catalytic surface accelerates the forward reaction but fails to accelerate the reverse. This looks realistic - the probability that a B molecule and a C molecule will hit the catalytic center simultaneously, so that the center can combine them, could be vanishingly small. Yet, if this is so, the second law is obviously violated - even at equilibrium, there will be local temperature and concentration gradients at the catalytic surface that can in principle be harnessed to do work.

Pentcho Valev