Time crystals, first identified in 2016, are different. Their atoms spin periodically, first in one direction and then in another, as a pulsating force is used to flip them. That’s the “ticking.”
In addition, the ticking in a time crystal is locked at a particular frequency, even when the pulse flips are imperfect.
Source: yale.edu
The physics here isn’t too hard to understand. Scientists have long been able to push around single atoms within clouds of many atoms. In this case, they used two optical “tweezers” at two specific wavelengths.
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To say the quantum world is unintuitive is a staggering understatement. Particles end up in more than one place at a time, and the instances interact with each other. Decisions made after a photon has traversed an obstacle course determine the path it took through it.
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