A newly demonstrated link between a time crystal and a mechanical system opens a door scientists once thought closed.

A shimmering crystal owes its color to the precise arrangement of its atoms. Physicist Frank Wilczek, who won the Nobel Prize in 2012, proposed that similar order could emerge in quantum systems, not in space but in time. He called these systems time crystals, describing them as structures that remain in their lowest energy state while repeating motion continuously without any external energy input. Scientists confirmed their existence in experiments in 2016.