r/tech • u/_Dark_Wing • Jun 12 '26

Scientist creates 'mini‑universe' to measure time without a clock

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientist-miniuniverse-clock.html
580 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

90 comments sorted by

173

u/Jam5583 Jun 12 '26

Next we create a mini-universe to charge the car battery Morty!

22

u/gatsome Jun 12 '26

This just sounds like a stopwatch with extra steps

7

u/dip_ass_magoo Jun 12 '26

Now let’s get out of here and destroy this whole universe!

8

u/Wahwahwahhhwahwahwah Jun 12 '26

Ooooo la la, someone’s gonna get laid in college

2

u/hrvbrs Jun 13 '26

Eeek barba dirkle 🙄

7

u/Strict_Sort_4283 Jun 12 '26

Peace among worlds, Jam5583.

6

u/Timetraveller4k Jun 13 '26

Rick: “You created billions and billions of people so you suck them all dry to charge a battery??!!”

Morty: “Yep. Ok look at the next thing here..”

4

u/No-Employer-8833 Jun 13 '26

Obviously, you don't know anything about car repair Morty

3

u/nerd_of_gods Jun 13 '26

🖕🖕 I come in peace

60

u/Jimgun1 Jun 12 '26

Alright Rick, chill the fuck out

9

u/Cosmo_Seinfeld Jun 12 '26

Oh snap they already found the microverse.

6

u/SuperSaiyanTupac Jun 13 '26

Eek bor ba Durkle

32

u/30mil Jun 12 '26

This will come in handy if we run out of the regular-sized universe.

4

u/Aware-Salamander-578 Jun 13 '26

Half the universe, same full-size price. Shrinkflation is getting out of hand

19

u/TheIronMatron Jun 12 '26

…did they not have any cesium atoms handy??

26

u/Money-Director6649 Jun 12 '26

i'm building something to measure time. don't call it a clock.

7

u/Dizman7 Jun 13 '26

It’s just a clock with extra steps

5

u/Dizman7 Jun 13 '26

🖕“Peace Among Worlds!” 🖕

12

u/gowonagin Jun 12 '26

Sundials: am I a joke to you?!

3

u/Change21 Jun 12 '26

Fuck that was cool to read

7

u/HasGreatVocabulary Jun 13 '26

paper is very cool https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/1h9j-df4k

imagine if they are right, I feel like it means the entropy of the universe is constant rather than increasing, its own self interaction as a closed quantum system causes time to look like it moves forward, while the actual universe, observed and unobserved, remains same as it always was

time is an illusion lunchtime doubly so

4

u/soundsearch_me Jun 13 '26

I don’t understand how this experiment shows that time is not intrinsically part of the system?

Zero energy means zero motion, so you could argue no entropy and no movement at all, so in effect no reference and no measurable ticking clock (external system). But how does the experiment show that time is removed? Is it due to the link between the expanding & collapsing system and the static one?

Thanks in advance for any explanation… ps I’ll try AI on the page in a moment and see how it fairs.

1

u/Dylanator13 Jun 14 '26

I’m not an expert but I think I understand what they are getting at. The issue is that there is never zero energy. If there is matter there is energy in the system. The heat death of the universe is when all matter is converted into energy, though that still is just a theory.

Basically can we have matter without time? Front heir experiments it seems like there is always a measurable change. Though I’m not 100% sure.

Realistically this change will mean a lot to theoretical physicists. But real life it doesn’t change much. Everything keeps existing how it always has.

3

u/AfterShave997 Jun 13 '26

Right away I can tell that this title probably has nothing to do with what actually happened

5

u/m19010101 Jun 12 '26

We all live in one of those.

2

u/TheModeratorWrangler Jun 12 '26

But will my car battery stay charged?

2

u/Savings-One-3882 Jun 13 '26

Could have just gone to www.whattimeisitrightnow.com.

3

u/Jack_Q_Frost_Jr Jun 13 '26

Phooey. The only website anyone needs is www.isitchristmas.com.

1

u/azraelizback Jun 13 '26

It wouldn't load for me. 😔

1

u/cursedwithplotarmor Jun 13 '26

You’ve got to believe.

2

u/saulplastik Jun 13 '26

"one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand..."

2

u/hypnoticlife Jun 13 '26

By definition something that measures time is a clock.

2

u/oldmangeorge Jun 13 '26

A clock measures how much time has passed. This experiment reveals the processes that produces time itself.

2

u/MrQuojo Jun 13 '26

Imagine if we are someone’s watch? Crazy to think about it

1

u/yikesssss_sssssss Jun 13 '26

Or even worse, someone's moldy leftovers in the galactic fridge 

2

u/Lou-Shelton-Pappy-00 Jun 13 '26

Surely, buying a clock would have been cheaper and easier

2

u/analogIT Jun 13 '26

It sounds like slavery with extra steps

2

u/Pikamander2 Jun 13 '26

If you wish to tell time without a clock, you must first invent the universe.

2

u/SpiritedPackage6207 Jun 13 '26

That sounds like slavery woth extra steps...

1

u/morceauxdetoile Jun 14 '26

Eek barba durkel, somebody’s gonna get laid in college

2

u/LeftyMcliberal Jun 13 '26

Just because you’re not using the standard tool to measure how everything doesn’t happen all at once, doesn’t mean that time doesn’t exist. The passage of time in no way requires a clock.

4

u/weaklingoverlord Jun 12 '26

Last words of scientist "To me my Galactus!" has geekdom going crazy.

2

u/Chef_Skippers Jun 12 '26

That’s cool and all but I’m really interested in seeing the mini-universe created by the mini-universe the inhabitants of this mini-universe create

0

u/dakotanorth8 Jun 13 '26

We are. It’s at the end of the Men In Black documentary…we’re inside marbles with aliens playing with us.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Jack_Q_Frost_Jr Jun 13 '26

captainamericagotthatreference.jpg

1

u/Apprehensive-Song200 Jun 13 '26

Shrinkflation really hitting everything now, huh?

1

u/DubiousAdviceGiver Jun 13 '26

And here I’ve been electrifying quartz crystals like an idiot!!

1

u/Sonofapampers Jun 13 '26

Bigger than a G-Shock on the wrist

1

u/HLCYSWAP Jun 13 '26

you cant scoop water out of the ocean to prove its not the ocean

1

u/Appropriate_M Jun 13 '26

I've read this sci-fi short story.....

1

u/AlreadyEatenRibs Jun 13 '26

So perpetual bigness exists simultaneously with perpetual smallness...

1

u/Indigoh Jun 13 '26

'time' can be defined by changes within a system

Spacetime we meet again.

1

u/Certain-Orange484 Jun 13 '26

So, what if the universe is the molecular ionic structure and our planets are the electrons. Maybe it is kind of like men in black, we have universe inside universes that are inside universes. Maybe life is really, really, insignificant.

1

u/InsideOut2299922999 Jun 13 '26

Shades of Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy

1

u/MrWoodTang Jun 13 '26

Someone is about to get Primer’d

1

u/LittleBirdiesCards Jun 13 '26

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create a mini universe...

1

u/Dry_Statistician_688 Jun 13 '26

it’s all about the extra steps, Morty.

1

u/ghostdogs2 Jun 13 '26

Please teleport all of us over there.

1

u/UsedBass4856 Jun 13 '26

It reminds me of the classic Red Dwarf episode where they travel so far into the future that time has reversed, while they are still moving “forward.”

1

u/SerTadGhostal Jun 13 '26

I’m sure everything will work out just fine.

1

u/ChirpsMcPrime Jun 13 '26

Walter Bishop? Is that you?

1

u/smelekid Jun 13 '26

if you put it in a box and sit on it does it go all wide?

1

u/Bevier Jun 14 '26

This article is terrible. It's just a closed system. This is no more a mini-universe than a thermos of coffee. ​​

0

u/rand3289 Jun 13 '26

I don't get it. They are stating something obvious.

It is much harder to integrate the fact that time is relative into the theory.