Scientific American - 11.2019

4 Scientific American, November 2019

FROM

THE EDITOR

BOARD OF ADVISERS

Leslie C. Aiello

President, Wenner-Gren Foundation

for Anthropological Research

Robin E. Bell

Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty

Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Emery N. Brown

Edward Hood Taplin Professor

of Medical Engineering and of

Computational Neuro science, M.I.T.,

and Warren M. Zapol Prof essor of

Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School

Vinton G. Cerf

Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

Emmanuelle Charpentier

Scientific Director, Max Planck Institute

for Infection Biology, and Founding

and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit

for the Science of Pathogens

George M. Church

Director, Center for Computational

Genetics, Harvard Medical School

Rita Colwell

Distinguished University Professor,

University of Maryland College Park

and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of Public Health

Kate Crawford

Director of Research and Co-founder,

AI Now Institute, and Distinguished

Research Professor, New York University,

and Principal Researcher,

Microsoft Research New York City

Drew Endy

Professor of Bioengineering,

Stanford University

Nita A. Farahany

Professor of Law and Philosophy,

Director, Duke Initiative for

Science & Society, Duke University

Edward W. Felten

Director, Center for Information

Technology Policy, Princeton University

Jonathan Foley

Executive Director and William R. and

Gretchen B. Kimball Chair, California

Academy of Sciences

Jennifer Francis

Senior Scientist,

Woods Hole Research Center

Kaigham J. Gabriel

President and Chief Executive Officer,

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Harold “Skip” Garner

Executive Director and Professor, Primary

Care Research Network and Center for

Bioinformatics and Genetics, Edward Via

College of Osteopathic Medicine

Michael S. Gazzaniga

Director, Sage Center for the Study of

Mind, University of California,

Santa Barbara

Carlos Gershenson

Research Professor, National

Autonomous University of Mexico

Alison Gopnik

Professor of Psychology and

Affiliate Professor of Philosophy,

University of California, Berkeley

Lene Vestergaard Hau

Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and

of Applied Physics, Harvard University

Hopi E. Hoekstra

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology,

Harvard University

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Founder and CEO, Ocean Collectiv

Christof Koch

President and CSO,

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Morten L. Kringelbach

Associate Professor and

Senior Research Fellow, The Queen’s

College, University of Oxford

Robert S. Langer

David H. Koch Institute Professor,

Department of Chemical Engineering,

M .I.T.

Meg Lowman

Director and Founder, TREE Foundation,

Rachel Carson Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian

University Munich, and Research

Professor, University of Science Malaysia

John Maeda

Global Head, Computational Design +

Inclusion, Automattic, Inc.

Satyajit Mayor

Senior Professor,

National Center for Biological Sciences,

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

John P. Moore

Professor of Microbiology and

Immunology, Weill Medical College

of Cornell University

Priyamvada Natarajan

Professor of Astronomy and Physics,

Yale University

Donna J. Nelson

Professor of Chemistry,

University of Oklahoma

Robert E. Palazzo

Dean, University of Alabama at

Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences

Rosalind Picard

Professor and Director,

Affective Computing, M.I.T. Media Lab

Carolyn Porco

Leader, Cassini Imaging Science Team,

and Director, CICLOPS, Space Science

Institute

Lisa Randall

Professor of Physics, Harvard University

Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal and Professor

of Cosmology and Astrophysics,

Institute of Astronomy,

University of Cambridge

Daniela Rus

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor

of Electrical Engineering and Computer

Science and Director, CSAIL, M.I.T.

Eugenie C. Scott

Chair, Advisory Council,

National Center for Science Education

Terry Sejnowski

Professor and Laboratory Head of

Computational Neurobiology Laboratory,

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Meg Urry

Israel Munson Professor of Physics

and Astronomy, Yale University

Michael E. Webber

Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,

and Associate Professor,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

University of Texas at Austin

George M. Whitesides

Professor of Chemistry and Chemical

Biology, Harvard University

Amie Wilkinson

Professor of Mathematics,

University of Chicago

Anton Zeilinger

Professor of Quantum Optics, Quantum

Nanophysics, Quantum Information,

University of Vienna

Curtis Brainard is acting editor in chief of Scientific American.

Follow him on Twitter @cbrainard

Lucy in the Sky

with Crystals

When our creative director, Michael Mrak, sent around the il ­

lustration for this month’s cover story—a conceptual rendering of

so­called time crystals—our features editor, Seth Fletcher, re ­

sponded, “Cool. Very prog rock.” The artwork certainly seems

ready ­made for a Pink Floyd album (Roger Waters, if you’re read­

ing this, the offer’s on the table) or at least one of those velvet

blacklight posters. And time crystals are indeed pretty trippy stuff.

Whereas conventional crystals are orderly states of matter

whose patterns repeat at regular intervals in space, these more

exotic materials have patterns that repeat at regular intervals in

time. Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek

and his wife, Betsy Devine, coined the term “time crystals” in

2012, and scientists created the first bona fide examples in the

lab in 2017. Still a nascent field of research, it is one that could

lead to unprecedentedly precise measurements of time and dis­

tance, with myriad applications. For more mind­bending details,

turn to Wilczek’s article, “Crystals in Time,” on page  28.

Coincidentally, a few of the concepts that appear in Wilczek’s

story—phase transitions, symmetry breaking and “exquisite”

accuracy—also come up, in a more disheartening context, in

mathematician Bruce  M. Boghosian’s piece about the origins of

economic inequality, “The Inescapable Casino,” on page  70. It

turns out that they have been “hiding in plain sight,” he writes.

Models developed by physicists and mathematicians, which dis­

play features of physical systems, reveal that in free­market

economies capital naturally trickles up from the poor to the rich,

leading to oligarchy. And these models match the extreme con­

centration of wealth that we see in the world today.

Inequality is also at the heart of journalist Rachel Nuwer’s

account of biodiversity research in postconflict Colombia (“Con­

servation after Conflict,” on page 36). The country, which emerged

from decades of civil war in 2016, is home to nearly 63,000 known

species and likely many more. Ironically, the years of strife acted

to protect this rich natural history, which is now coming under

threat as farmers, extractive industries and others move into once

dangerous areas. But biologists can now travel more freely as well,

and the race is on to tally Colombia’s abundant fauna. Yet docu­

mentation alone won’t save those species. Economic disparity led

to war in the first place, so putting biodiversity in service of bet­

ter livelihoods for Colombians is a critical part of the equation.

Almost everywhere we look, science and society are inextrica­

bly intertwined, which is why we must hold researchers to such

high standards. Take, for instance, contributing editor Lydia Den­

worth’s description (page 44) of efforts to improve studies of

social media’s impact on young people. Science will only ever sug­

gest how to resolve our problems, however—the rest is up to  us.

Fortunately, the next generation appears up to the challenge,

and we were proud to sponsor the Scientific American Innovator

Award at the Google Science Fair, held in August. The 16­ year­old

winner was Tuan Dolmen of Turkey, who found a way to harness

energy from tree vibrations to power digital applications in agri­

culture. Explore Tuan’s project at http://www.googlesciencefair.com.

Illustration by Nick Higgins

© 2019 Scientific American