[jdrov]

I notice a lot of questions here about piezoelectric oscillators, which I realize now makes sense given this community. A key difference to understand here is that the phrase "time crystal" is referring to a state of a particular "driven" system. So, the signatures we've observed are properties of not only the nuclear spins, but of their response to our driving pulses. So I could not for example "make an equilibrium time crystal and send it to you." Rather, to duplicate our particular results, you would need a clean MAP crystal, which you would then need to "drive" in a particular way, with energy input.

However, for applications, one could imagine a packaged system+driving apparatus with potentially useful properties... but that is just speculation on my part.

[swypych]

"..."time crystal" is referring to a state of a particular "driven" system"

eli5 please

[posterboy]

They drive a pulse of electro magnetic radiation (e.g. light) through it, and it takes a very long time to go through, perhaps the signal is altered and ideally it isn't emitted from the system until made to. That's more or less the same explanation as for magnetic and electronic memories, too. Explained like I was five.