Can a crystal grow or propagate faster than 'c'?

We have, perhaps, all experienced those 'heat' packs wherein a local disturbance causes a crystal structure to rapidly dissipate through the medium, releasing heat in the process. Nothing really 'moves' from one point in the pack to another, except the physical transformation into a crystalline like structure.

Now consider this happening as a result of quantum effects, perhaps quantum tunneling, quantum entanglement, or other unknown quantum effect. Consider also that this might be happening in some unknown medium or matter such as dark matter. This question is not about the 'how' or the 'method'.

Is there any practical or theoretical constraint that absolutely prevents any form of crystal from propagating in a structure whose boundary 'grows' faster than a speed 'c'?

For instance (for illustrative purposes but not limited to), maybe one atom (or whatever dark matter particles would be called once we find them) becomes a seed that causes a bond to form with a neighboring dark matter particle through quantum tunneling, which forms a bond with another neighboring dark matter particle (anthropomorphizing, "Oh, my, a particle just appeared in me, so I must do this" type of thing), and so on, forming some form of crystal lattice, that is propagating away from the original seed at a speed that exceeds 'c'? Since nothing is actually traveling faster than 'c' (the quantum tunneling particle does not move from A to B, it just appears at B, never really having been at A in the first place) except the arrangement of particles (perhaps an almost instantaneous chain reaction of quantum effects), and no information is actually traveling faster than 'c' (because nothing was known or defined about the particle until it appeared at point B), is there any specific law or principle or equation or theory or model in the existing physics textbook that prevents this from happening?

This is NOT about any limitation proscribed by any existing known theories of crystal formation and atomic bond formation in known substances, but about a limitation based on universal principles that would apply to ANY form of bond formation in ANY substance, known or unknown.

Please note, this is not asking 'could it happen' or 'how would it happen' or 'what are the conditions under which it would happen'. It is asking if there is anything we positively universally theoretically accept as fact that would prevent it from happening, notwithstanding we don't know how it would happen?

EDIT

TLDR

This question seems to have generated some controversy, based on misapprehension of the question. It is founded on a very complex concept, not always readily apparent. Here is a thought experiment that illustrates and perhaps clarifies the basis of it.

"Wormhole' technology and entanglement have generally been accepted as potentially possible. Imagine an infinite number of wormholes (folds in space/time) joining the seed node to an infinite number of 'particles', perhaps of dark matter, of which we hypothesize exists but we know very little about. The 'crystalization trigger' that changes the particles into a crystal 'structure' travels through these worm holes to every 'target' at 'relatively' the same 'time'. It would appear to an universal observer that the crystal had formed almost instantaneously, everywhere, and would certainly have 'grown' faster than the speed 'c' - limited by the speed of travel through a wormhole. (However, the information about such a formation would not reach the observer any faster than 'c'). But, like Einstein said, things can appear to one observer as being very different to how the same thing appears to another observer.

My research and knowledge has not revealed any principle or limitation that is posited by the current physics textbook that precludes this thought experiment from happening in reality. The limitation on the speed of information and matter to less than 'c' is through the normal unfolded space/time, and that seems to be generally accepted. It is my understanding that it does not necessarily apply to folded space/time situations.

The question is, beyond the accepted 'laws' that neither information nor matter can travel through normal space/time faster than the speed 'c', are there any other specific limitations to 'c' that would also apply to, say, wormholes and entanglement?

Incidentally, there are some good and sound speculations that posit 'entanglement' is actually an occurrence of a 'wormhole' or fold in space/time such that even though these two particles appear to us in normal space/time to be a great distance apart, they are really side-by-each in the quantum 'folded universe' world. An infinite number of 'wormholes' is thus not beyond current conjecture, just like dark matter, even though our anthropic viewpoint cannot 'detect' them.

An insight into this concept is given by

A Cryptic Equation The new wormhole work began in 2013, when Jafferis attended an intriguing talk at the Strings conference in South Korea. The speaker, Juan Maldacena, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, had recently concluded, based on various hints and arguments, that "ER = EPR." That is, wormholes between distant points in space-time, the simplest of which are called Einstein-Rosen or "ER" bridges, are equivalent (albeit in some ill-defined way) to entangled quantum particles, also known as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen or "EPR" pairs. The ER = EPR conjecture, posed by Maldacena and Leonard Susskind of Stanford, was an attempt to solve the modern incarnation of the infamous black hole information paradox by tying space-time geometry, governed by general relativity, to the instantaneous quantum connections between far-apart particles that Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." https://www.quantamagazine.org/newfound-wormhole-allows-information-to-escape-black-holes-20171023/

posted about 4 years ago

Justin Thyme the Second‭

1 reputation 1 0 0 0