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

Question

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/

Answer 1

Information can't travel faster than c. That's what the implication of light speed boils down to.

Crystal formation faster than c would require that atoms at some great distance change position/structure before any "signal" could reach them to let them know to do so. While they might spontaneously crystallize on their own, it wouldn't necessarily be in an orientation with the crystallization that will soon catch up with them.

Basically you just can't trick light speed. Imagine you had a steel rod that was 4 light years long. You want to tell someone at Alpha Centauri that you'll be visiting in 4 years and you want them to bake you a cake. You have infinite strength, you push the rod, they see it move, and voila... FTL communications, right? They have 4 years to prepare.

But alas, no. This steel rod will take far longer than 4 years for him to see it "push" on the far end. The "push" only propagates along the steel rod at the speed of sound in steel (or something like that). The universe has it in for us.

Your question is flawed. In the absence of a phenomenon which is shown to be FTL or FTL-like, crystal formation cannot propagate faster than the speed of light. Quantum tunneling isn't magic wormhole technology and it does not occur faster than light. The spooky thing about it is that particles appear to go through barriers without penetrating or going around them... but they still require some sub-c time to do the tunneling.

If your creepy friend can walk through solid doors, he still takes 35 minutes to drive across town to perform the trick.

Whether there are implications where crystals form across barriers where the atoms don't actually come into contact I cannot say. That sounds fringey but not impossible.

Answer 2

It depends on what you mean by propagate. Phase velocity for an EM wave can be greater than c.

https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=16704&t=faster-than-speed-of-light

Nothing is actually traveling faster than light. This makes intuitive sense if you looks at a wave machine, like in this classic video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DovunOxlY1k

The waves don't actually move along the ladder, the dots are just going up and down. The "velocity" of the wave moving along the machine is just an illusion.

We could also think of the funny observation of a laser point on the Moon "traveling" faster than c. Sit on the Earth with a laser pointer that is sufficiently powerful as to show up on the Moon as a point. Flick it around. If you were on the Moon and considered the point to be an actual object, it would appear to be moving around with great velocity, perhaps even faster than 'c.'Of course, you know that it isn't really an object. The photons are all coming from Earth and obeying the speed limit. But since they are all in flight simultaneously, the point where they intersect the surface of the Moon can "move" faster than 'c.'

I don't know much about crystal growth, but it strikes me that if you had some medium that would crystallize when hit by the laser, or when interacting with (say for example) the peak of an EM wave, it could appear to grow faster than 'c' under the influence of either of these phenomenon. Information about the lattice orientation would have to be propagated I guess, but perhaps that could be carried by the laser?

Note that all of these mechanism in essence require setting up a thing in advance that will come to fruition in multiple places such that the crystallization appears to be propagating faster than c. No information can travel faster than c, no matter what quantum effects you want to throw in there.

Answer 3

The specific question that can be answered is, can the crystal propagate at faster than c. That is, if it started growing at some disturbed location and spread out from there, could it exceed c.

The answer to that is a flat no. Crystals operate on electromagnetism. Electrons and positively charged nuclei. If you get a crystal really exotic you might possibly bring in some weak nuclear.

These forces operate at a maximum of the speed of light. This is backed up by more than one century of experimentation. Winner and still Heavy Weight Champion of the World, Relativity.

Answer 4

Crystal growth cannot propogate faster than light in anyway that would transfer information. In other words, imagine there are two points in the crystal medium, A and B, distance d apart. Point B cannot crystallize because of any event at point A that didn't occur at least d / c units of time in the past, otherwise information has been tranfered faster than light. Specifically, an observer at B could know someone initiated crystalization at A sooner than they would know from a light speed signal.

However, there's nothing prohibiting the entire crystal medium from crystalizing simultaneously if the above restriction is respected. For instance, in a pool of crystal medium of diameter x, it's possible that "intiating crystallization" at any point in the pool has no observable effect until x / c units of time later, at which point the entire pool crystallizes at once. No information would be transfered faster than light, because an observer at one end of the pool would know it was going to crystalize before it actually did if a light speed signal was sent from the other end when the crystalization was initiated. I have no idea what mechanism might cause this, but since no information would be transfered, it's theoretically possible.