Related papers: Relating the thermodynamic arrow of time to the ca…
The second law of thermodynamics - the usual statement of the arrow of time - has been called the most fundamental law of physics. It is thus difficult to conceive that a single dynamical system could contain subsystems, in significant…
We postulate a principle stating that the initial condition of a physical system is typically algorithmically independent of the dynamical law. We argue that this links thermodynamics and causal inference. On the one hand, it entails…
Emergence of one-time-direction macroscopic evolution of a classical system of two mixed gases having different temperatures is derived and explained. The analysis performed at the microscopic level, where the time-symmetric laws of…
I argue that if a special science satisfies certain key assumptions that are familiar from physicalist accounts of the special sciences and from physics, then its causal regularities have an associated notion of entropy, and that this…
The aim of this article is to analyze the relation between the second law of thermodynamics and the so-called arrow of time. For this purpose, a number of different aspects in this arrow of time are distinguished, in particular those of…
What is the physical origin of the arrow of time? It is a commonly held belief in the physics community that it relates to the increase of entropy as it appears in the statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics. At the…
The mechanism by which thermodynamics sets the direction of time's arrow has long fascinated scientists. Here, we show that a machine learning algorithm can learn to discern the direction of time's arrow when provided with a system's…
It was recently shown \cite{opposite} that systems with opposite thermodynamic arrows of time could have moderate mutual interaction with neither destroying the order of the other. Such interaction includes signaling. Signals, however, may…
In this paper we lay out an argument that generically the psychological arrow of time should align with the thermodynamic arrow of time where that arrow is well-defined. This argument applies to any physical system that can act as a memory,…
The crucial role of ambient correlations in determining thermodynamic behavior is established. A class of entangled states of two macroscopic systems is constructed such that each component is in a state of thermal equilibrium at a given…
The arrow of time is an irreversible phenomenon for a system of particles undergoing reversible dynamics. Since the time of Boltzmann to this day, the arrow of time has led to debate and research. However, the enormous growth of…
Statistical physics cannot explain why a thermodynamic arrow of time exists, unless one postulates very special and unnatural initial conditions. Yet, we argue that statistical physics can explain why the thermodynamic arrow of time is…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
Assuming time-scale separation, a simple and unified theory of thermodynamics and stochastic thermodynamics is constructed for small classical systems strongly interacting with its environment in a controllable fashion. The total…
Fundamental laws of physics are symmetric under time reversal ($T$) symmetry, but the $T$ symmetry is strongly broken in the macroscopic world. In this Perspective, I review $T$ symmetry breaking frameworks: \textit{second law of…
This paper is a natural continuation of our previous paper arXiv:1011.4173 . We illustrated earlier that in classical Hamilton mechanics, for overwhelming majority of real chaotic macroscopic systems, alignment of their thermodynamic time…
We provide a dynamical proof of the second law of thermodynamics, along the lines of an argument of Penrose and Gibbs, making crucial use of the upper semicontinuity of the mean entropy proved by Robinson and Ruelle and Lanford and…
A clear explanation is given on how the causal, psychological, and electrodynamic time arrows emerge from the thermodynamic time arrow.
This is the first of five papers comprising The Semantic Arrow of Time. The argument begins with a claim: computing's arrow of time is semantic, not thermodynamic. The direction in which meaning is preserved or destroyed across transactions…
H-theorem provides a microscopic foundation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and is therefore essential to establishing statistical physics, but at the same time, H-theorem has been subject to controversy that in part persists till this…