Related papers: The length of time's arrow
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all isolated macroscopic systems must be in want of ever greater disorder, with due apologies to Jane Austen for plagiarizing the opening line in her novel {\it Pride and Prejudice}. This common,…
In contrast to claims by Barbour, Koslowski and Mercati, their "Janus point solution" does require a very improbable selection condition. While gravitational contraction in an expanding universe may then represent the master arrow of time,…
Time is a parameter playing a central role in our most fundamental modelling of natural laws. Relativity theory shows that the comparison of times measured by different clocks depends on their relative motion and on the strength of the…
Time-arrow $s=+/-$, intrinsic to a concrete physical system, is associated with the direction of information loss $\Delta I$ displayed by the random evolution of the given system. When the information loss tends to zero the intrinsic…
In the joint paper "Bridging the neuroscience and physics of time" Rovelli, as the physicist coauthor of neuroscientist Dean Buonomano, makes statements that rely on theoretical frameworks employed when the laws of thermodynamics and…
We show that the evidence for a local arrow of time, which is equivalent to the entropy production in thermodynamic systems, can be decomposed. In a system with many degrees of freedom, there is a term that arises from the irreversible…
Two approaches toward the arrow of time for scattering processes have been proposed in rigged Hilbert space quantum mechanics. One, due to Arno Bohm, involves preparations and registrations in laboratory operations and results in two…
The concept of time series irreversibility -- the degree by which the statistics of signals are not invariant under time reversal -- naturally appears in non-equilibrium physics in stationary systems which operate away from equilibrium and…
There is a relation between the irreversibility of thermodynamic processes as expressed by the breaking of time-reversal symmetry, and the entropy production in such processes. We explain on an elementary mathematical level the relations…
We here present the complete analysis of experiments on driven Brownian motion and electric noise in a $RC$ circuit, showing that thermodynamic entropy production can be related to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry in the statistical…
We derive a variational expression for the correlation time of physical observables in steady-state diffusive systems. As a consequence of this variational expression, we obtain lower bounds on the correlation time, which provide speed…
Employing an arbitrary velocity gauge transformation this contribution argues that the breaking of time symmetry is a natural consequence of irreversibility.
This essay examines our fundamental conceptions of time, spacetime, the asymmetry of time, and the motion of a quantum mechanical particle. The concept of time has multiple meanings and these are often confused in the literature and must be…
The observed probabilities of quantum mechanics possess a time asymmetry which is based on the truism that a state must be prepared before an observable can be measured in it. While Hilbert space quantum theory cannot incorporate this arrow…
How does the arrow of time (dissipative, irreversible behavior) emerge from time-reversible Hamiltonian mechanics? Two ingredients are needed: the underlying system must be ergodic or phase-mixing, and our knowledge of the system must be…
The meaning of time asymmetry in quantum physics is discussed. On the basis of a mathematical theorem, the Stone--von Neumann theorem, the solutions of the dynamical equations, the Schr\"odinger equation (1) for states or the Heisenberg…
The conceptual definition and understanding of the nature of time, both qualitatively and quantitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance, and plays a fundamental role in physics. Physical systems seem to evolve in paths of…
Temporal irreversibility, often referred to as the arrow of time, is a fundamental concept in statistical mechanics. Markers of irreversibility also provide a powerful characterisation of information processing in biological systems.…
We advance a new viewpoint on the connection between the the thermodynamical and cosmological arrows of time, which can be traced via the properties of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. We show that in the…
The fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels-Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable…