Related papers: On the statistical arrow of time
Cosmic inflation claims to make the initial conditions of the standard big bang "generic". But Boltzmann taught us that the thermodynamic arrow of time arises from very non-generic ("low entropy") initial conditions. I discuss how to…
In this paper I suggest a possible explanation for the asymmetry of time. In the case that I study, the dynamical laws and the boundary conditions are symmetric, but the behavior of time is not. The underlying mechanism is statistical and…
This paper is a discussion about the relationship between time and information. We argue that the direction of arrow of time is related to the directivity of information copying that occurs in Nature.
The paper discusses recent proposals by Carroll and Chen, as well as Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati to explain the (thermodynamic) arrow of time without a Past Hypothesis, i.e., the assumption of a special (low-entropy) initial state of…
Although most fundamental laws are invariant under time reversal, experience exhibits the presence of irreversible phenomena -- the arrows of time. Their origin lies in cosmology, and I argue that only quantum cosmology can provide the…
Time-asymmetric spacetime structures, in particular those representing black holes and the expansion of the universe, are intimately related to other arrows of time, such as the second law and the retardation of radiation. The nature of the…
It is argued that the observed Thermodynamic Arrow of Time must arise from the boundary conditions of the universe. We analyse the consequences of the no boundary proposal, the only reasonably complete set of boundary conditions that has…
We discuss how quantum geometrodynamics, a conservative approach to quantum gravity, might explain the emergence of classical spacetime and, with it, the emergence of classical time and its arrow from the universal quantum state. This…
The spread of the time arrows from the environment to an observed subsystem is followed within a harmonic model. A similarity is pointed out between irreversibility and a phase with spontaneously broken symmetry. The causal structure of…
Irreversibility is one of the most intriguing concepts in physics. While microscopic physical laws are perfectly reversible, macroscopic average behavior has a preferred direction of time. According to the second law of thermodynamics, this…
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…
The only widely accepted explanation for the various arrows of time that everywhere and at all epochs point in the same direction is the `past hypothesis': the Universe had a very special low-entropy initial state. We present the first…
It is generally believed that a cosmological arrow of time must be associated with entropy production. Indeed, in his seminal work on cyclic cosmology, Tolman introduced a viscous fluid in order to make successive expansion/contraction…
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…
If an asymmetry in time does not arise from the fundamental dynamical laws of physics, it may be found in special boundary conditions. The argument normally goes that since thermodynamic entropy in the past is lower than in the future…
Recently, a substantial amount of debate has grown up around a proposed quantum resolution to the `arrow of time dilemma' that is based on the role of classical memory records of entropy-decreasing events. In this note we show that the…
J.M.R. Parrondo at al. in arXiv:0904.1573 continue numerous efforts to unify the concepts of the arrow of time and entropy production with the concept of time invariance in physics. This is a wrong way.
I argue that both digital and analog information are important in the foundations of quantum physics. If it is possible for information present in one system to become present in others without being erased in the original system I will say…
Deutsch and Aguirre have recently shown that the solutions of certain dynamical systems typically contain a point of minimum size that they identify as an entropy minimum and from which the size and entropy increase to infinity in both…
The importance of the global nature of the arrow of time is shown. Classical Reichenbach diagram and quantum Bohm-Reichenbach diagram, for the universe are introduced. They are used to show the increase of entropy in closed systems, the…