Related papers: Reversing the Arrow of Time
Scientific discussions of the arrow of time often get quite confusing due to highly complex systems they deal with. Popular literature then often coveys messages that tend to get lost in translation. The purpose of this note is to demystify…
Scientists continue to wrestle with the enigma of time. Is time a dynamic or a fundamental property of spacetime? Why does it have an arrow pointing from past to future? Why are physical laws time-symmetric in a universe with broken…
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…
This thesis addresses two major problems in the philosophy of physics. The first is how to identify the minimal physical content of a theory; that is, what features of a theory are truly needed to make predictions, and what can be removed…
In several previous papers we have argued for a global and non-entropic approach to the problem of the arrow of time, according to which the ''arrow'' is only a metaphorical way of expressing the geometrical time-asymmetry of the universe.…
This essay offers a meta-level analysis in the sociology and history of physics in the context of the so-called "Arrow of Time Problem" or "Two Times Problem," which asserts that the empirically observed directionality of time is in…
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…
Deriving an arrow of time from time-reversal symmetric microscopic dynamics is a fundamental open problem in many areas of physics, ranging from cosmology, to particle physics, to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Here we focus on…
In this paper we address the problem of the arrow of time from a cosmological point of view, rejecting the traditional entropic approach that defines the future direction of time as the direction of the entropy increase: from our…
While the microscopic laws of physics are often symmetric under time reversal, most natural processes that we observe are not. The emergent asymmetry between typical and time-reversed processes is referred to as the arrow of time. In…
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…
It is one of the most important and long-standing issues of physics to derive the irreversibility out of a time-reversal symmetric equation of motion. The present paper considers the breaking of the time-reversal symmetry in open quantum…
An unresolved problem in physics is how the thermodynamic arrow of time arises from an underlying time reversible dynamics. We contribute to this issue by developing a measure of time-symmetry breaking, and by using the work fluctuation…
It is shown that the structures in the universe can be interpreted to show a closed wheel of time, rather than a straight arrow. An analysis in $f(R)$ gravity model has been carried out to show that due to local observations a small arc at…
One of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics is what gives rise to the arrow of time. Since the fundamental dynamical laws of physics are (essentially) symmetric in time, the explanation for time's arrow must come from…
Antiparticles may be interpreted as ordinary particles travelling backwards in time and the two descriptions are considered equivalent, at least in special relativity and relativistic quantum mechanics. It is suggested that, vice versa, the…
Uncovering the origin of the arrow of time remains a fundamental scientific challenge. Within the framework of statistical physics, this problem was inextricably associated with the second law of thermodynamics, which declares that entropy…
Based on the hypothesis that the (non-reversible) arrow of time is intrinsic in any system, no matter how small, the consequences are discussed. Within the framework of local quantum physics it is shown how such a semi-group action of time…
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.
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…