Related papers: Time arrow without past hypothesis: a toy model ex…
Thermodynamics has a clear arrow of time, characterized by the irreversible approach to equilibrium. This stands in contrast to the laws of microscopic theories, which are invariant under time-reversal. Foundational discussions of this…
Current theoretical physics suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This paper points out that this view, in essence represented by usual space-time…
All of the basic microsopic physical laws are time reversible. In contrast, the second law of thermodynamics, which is a macroscopic physical representation of the world, is able to describe irreversible processes in an isolated system…
We observe entropy decrease towards the past. Does this imply that in the past the world was in a non-generic microstate? I point out an alternative. The subsystem to which we belong interacts with the universe via a relatively small number…
We investigate the statistical arrow of time for a quantum system being monitored by a sequence of measurements. For a continuous qubit measurement example, we demonstrate that time-reversed evolution is always physically possible, provided…
For decades, researchers have sought to understand how the irreversibility of the surrounding world emerges from the seemingly time symmetric, fundamental laws of physics. Quantum mechanics conjectured a clue that final irreversibility is…
Active matter encompasses systems whose individual consituents dissipate energy to exert propelling forces on their environment. This rapidly developing field harbors a dynamical phenomenology with no counterpart in passive systems. The…
We give a simple proof of the uncertainty principle with quantum side information, as in [Berta et al. Nature Physics 6, 659 (2010)], invoking the monotonicity of the relative entropy. Our proof shows that the entropic uncertainty principle…
This paper presents a unified formulation of the origin of the arrow of time in classical and quantum mechanics. We begin with a mechanical analysis of a one-dimensional three-particle system, which provides a concrete example in which…
It is recalled that closed (isolated) systems are essentially reversible whilst open systems like the Earth, or living beings on it, are irreversible because they are not isolated. Earth and life irreversibility derives from the evolution…
We formalize the concept of subtime -- a reversible mode of information interchange within entangled systems -- and show how classical time emerges as an asymptotic limit through decoherence. Building on the photon clock model, in which a…
A hypothesis proposed in the paper (Entropy 2017, 19, 345) on the deductive formulation of a physical theory based on explicitly- and universally-introduced basic concepts is further developed. An entropic measure of time with a number of…
Retrocausal models of QM add further weight to the conflict between causality and the possible existence of free will. We analyze a simple closed causal loop ensuing from the interaction between two systems with opposing thermodynamic time…
One of the challenges of constructing a successful cyclic universe scenario is to be able to incorporate the second law of thermodynamics which typically leads to Tolman's problem of ever shrinking cycles. In this paper we construct a…
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy production in macroscopic systems is non-negative, reaching zero only at thermodynamic equilibrium. As a corollary, this implies that the state trajectory of macroscopic systems is…
Certain intriguing consequences of the discreteness of time on the time evolution of dynamical systems are discussed. In the discrete-time classical mechanics proposed here, there is an {\it arrow of time} that follows from the fact that…
We present some novel results indicating that time's description in present-day physics is deficient. We use Hawking's information-erasure hypothesis to counter his own claim that time's arrow depends only on initial conditions. Next, we…
One of the stunning consequences of quantum correlations in thermodynamics is the reversal of the arrow of time, recently shown experimentally in [K. Micadei, et al., Nat. Commun. 10:2456 (2019)], and manifesting itself by a reversal of the…
The entropy production rate (EPR), a key measure of thermodynamic irreversibility in stochastic thermodynamics, is difficult to determine directly in experiments, motivating lower-bound-based estimation from observations. However, a…
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…