Related papers: A compromised arrow of time
It is widely believed that special initial conditions must be imposed on any time-symmetric law if its solutions are to exhibit behavior of any kind that defines an `arrow of time'. We show that this is not so. The simplest non-trivial…
In any physical theory that admits true indeterminism, the thermodynamic arrow of time can arise regardless of the system's initial conditions. Hence on such theories time's arrow emerges out of the basic physical interactions. The example…
In [Sch05a], it is argued that Boltzmann's intuition, that the psychological arrow of time is necessarily aligned with the thermodynamic arrow, is correct. Schulman gives an explicit physical mechanism for this connection, based on the…
Most attempts to argue for the second law of thermodynamics fail because (1) they use the unviable frequency theory of probability and (2) they do not explain why the arrow of time seen in experiments is aligned with the thermodynamic arrow…
The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermally isolated system entropy never decreases. Most physical processes we observe in nature involve variations of macroscopic quantities over spatial and temporal scales much larger…
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…
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…
Within the general formalism of quantum theory irreversibility and the arrow of time in the evolution of various physical systems are studied. Irreversible behavior often manifests itself in the guise of entropy production. This motivates…
The direct and indirect experimental proofs of a strong time invariance violation in optics are discussed. Time noninvariance for present day becomes the only real physical base for explanation the origin of the most phenomena in nonlinear…
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, we investigate an important issue addressed by several approaches to quantum cosmology, like that based on loop quantum gravity and string theory: the existence of an arrow of time driving the cosmological evolution according…
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…
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…
We investigate the laws of thermodynamics in an accelerating universe driven by dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state. In the case we consider that the physically relevant part of the Universe is that envelopped by the…
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…
In this work we analyse the structure of the thermodynamic arrow of time, defined by transformations that leave the thermal equilibrium state unchanged, in classical (incoherent) and quantum (coherent) regimes. We note that in the…
Living systems are fundamentally irreversible, breaking detailed balance and establishing an arrow of time. But how does the evident arrow of time for a whole system arise from the interactions among its multiple elements? We show that the…
A model quantum cosmology is used to illustrate how arrows of time emerge in a universe governed by a time-neutral dynamical theory constrained by time asymmetric initial and final boundary conditions represented by initial and final…
The cosmological arrow of time may be linked to the thermodynamic arrow by second law of thermodynamics. The time asymmetry is also associated with dissipative fluid as Tolman introduced a viscous fluid to generate an arrow of time in…
Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This chapter explores how this asymmetry (a classic example of a broken symmetry) arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction…