Download or read book Time s Arrow and Archimedes Point written by Huw Price and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-12-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the future so different from the past? Why does the past affect the future and not the other way around? What does quantum mechanics really tell us about the world? In this important and accessible book, Huw Price throws fascinating new light on some of the great mysteries of modern physics, and connects them in a wholly original way. Price begins with the mystery of the arrow of time. Why, for example, does disorder always increase, as required by the second law of thermodynamics? Price shows that, for over a century, most physicists have thought about these problems the wrong way. Misled by the human perspective from within time, which distorts and exaggerates the differences between past and future, they have fallen victim to what Price calls the "double standard fallacy": proposed explanations of the difference between the past and the future turn out to rely on a difference which has been slipped in at the beginning, when the physicists themselves treat the past and future in different ways. To avoid this fallacy, Price argues, we need to overcome our natural tendency to think about the past and the future differently. We need to imagine a point outside time -- an Archimedean "view from nowhen" -- from which to observe time in an unbiased way. Offering a lively criticism of many major modern physicists, including Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking, Price shows that this fallacy remains common in physics today -- for example, when contemporary cosmologists theorize about the eventual fate of the universe. The "big bang" theory normally assumes that the beginning and end of the universe will be very different. But if we are to avoid the double standard fallacy, we need to consider time symmetrically, and take seriously the possibility that the arrow of time may reverse when the universe recollapses into a "big crunch." Price then turns to the greatest mystery of modern physics, the meaning of quantum theory. He argues that in missing the Archimedean viewpoint, modern physics has missed a radical and attractive solution to many of the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics. Many consequences of quantum theory appear counterintuitive, such as Schrodinger's Cat, whose condition seems undetermined until observed, and Bell's Theorem, which suggests a spooky "nonlocality," where events happening simultaneously in different places seem to affect each other directly. Price shows that these paradoxes can be avoided by allowing that at the quantum level the future does, indeed, affect the past. This demystifies nonlocality, and supports Einstein's unpopular intuition that quantum theory describes an objective world, existing independently of human observers: the Cat is alive or dead, even when nobody looks. So interpreted, Price argues, quantum mechanics is simply the kind of theory we ought to have expected in microphysics -- from the symmetric standpoint. Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point presents an innovative and controversial view of time and contemporary physics. In this exciting book, Price urges physicists, philosophers, and anyone who has ever pondered the mysteries of time to look at the world from the fresh perspective of Archimedes' Point and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, the universe around us, and our own place in time.
Download or read book From Eternity to Here written by Sean Carroll and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An accessible and engaging exploration of the mysteries of time." -Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Twenty years ago, Stephen Hawking tried to explain time by understanding the Big Bang. Now, Sean Carroll says we need to be more ambitious. One of the leading theoretical physicists of his generation, Carroll delivers a dazzling and paradigm-shifting theory of time's arrow that embraces subjects from entropy to quantum mechanics to time travel to information theory and the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here is no less than the next step toward understanding how we came to exist, and a fantastically approachable read that will appeal to a broad audience of armchair physicists, and anyone who ponders the nature of our world.
Download or read book Complexity and the Arrow of Time written by Charles H. Lineweaver and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a wide range of experts, this work presents cosmological, biological and philosophical perspectives on complexity in our universe.
Download or read book The Arrow Of Time written by Roger Highfield and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our century, the subject of time has become an area of serious inquiry for science. Theories that contain time as a simple quantity form the basis of our understanding of many scientific disciplines, yet the debate rages on: why does there seem to be a direction to time, an arrow of time pointing from past to future? In this authoritative and accessible Sunday Times bestseller, physical chemist Dr Peter Coveney and award-winning science journalist Dr Roger Highfield demonstrate that the common sense view of time agrees with the most advanced scientific theory. Time does in fact move like an arrow, shooting forward into what is genuinely unknown, leaving the past immutably behind. The authors make their case by exploring three centuries of science, offering bold reinterpretations of Newton’s mechanics, Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and advancing the insights of chaos theory. In their voyage through science the authors link apparently irreconcilable subjects, from Einstein’s obsession with causality to chaos theory, from Marvell’s winged chariot to that Monday morning feeling. Finally, drawing together the various interpretations of time, they describe a novel way to give it a sense of direction. And they call for a new fundamental theory to take account of the Arrow of Time. Foreword by Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate.
Download or read book Change the Arrow of Time and Divine Eternity in Light of Relativity Theory written by Daniel Saudek and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has two aims; first, to provide a new account of time's arrow in light of relativity theory; second, to explain how God, being eternal, relates to our world, marked as it is by change and time. In part one, Saudek argues that time is not the expansive universal 'wave' that is appears to be, but nor are we living in an unchanging block. Rather, time is real but local: there are infinitely many arrows of time in the universe, each with their own fixed past and open future. This model is based on the ontology of substances which can exist in different states, marked by different properties. On this basis, a derivation of temporal precedence and of the asymmetry between the fixed past and the open future is provided. Time's arrow is thus 'attached' to substances, and is therefore a local rather than global phenomenon, though by no means an illusory or merely subjective one. In part two, this model is then applied to the perennial questions concerning the relationship between divine eternity and the temporal world: How can my future choices be free if God already knows what I will do? Can God act if He is not in time? Through the lens of relativity theory, such questions are shown to appear in a completely new light. The book combines insights from theoretical physics with ancient and contemporary philosophy into a unique synthesis, broaching a wealth of key issues including the arrow of time, the evolution of the cosmos, and a physics-based defence of eternalism in philosophical theology.
Download or read book The Janus Point written by Julian Barbour and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a universe filled by chaos and disorder, one physicist makes the radical argument that the growth of order drives the passage of time -- and shapes the destiny of the universe. Time is among the universe's greatest mysteries. Why, when most laws of physics allow for it to flow forward and backward, does it only go forward? Physicists have long appealed to the second law of thermodynamics, held to predict the increase of disorder in the universe, to explain this. In The Janus Point, physicist Julian Barbour argues that the second law has been misapplied and that the growth of order determines how we experience time. In his view, the big bang becomes the "Janus point," a moment of minimal order from which time could flow, and order increase, in two directions. The Janus Point has remarkable implications: while most physicists predict that the universe will become mired in disorder, Barbour sees the possibility that order -- the stuff of life -- can grow without bound. A major new work of physics, The Janus Point will transform our understanding of the nature of existence.
Download or read book The Arrows of Time written by Laura Mersini-Houghton and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of time has fascinated humanity throughout recorded history, and it remains one of the biggest mysteries in science and philosophy. Time is clearly one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe and thus a deeper understanding of nature at a fundamental level also demands a comprehension of time. Furthermore, the origins of the universe are closely intertwined with the puzzle of time: Did time emerge at the Big Bang? Why does the arrow of time ‘conspire’ with the order of the initial state of the universe? This book addresses many of the most important questions about time: What is time, and is it fundamental or emergent? Why is there such an arrow of time, closely related to the initial state of the universe, and why do the cosmic, thermodynamic and other arrows agree? These issues are discussed here by leading experts, and each offers a new perspective on the debate. Their contributions delve into the most difficult research topic in physics, also describing the latest cutting edge research on the subject. The book also offers readers a comparison between the different outlooks of philosophy, physics and cosmology on the puzzle of time. This volume is intended to be useful for research purposes, but most chapters are also accessible to a more general audience of scientifically educated readers looking for deeper insights.
Download or read book Time s Arrow Time s Cycle written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines scientific theories pertaining to the measurement of earth's history.
Download or read book The Chaotic Universe written by V. G. Gurzadyan and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2000 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique volume is a collection of papers on various problems in astrophysics and cosmology ? from planetary motion to the arrow of time ? that are closely linked by the common spirit, technique and methodology of chaos.
Download or read book Duality of Time written by Mohamed Haj Yousef and published by Mohamed Haj Yousef. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Duality of Time Theory is the result of more than two decades of ceaseless investigation and searching through ancient manuscripts of concealed philosophies and mystical traditions, comparing all that with the fundamental results of modern physics and cosmology, until all the contradicting jigsaw pieces were put together into this brilliant portrait. Without the overwhelming proofs and strong confirmations that accumulated over time, it would have been impossible to pursue this long research path, as it was extremely challenging to appreciate the unfathomable secret of time and the consequences of the ongoing perpetual creation of space, that result from the Single Monad Model of the Cosmos. The complex-time geometry of the Duality of Time Theory explains how the physical dimensions of space are sequentially being re-created in the inner levels of time, which makes the outward time genuinely imaginary with respect to the inner real levels. This is easily expressed in terms of the hyperbolic split-complex numbers, that characterize the Relativistic Lorentzian Symmetry. This will have deep implications because space-time has become naturally quantized in a way that explains and unites all the three principles of Relativity, leading to full Quantum Field Theory of Gravity, as well as explaining all the other fundamental interactions in terms of the new granular space-time geometry. This ultimate unification will solve many persisting problems in physics and cosmology. The homogeneity problem, for example, will instantly cease, since the Universe, no matter how large it could be, is re-created sequentially in the inner time, so all the states are updated and synchronized before they appear in the outer level that we encounter. Furthermore, the Duality of Time does not only unify all the fundamental interactions in terms of its genuinely-complex time-time geometry, but it unifies this whole physical world with the two other even more fundamental domains of the psychical and spiritual worlds. All these three conclusive and complementary realms are constructed on the same concept of space-time geometry that together form one single absolute and perfectly symmetrical space. This particular subject is treated at length in the Third Volume of this book series - the Ultimate Symmetry, which explores how the apparent physical and metaphysical multiplicity is emerging from the absolute Oneness of Divine Presence, descending through four fundamental levels of symmetry: ultimate, hyper, super and normal. Among many other astonishing consequences, this astounding conclusion means that the psychical world is composed of atoms and molecules that are identical with the physical world except that they are evolving in orthogonal time direction. It may appear initially impossible to believe how the incorporeal worlds may have the same atomic structure as the physical world, but it is more appropriate to say that physical structures are eventually incorporeal, because they become various wave phenomena and energy interactions as soon as we dive into their microscopic level, as it is now confirmed by Quantum Field Theories. In the Duality of Time Theory, since rigid space is created sequentially in the inner time, energy may become negative, imaginary and even multidimensional, which simply means that all things in creation are various kinds of energy moments that are spreading on different intersecting dimensions of time; so not only mass and energy are equivalent, but also charge and all other physical and metaphysical entities are interconvertible types of energy, including consciousness and information.
Download or read book Time s Arrow written by Michael C. Mackey and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration of Second Law of Thermodynamics details fundamental dynamic properties behind construction of statistical mechanics. Topics include maximal entropy principles; invertible and noninvertible systems; ergodicity and unique equilibria; and asymptotic periodicity and entropy evolution. Geared toward physicists and applied mathematicians; suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. 1992 edition.
Download or read book Time s Arrows and Quantum Measurement written by Lawrence S. Schulman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-31 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the arrow of time and a new, related, theory of quantum measurement.
Download or read book Statistical Mechanics And Scientific Explanation Determinism Indeterminism And Laws Of Nature written by Valia Allori and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores several open questions in the philosophy and the foundations of statistical mechanics. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in philosophy of physics and/or mathematical physics. Here is a list of questions that are addressed in the book:
Download or read book The Biggest Ideas in the Universe written by Sean Carroll and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable.”—Wall Street Journal “A porthole into another world.”—Scientific American “Brings science dissemination to a new level.”—Science The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality. Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.
Download or read book The Order of Time written by Carlo Rovelli and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Reality Is Not What It Seems, Helgoland, and Anaximander comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.
Download or read book Time s Arrows Today written by Steven F. Savitt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-06-13 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While experience tells us that time flows from the past to the present and into the future, a number of philosophical and physical objections exist to this commonsense view of dynamic time. In an attempt to make sense of this conundrum, philosophers and physicists are forced to confront fascinating questions, such as: Can effects precede causes? Can one travel in time? Can the expansion of the Universe or the process of measurement in quantum mechanics define a direction in time? In this book, researchers from both physics and philosophy attempt to answer these issues in an interesting, yet rigorous way. This fascinating book will be of interest to physicists and philosophers of science and educated general readers interested in the direction of time.
Download or read book Time s Arrow and Evolution written by Harold Francis Blum and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book that has become a milestone of scientific writing Dr. Blum uses "time's arrow," the second law of thermodynamics, as a key concept to show how the nature and evolution of the nonliving world place limits on the nature and evolution of life. He seeks to show that, from the beginning of the universe, physical and chemical laws have inexorably channeled the course of evolution so that possibilities were already limited when life first emerged. Originally published in 1951. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
