The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Arrow of Time

2014 ◽  
pp. 89-124
Keyword(s):  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time

A Scientific Reading of Levinas’ Response to Heidegger: The Redemptive Edge of Time

KronoScope ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
David Grandy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Heat Death

AbstractIn responding to Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas characterized time as revelatory and redemptive. For Levinas, Heideggerian being was self-contained and self-identical, and therefore unable to generate the sense of novel possibility which occasions the fleeting present. Something similar to Heideggerian Being may be said to have taken hold in the nineteenth century with the development of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics was portrayed as the “arrow of time” moving inevitably toward universal heat death—cosmic stasis or self-identity. I argue that modern physical science itself does not fully validate this portrayal. There are, at the metaphysical level, explanatory gaps or openings which suggest other, more hopeful possibilities. These openings, I submit, are analogous to the ruptures of otherness which Levinas identified with the generosity of being and time’s redemptive aspect.

scholarly journals Maxwell’s Demon in Quantum Mechanics

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
Orly Shenker ◽  
Meir Hemmo
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Classical Mechanics ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Quantum Mechanical ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Maxwell’S Demon ◽  
Counter Example ◽  
Maxwell's Demon

Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment devised by J. C. Maxwell in 1867 in order to show that the Second Law of thermodynamics is not universal, since it has a counter-example. Since the Second Law is taken by many to provide an arrow of time, the threat to its universality threatens the account of temporal directionality as well. Various attempts to “exorcise” the Demon, by proving that it is impossible for one reason or another, have been made throughout the years, but none of them were successful. We have shown (in a number of publications) by a general state-space argument that Maxwell’s Demon is compatible with classical mechanics, and that the most recent solutions, based on Landauer’s thesis, are not general. In this paper we demonstrate that Maxwell’s Demon is also compatible with quantum mechanics. We do so by analyzing a particular (but highly idealized) experimental setup and proving that it violates the Second Law. Our discussion is in the framework of standard quantum mechanics; we give two separate arguments in the framework of quantum mechanics with and without the projection postulate. We address in our analysis the connection between measurement and erasure interactions and we show how these notions are applicable in the microscopic quantum mechanical structure. We discuss what might be the quantum mechanical counterpart of the classical notion of “macrostates”, thus explaining why our Quantum Demon setup works not only at the micro level but also at the macro level, properly understood. One implication of our analysis is that the Second Law cannot provide a universal lawlike basis for an account of the arrow of time; this account has to be sought elsewhere.

scholarly journals Arrow of time: Metaphorical construals of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics

2012 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 818-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer G. Amin ◽  
Fredrik Jeppsson ◽  
Jesper Haglund ◽  
Helge Strömdahl
Keyword(s):  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time

scholarly journals Asymmetry of counterfactual dependence and defense of Lewis's argument

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-42
Author(s):  
Nenad Filipovic
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Counterfactual Dependence ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Counterfactual Analysis ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
The Third ◽  
Time Problem ◽  
The Status ◽  
Future Work

Arrow of time is well known problem in physics and concerns explanation of the status of the second law of thermodynamics. The problem, however, soon made noise in various philosophical discussions: on knowledge, causality, etc. David Lewis, partially motivated by his counterfactual analysis of causality, introduced the problem of arrow of time in discussion on counterfactuals. After his article in which he had tried to ground asymmetry of counterfactuals in the second law of thermodynamics, there were numerous reactions on such kind of project. In the first part, I will introduce Lewis' theory in detail, and in the second part I will introduce some of the main critiques of such a view, focusing on Elga's critique. The third part will be saved for Loewer's and Albert's argument in favor of a very broad view of Lewis' project. In the part four, I will present strengthening of their argument, while explaining how we could apply it closer to Lewis' original view. Finally, I will make some concluding remarks regarding possible confusion on argument for supporting Lewis, as well as the additional requirements for any future work in that direction. Also, because of the nature of the mentioned arguments, in the appendix I will, very briefly, present an overview of the arrow of time problem from the perspective of physics.

4. The arrow of time

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
Jenann Ismael
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Mechanics ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Temporal Asymmetry ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday World ◽  
Laws Of Motion

‘The arrow of time’ discusses where the arrow of time comes from. The fundamental laws of motion do not distinguish past and future. And yet the everyday world is full of manifestly asymmetric processes. This chapter discusses the apparent mismatch between the fundamental laws of nature and the manifest asymmetry of the everyday world. The temporal asymmetry is made precise by the second law of thermodynamics and the tension between the second law and the fundamental laws is addressed by the development of statistical mechanics.

scholarly journals Thermodynamics of the $$R_{\mathrm{h}}=ct$$ Universe: a simplification of cosmic entropy

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulvio Melia
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The Big Bang ◽  
Low Entropy ◽  
The Universe

AbstractIn the standard model of cosmology, the Universe began its expansion with an anomalously low entropy, which then grew dramatically to much larger values consistent with the physical conditions at decoupling, roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang. There does not appear to be a viable explanation for this ‘unnatural’ history, other than via the generalized second law of thermodynamics (GSL), in which the entropy of the bulk, $$S_\mathrm{bulk}$$ S bulk , is combined with the entropy of the apparent (or gravitational) horizon, $$S_{\mathrm{h}}$$ S h . This is not completely satisfactory either, however, since this approach seems to require an inexplicable equilibrium between the bulk and horizon temperatures. In this paper, we explore the thermodynamics of an alternative cosmology known as the $$R_{\mathrm{h}}=ct$$ R h = c t universe, which has thus far been highly successful in resolving many other problems or inconsistencies in $$\varLambda $$ Λ CDM. We find that $$S_{\mathrm{bulk}}$$ S bulk is constant in this model, eliminating the so-called initial entropy problem simply and elegantly. The GSL may still be relevant, however, principally in selecting the arrow of time, given that $$S_{\mathrm{h}}\propto t^2$$ S h ∝ t 2 in this model.

scholarly journals Entropy Derived from Causality

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 647
Author(s):  
Roland Riek
Keyword(s):  
Discrete Time ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Small Time ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Mathematical Relationship ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Small Time Step

The second law of thermodynamics, with its positive change of entropy for a system not in equilibrium, defines an arrow of time. Interestingly, also, causality, which is the connection between a cause and an effect, requests a direction of time by definition. It is noted that no other standard physical theories show this property. It is the attempt of this work to connect causality with entropy, which is possible by defining time as the metric of causality. Under this consideration that time appears only through a cause–effect relationship (“measured”, typically, in an apparatus called clock), it is demonstrated that time must be discrete in nature and cannot be continuous as assumed in all standard theories of physics including general and special relativity, and classical physics. The following lines of reasoning include: (i) (mechanical) causality requests that the cause must precede its effect (i.e., antecedence) requesting a discrete time interval >0. (ii) An infinitely small time step d t > 0 is thereby not sufficient to distinguish between cause and effect as a mathematical relationship between the two (i.e., Poisson bracket) will commute at a time interval d t , while not evidently within discrete time steps Δ t . As a consequence of a discrete time, entropy emerges (Riek, 2014) connecting causality and entropy to each other.

scholarly journals Entropy and Time

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arieh Ben-Naim
Keyword(s):  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
H Theorem ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Entropy Of The Universe ◽  
Time’S Arrow

The idea that entropy is associated with the “arrow of time” has its roots in Clausius’s statement on the Second Law: “Entropy of the Universe always increases.” However, the explicit association of the entropy with time’s arrow arises from Eddington. In this article, we start with a brief review of the idea that the “increase in entropy” is somehow associated with the direction in which time increases. Then, we examine three different, but equivalent definitions of entropy. We find that none of these definitions indicate any hint of a relationship between entropy and time. We can, therefore, conclude that entropy is a timeless quantity. We also discuss the reasons as to why some scientists went astray in associating entropy with time’s arrow. Finally, we shall discuss Boltzmann’s H-Theorem, which is viewed by many as a proof of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document