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.

The Analogical Turn (1884–1887)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Darrigol
Keyword(s):  
Boltzmann Equation ◽  
Statistical Mechanics ◽  
Mechanical System ◽  
Thermal Equilibrium ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Equipartition Theorem ◽  
Royal Road ◽  
H Theorem

This chapter recounts how Boltzmann reacted to Hermann Helmholtz’s analogy between thermodynamic systems and a special kind of mechanical system (the “monocyclic systems”) by grouping all attempts to relate thermodynamics to mechanics, including the kinetic-molecular analogy, into a family of partial analogies all derivable from what we would now call a microcanonical ensemble. At that time, Boltzmann regarded ensemble-based statistical mechanics as the royal road to the laws of thermal equilibrium (as we now do). In the same period, he returned to the Boltzmann equation and the H theorem in reply to Peter Guthrie Tait’s attack on the equipartition theorem. He also made a non-technical survey of the second law of thermodynamics seen as a law of probability increase.

Supradegeneracy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-132
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Statistical Mechanics ◽  
Population Inversion ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Boltzmann Factor ◽  
Energy Currents ◽  
Non Equilibrium

AbstractCanonical statistical mechanics hinges on two quantities, i. e., state degeneracy and the Boltzmann factor, the latter of which usually dominates thermodynamic behaviors. A recently identified phenomenon (supradegeneracy) reverses this order of dominance and predicts effects for equilibrium that are normally associated with non-equilibrium, including population inversion and steady-state particle and energy currents. This study examines two thermodynamic paradoxes that arise from supradegeneracy and proposes laboratory experiments by which they might be resolved.

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 A GENERAL INFORMATION THEORETICAL PROOF FOR THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (03) ◽  
pp. 531-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
QI-REN ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Mechanics ◽  
Quantum State ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
General Information ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Interaction Information ◽  
Entropy Increase ◽  
Classical Statistical Mechanics ◽  
Social Statistics

We show that the conservation and the non-additivity of information, together with the additivity of entropy makes entropy increase in an isolated system. The collapse of the entangled quantum state offers an example of the information non-additivity. Nevertheless, the later is also true in other fields, in which the interaction information is important. Examples are classical statistical mechanics, social statistics and financial processes. The second law of thermodynamics is thus proven in its most general form. It is exactly true, not only in quantum and classical physics but also in other processes in which the information is conservative and non-additive.

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

On the philosophy of time

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29
Author(s):  
JÜRGEN MITTELSTRASS
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Role ◽  
Philosophy Of Physics ◽  
Arrow Of Time ◽  
Philosophy Of Time ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday World ◽  
Modern Physics

The concept of time has always played a dominant role in philosophy and science. In modern physics, and also in philosophy of physics, it is the anisotropy of time that attracts particular attention. Taking up work by Grünbaum and others, the thermodynamic arrow of time is considered in detail, and this discussion is then extended to other time-asymmetric processes, whose relation to this arrow of time remains controversial. After that, some remarks are made about experienced time. It is the gestalt-like character of time that, in contrast to the arrow of time, reflects time in the everyday world.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document