Time keeps on Ticking, Ticking . . . : Quantum Mechanics, Entropy, Information and why your coffe won't stay hot

[Zhongyongdaoist]

This article:

 

New Quantum Theory Could Explain the Flow of Time

 

was a link at:

 

Quantum Entanglement and Information Article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

It, the article in the first link, is a very readable article and one of the most suggestive I have read in a long time.  One of the longtime basics of Information Theory is that the entropy and the information of a system are linked and both increase at the same rate.  This article explains it in terms of quantum entanglement and for the first time gives an actual explanation for why time has a "direction".

 

Because of its use of entanglement it also shows that entanglement is not some exotic phenomena, but the same thing that leaves you and your coffee, or tea, cold in the morning.  The relationship between this entanglement and information is also very interesting.

 

The original paper that inspired this article can be downloaded here:

 

Quantum Mechanical Evolution to Thermal Equilibrium

 

for the more technically inclined of us.

 

 

 

 

Edit: spelling and added clarification about the article in the first link being the one that is very readable, though, come to think of it, if you have the background so is the one at the Stanford Encyclopedia.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Karl]

She canna take it captain the engines will fly apart.

 

There is no deep mystery. We certainly might find some interesting things in radiation and convection, but the 'flow' of time is simply the relationship between cause and effect. We never find effects that don't have causes, if we did, then the flow would be reversed. So, it isn't really time, it's causality. This is the same problem encountered with space and fields-they aren't defined, they are partially defined and have grown themselves into seperate entities-funny that on a forum that revels in connectivity and a lack of identity/existence that you should cling to the idea of time as an entity. Time is a relationship between the age of little Tim and big John. Between the beat of a heart and the orbit of a planet, but flow of 'time' is a metaphor only. Things are just causing and effecting and that gives a metaphorical direction, not a real one.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Karl

[Michael Sternbach]

The argumentation of the article appears to be circular: It presupposes what it claims to deduce. When it states: "The arrow of time is an arrow of increasing correlations [between particles]", this could be just as well an effect of time's forward flow, instead of its cause.

 

I believe that time does flow in (at least) two directions, even though generally we don't perceive this. Our perception is mostly based on electron movement, and electrons do move forward in time. Richard Feynman defined positrons as electrons that move backward in time. This manifests as a positive electric charge (while electrons have a negative charge)

 

I think that the positron is the cause of the proton's positive charge. A proton can be seen emitting a positron and a neutrino under certain circumstances (beta decay), thus turning into a neutron, and is theorized to generally decay to a positron and some other particles eventually.

 

So I think that reverse time flow is actually constantly happening in atomic nuclei, usually screened off by the forward time flow of the electrons on their shells.

 

It seems to me that there is no general time flow, for it's not really time that is moving; rather, things are moving through time in a similar fashion they are moving through space. They do so at different rates (as the Theory of Relativity shows) and in different directions.

 

Quite possibly, there is an antimatter universe where the time flow is reversed the way it is perceived.

 

Watch this:

 

 

[Stosh]

I may not be a rocket scientist , but if the particles become entangled over a period of time , then the progression of time cant be the entanglement itself .. the particles wouldnt know where in time or in what direction in time they were going.

In mid entaglement they could just as easily become untangled.

In what way could one measure a "period of time" ? Degree of entanglement ? well then the thing would have to either be completely entangled all the time - partly in the place it came from and partly in the place it was going, OR incompletely entangled as its moving ,, fine , but how would it know when it was going to stop moving to be completely entangled where it was? the trail of its entanglement would start at the origin of the universe and precociously extend to the end of the universe.