About the confusion between the course of time and the arrow of time
Foundations of Science 12 (3) (2007)
| Abstract | A conclusion drawn after a conference devoted (in 1995) to the “arrow of time” was the following: “Indeed, it seems not a very great exaggeration to say that the main problem with “the problem of the direction of time” is to figure out exactly what the problem is supposed to be !” What does that mean? That more than 130 years after the work of Ludwig Boltzmann on the interpretation of irreversibility of physical phenomena, and that one century after Einstein’s formulation of Special Relativity, we are still not sure what we mean when we talk of “time” or “arrow of time”. We shall try to show that one source of this difficulty is our tendency to confuse, at least verbally, time and becoming, i.e. the course of time and the arrow of time, two concepts that the formalisms of modern physics are careful to distinguish. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesPierre Uzan (2007). The Arrow of Time and Meaning. Foundations of Science 12 (2).
Geoffrey Matthews (1979). Time's Arrow and the Structure of Spacetime. Philosophy of Science 46 (1):82-97.
Hugh Rice (2005). Zagzebski on the Arrow of Time. Faith and Philosophy 22 (3):363-369.
Hugh Rice (2005). Zagzebski on the Arrow of Time. Faith and Philosophy 22 (3):363-369.
Mario Castagnino & Olimpia Lombardi (2009). The Global Non-Entropic Arrow of Time: From Global Geometrical Asymmetry to Local Energy Flow. Synthese 169 (1):1 - 25.
Chuang Liu (1993). The Arrow of Time in Quantum Gravity. Philosophy of Science 60 (4):619-637.
Jos Uffink (2001). Bluff Your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B 32 (3):305-394.
Mario Castagnino, Manuel Gadella & Olimpia Lombardi (2005). Time's Arrow and Irreversibility in Time-Asymmetric Quantum Mechanics. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 19 (3):223 – 243.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads35 ( #34,187 of 549,500 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,790 of 549,500 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
