Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time

by Huw Price

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195100956
• ISBN13: 9780195100952
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

What if?

"What if" is perhaps the most significant of all scientific questions because the speculation it causes can lead to remarkable insights. Likewise, "what if" can also be the inspiration for great fiction as here where the author takes us on many a wild goose chase. While the goose chases aren't necessarily a waste of time, readers should be aware of them nonetheless. First things first: to understand the physical basis for the arrow of time, we need to understand the basis of reality in which the arrow of time is housed. As currently understood, reality is a confluence of four physical forces: 1) Gravity -- exerted at the macroscopic level and greater consistent with the increasing size of the object in question; 2) Electromagnatism -- exerted macroscopically, it concerns the relationship between electricity and magnatism; 3) The srong nuclear force -- exerted microscopically at the subatomic level, it concerns the relationship between the constituent particles of the nucleus; SO FAR ALL THE FORCES DESCRIBED ARE TIME SYMMETRICAL, IN OTHER WORDS, THEY OPERATE THE SAME WAY WHETHER ONE IS SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND THE NORMAL SEQUENTIAL PASSAGE OF TIME -- SO CALLED RETARDED TIME -- OR REVERSED TIME SO CALLED ADVANCED TIME. 4) The fourth currently understood fundamental force of nature -- the weak nuclear force -- which also operates microscopically at the subatomic level but relates to proton decay. Since 1957, we have been aware that this force is time asymmetric in that so called K particle decay (so called because the decay pattern in a bubble chamber resembles the letter K) operates in a fashion consistent with retarded time. While one might think that a fundamental force of nature showing a selective prejudice for the type of time that we physically observe might merit some serious reflection, Price's response is to simply disregard the matter as being physically insignificant because the interactions happen on such a minute scale (viz. the subatomic realm). In other words, by Price's reasoning the fact that after the Big Bang, matter only outnumbered antimatter by a measure of one billion and one particles to one billion would enable him to say that we live in an antimatter universe because the enumerated differences between the number of particles was so small. While his discussion of quantum entanglement is fascinating, his insights invariably serve as yet another wild goose chase. Disdained by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance" quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that exists wherein two particles become entangled with a similar subatomic signature. Amazingly, research has shown that regardless of the seeming physical distance between the particles, a change in the signature to one of them can cause a similtaneous change in the signature of the other. While fascinating, follow up research has failed to show that any useful information can be communicated through this immediate process and therefore -- though i

Time For A Drink

This is heady stuff-Perhaps if you're a theoretical physics professor at CalTech it might make for light postprandial enjoyment.-But for the rest of us...Beware!...Part of the problem is terminology(micro) or (mu) innocence for example....Oddly, I read this book for the same reason I read Proust-I'm fascinated with Time!-But be forewarned that, though this book has far less than Proust's 3,000 pages, unless you are the aforementioned professor, you have an extremely tougher row to hoe in reading this book, even though the author goes out of his way to make things understandable to the lay reader. -The basic idea isn't that hard to understand: we are captives of our position in time and that captivity affects our observations of physical (particle, wavicle, whatever) behavior. What the author eventually advances (after ploughing through many other concepts and alternative explanations) is something called "advanced action theory." This theory entails, as far as I can make out, very simply, that there is a "common future" as well a "common past" that influences what we call the present but that we are unable to perceive this common future because our nature as AGENTS (he uses this term over and over)precludes us from perceiving this common future.-I kept on thinking of a spatial analogy of a person tied to the back of the caboose of a train facing backward. He can see where the train has gone, but not the vista ahead, which is certainly just as real. But if he has been in this position his entire life, he would have no idea what you meant by saying "See that mountain up ahead!" How could you know? It's as if one of us were to state, "See that assassination attempt tomorrow!"- Archimedes' Point for Mr. Price would entail an observer standing by as the train passes observing both where it's been and where it's going.-This is the simplest way I know to explain what this book is about, though it may just make more of a muddle of things for all I know....But the physicists Mr. Price describes seem to have done a pretty good job of that already.-Anyhow, that's enough explanation for a review like this one. If you are intrigued, go ahead and buy it.-But be prepared for hard, hard work.-Unless, of course, you've already figured all this out.-In the former case, a pint down at your local pub is the fit epilogue to this mindbending work!

Philosophy meets the physics of time

10-Point Rating: (9.25)Does more successuully for time what Genz's Nothingness attempted to do for space. Hopefully this extremely enjoyable book will stimulate more serious-minded philosophers to become engaged in a long needed exchange of ideas with theoretical physicists. Thought provoking, challenging, and well written (although a few words such as asymmetrical may be overused), this book has to be the most balanced approach to time within the Western traditions currently in print. My only complaint about this book is that it doesn't suitably analyze the concept of time from a more metaphysical angle, given the author's intended philosophical approach.

Ready to Have Your Mind Blown?

An absolutely revolutionary vision of the physics of time. I believe that what Huw Price has to say here will ultimately come to be the predominant paradigm in understanding the concept of time. The last great revolution in physics occured with Einstein, and ever since physics has bordered on the mystical in its theories and implications. Since our perspective of time and space is relative, it also makes sense that in whatever frame we occupy, we are not seeing the whole picture. We understand the relativity and therefore the limitations of our individual perspectives, but as the author says, it is extremely difficult to separate ourselves from our everyday notions of time and space (to gain the Archimedean perspective, in other words). I believe that the vision Mr. Price achieves in this book is the closest we have come so far to a truly objective understanding of time and our place in it. An undeniably difficult, yet profoundly rewarding read.

One of the most thought-provoking books in recent years.

The question "What is time?" is one of the most fascinating philosophical inquiries precisely because it cannot be dismissed as metaphysical. Mr. Price has a most active mind, ready to question all of our basic assumptions about the way the world goes. Why don't we see events happening backwards? Well, maybe we do see them! Why is the world the way it is today? Because it evolved from a single particle that exploded in the "big bang"? How improbable, says Mr. Price. It is far more probable that the world was created a month ago, with everyone having false memories of a nonexistent past. If you are the type of person who needs definitive answers to things, then this may not be the book for you. But if you like questions--the kinds of questions that open up new ways of thinking about things--then you can hardly do better. I hope Huw Price favors us soon with another book.