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Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 080401 (2009) [4 pages]

Quantum Solution to the Arrow-of-Time Dilemma

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Lorenzo Maccone*
QUIT, Dip. A. Volta, 27100 Pavia, and Institute for Scientific Interchange, 10133 Torino, Italy

Received 8 February 2008; revised 3 September 2008; published 17 August 2009

See accompanying Physics Focus

The arrow-of-time dilemma states that the laws of physics are invariant for time inversion, whereas the familiar phenomena we see everyday are not (i.e., entropy increases). I show that, within a quantum mechanical framework, all phenomena which leave a trail of information behind (and hence can be studied by physics) are those where entropy necessarily increases or remains constant. All phenomena where the entropy decreases must not leave any information of their having happened. This situation is completely indistinguishable from their not having happened at all. In the light of this observation, the second law of thermodynamics is reduced to a mere tautology: physics cannot study those processes where entropy has decreased, even if they were commonplace.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.080401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.080401
PACS:
03.65.Ta, 03.65.Ud, 03.67.−a, 05.70.Ce

*Present address: RLE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

See Also

Comment: David Jennings and Terry Rudolph, Comment on “Quantum Solution to the Arrow-of-Time Dilemma”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 148901 (2010).