Thread: Time flow vs. Entropy flow

I wanted to post an actual theory of time travel on this thread, but I didn't want to send the whole discussion to pseudo.

http://www.thescienceforum.com/time-30107t.php

Originally Posted by ecom131

It is said one of the unique things about time is that it only goes one way - to the future. It is said as a an example that for instance you can never uncrack an egg.

First of all 'time' may or may not exist. Its something we make up to make things understandable (like the word 'gene') After all all observation is subjective.

So does not quantum physic suggest that the whole egg and the cracked egg both exist together, its only our observations that make it seem one follows the other.

Why?

Yeah. Our notion of time is tied very closely to our notion of entropy. At the highest level of entropy, like say a really hot gas or plasma, there would be no preferred direction for us to say time is flowing. Backwards and forwards are basically the same.

So, to travel back in time, you would have to not know what was coming. The past would have to be a mystery to you the same as the future is a mystery to you. Otherwise the information contained in your body would be destroyed. All that low entropy energy that defines you and gives you order needs to be headed toward a high entropy destination.


Why does it need to be headed toward a high entropy destination? Because the flow of entropy is the constant that cannot be changed. The flow of time can be altered, but not the flow of entropy. And even at that, you're not sending mass back in time. Only information.


Oh, and then there's the problem of entropy being relative. If you know for a fact what tomorrows lottery numbers are going to be, then the lottery drawing is not a high entropy event to you. It's high entropy to everyone else, but not you.

kojax [b]
Yeah. Our notion of time is tied very closely to our notion of entropy. [/quote]

From my point of view it is much better to tie entropy together not with the time, but with the memory of quantum system. Such memory really exists and manifests itself in such concepts as entanglement, coherent states (see N 30674t.php).