Abstract
Time-asymmetric spacetime structures, in particular those representing black holes and the expansion of the universe, are intimately related to other arrows of time, such as the second law and the retardation of radiation. The nature of the quantum arrow, often attributed to a collapse of the wave function, is also essential to understand the much discussed “black hole information loss paradox”. The master arrow that would combine all arrows of time does not have to be identified with the direction of a formal time parameter that would allow us to formulate the dynamics as a succession of global states (a trajectory in configuration space). It may even change direction with respect to a fundamental physical clock, such as the cosmic expansion parameter, if this were extrapolated to negative “pre-big-bang” values.
Dieser Beitrag wurde 2010 für das Oxford Handbook of Spacetime (Hrsg. Vesselin Petkov) geschrieben, dessen Erscheinen derzeit nicht absehbar ist. Aus diesem Grunde, und da er vorwie- gend an Physiker gerichtet ist, habe ich ihn hier nicht übersetzt. S. a. arxiv/1012.4708.
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Notes
- 1.
By “lead to” I mean here a (timeless) logical inference – not a causal relation that might already require an arrow of time.
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Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Claus Kiefer for his comments on an early draft of this manuscript.
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Zeh, H.D. (2012). The Nature and Origin of Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structures. In: Physik ohne Realität: Tiefsinn oder Wahnsinn?. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21890-3_22
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