Abstract
In his posthumously published The Direction of Time (1956, p. 133), Hans Reichenbach wrote: “At the present state of cosmology, it is very difficult to come to a conclusion concerning time as a whole”. Yet in that work, he did rely on his “hypothesis of the branch structure” (chap. III, sec. 16) to offer a cosmological examination of temporal anisotropy in the context of (classical) statistical mechanics. Elsewhere (Grünbaum, 1967, pp. 168–170), I have offered an appreciative critical appraisal of his proposed extension of his hypothesis of the branch structure to cosmology. But unfortunately, Reichenbach did not live to witness the elaboration of cosmic physical models during the latter half of the twentieth century that are very much concerned with “time as a whole”.
This paper is based on the author’s invited presentation to the Centenary Sysmposium in Memory of Hans Reichenbach, held on April 2,1991 at Boston University and at Harvard University.
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© 1991 Adolf Grünbaum
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Grünbaum, A. (1991). Creation as a Pseudo-Explanation in Current Physical Cosmology. In: Spohn, W. (eds) Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3490-3_12
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