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Item Details
| Title:
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TIME'S ARROW AND ARCHIMEDES' POINT
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR THE PHYSICS OF TIME |
| By: |
Huw Price |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| List price:
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£48.00 |
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We currently do not stock this item, please contact the publisher directly for
further information.
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| ISBN 10: |
0195100956 |
| ISBN 13: |
9780195100952 |
| Publisher: |
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC |
| Pub. date: |
25 April, 1996 |
| Pages: |
320 |
| Description: |
Could - and does - the future affect the past? What is the difference between the past and the future? What give time its direction, or "arrow"? The arrow of time and the meaning of quantum mechanics are two of the great mysteries of modern physics. This important book - written for non-specialist readers, as well as physicists and philosophers - throws fascinating new light on both issues, and connects them in a wholly original way. In considering attempts tounderstand the arrow of time in physics, Huw Price shows that for over a century physicists have fallen repeatedly for the same trap: treating the past and future in different ways. To overcome this natural tendency, we need to imagine a point outside time - an Archimedean viewpoint, as Price calls it- from which to think about the arrow of time in an unbiased way. |
| Synopsis: |
The arrow of time and the meaning of quantum mechanics are two of the great mysteries of modern physics. This important book - written for non-specialist readers, as well as physicists and philosophers - throws a fascinating new light on both issues, and connects them in a wholly original way. In considering attempts to understand the arrow of time in physics, Huw Price shows that for over a century physicists have fallen repeatedly for the same trap: treating the past and future in different ways. To overcome this natural tendency, we need to imagine a point outside time - an Archimedean viewpoint, as Price calls it - from which to think about the arrow of time in an unbiased way. Taking this Archimedean viewpoint, Price asks why we assume that the past affects the future but not vice versa, and argues that causation is much more symmetric in microphysics: to a limited extent, the future does affect the past. Thus he avoids the usual paradoxes of quantum mechanics, without succumbing to the rival paradoxes of causal loops and time travel. |
| Illustrations: |
line figures |
| Publication: |
US |
| Imprint: |
Oxford University Press Inc |
| Returns: |
Non-returnable |
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