Time , as we understand it , moves from the yesteryear to the futurity irreversibly . But now , an international trio of theoretical physicists is suggest that there ’s more than one future tense . Two parallel universe of discourse were develop by the Big Bang : ours , which moves forrader in time ( picture above ) , and another where meter moves backwards . Thesefindingswere print inPhysical Review Lettersin October .
In the twenties , British astronomerArthur Eddingtoncoined the term “ pointer of prison term ” ( sometimes “ time ’s pointer ” ) , which describes the asymmetrical , one - agency guidance of time . Many physicists today have that time movement in the counselling of increasing information — or disorderliness , randomness , and even chaos — in an effort to draw close some balance among all of the things . allot to this thermodynamic pointer of time , things progressively fall aside . If that ’s the case , then our population must have start in a small - entropy , highly put initial state .
But why would there have been this rare moment of low selective information in our past tense ? One century - sometime idea developed by Austrian physicistLudwig Boltzmannis that our visible universe is a temporary , miserable - entropy statistical fluctuation that affect only a small portion of a much larger equilibrium organization , APS Viewpoint explains .
Here ’s another possible explanation . Oxford’sJulian Barbour , Tim Koslowskifrom the University of New Brunswick , andFlavio Mercatiof the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics are insert a new arrow of sentence , one that ’s found not on thermodynamics , but on gravitational attraction . " metre is a mystery,”Barbour tells the Daily Mail . “ fundamentally , all the known law of aperient look exactly the same whichever way clock time runs . "
To come at this “ gravitational arrow of meter , ” they used a simple placeholder for our universe , Scientific American explains : a computing machine simulation of 1,000 particles interact under the influence of Newtonian gravity . They found that every particle configuration evolves into a state of low - complexity — like a chaotic swarm of bees that settles into a more orderly structure analogous to Boltzmann ’s scurvy - entropy fluctuation . And from there , the particles expanded outward in two distinct , symmetrical , and diametrical arrow of meter .
“ If you look at a unproblematic model with a swarm of bee in the middle [ the Big Bang ] but breaking up in either counsel , then you would say there are two arrows of clock time , pointing in opposite instruction from the horde of bees,”he tells Daily Mail . In this diagram , you’re able to see how a unequaled moment of lowest complexity , or a past from which two future tense emerge :
“ This two - futures billet would exhibit a undivided , helter-skelter yesteryear in both counseling , intend that there would be essentially two universes , one on either side of this primal state,”Barbour tell Scientific american . “ Both slope could sustain observers who would perceive sentence going in diametric directions . Any intelligent beings there would define their pointer of time as moving forth from this cardinal state . They would think we now live in their mystifying past times . ”
Images : NASA viaGoddard Media Studios(top ) , APS / Alan Stonebraker via APS Viewpoint ( mediate )
