Abstract
IN two recent communications1, Prof. K. R. Popper has emphasized the existence of physical processes the irreversibility of which is attributable to the physical impossibility of the initial conditions requisite to the occurrence of their inverses, apart from any relationship to thermodynamic theory. Popper refers to an earlier argument of the same type by Einstein2. We believe that his point is a sound one and deserves formulation as a general principle.
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References
Popper, K. R., Nature, 177, 538 (1956); 178, 382 (1956).
Einstein, A., Phys. Z., 10, 821 (1909). See also Zilsel, E., Naturwiss., 15, 283 (1927).
Cf., for example, Bohm, D., “Quantum Theory”, 217 (Prentice-Hall, New York, 1951).
Cf., Reichenbach, H., “The Direction of Time” (Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1956), and Grünbaum, A., “Time and Entropy”, Amer. Scientist, 43, 550 (1955), and “Das Zeitproblem”, Archiv für Philosophie, 7 (1957) (in the press).
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HILL, E., GRÜNBAUM, A. Irreversible Processes in Physical Theory. Nature 179, 1296–1297 (1957). https://doi.org/10.1038/1791296b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1791296b0
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Irreversible Processes in Physical Theory
Nature (1958)