The Direction of Time

by Hans Reichenbach

Overview

Ever a source of philosophical conjecture and debate, the concept of time represents the beating heart of physics. This final work by the distinguished physicist Hans Reichenbach represents the culmination and integration of a lifetime's philosophical contributions and inquiries into the analysis of time. The result is an outstanding overview of such qualitative, or topological, attributes of time as order and direction.
Beginning with a discussion of the emotive significance of time, Reichenbach turns to an examination of the time order of mechanics, the time direction of thermodynamics and microstatistics, the time direction of macrostatistics, and the time of quantum physics. He offers coherent explanations of the analytic methods of scientific philosophy in the investigation of probability, quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity, and causality — methods that he not only applies here but also helped to develop and refine.
Physics Today observed that "For a generation Professor Reichenbach has worked as almost no other man to bring to the interpretation of modern physics the critical and reflective thinking of a trained philosopher. Most physicists who retain an interest in philosophy, and many who wanted simply to understand physics, have read some of the earlier books of Reichenbach. This one is . . . the best by a good deal." Introduction. Appendix. Index.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486409269
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	07/02/1999
Series:	Dover Books on Physics
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Hans Reichenbach was professor of philosophy at UCLA and one of the leading thinkers in the logical empiricist school of philosophy. Maria Reichenbach translated and edited many of her husband's works first written in German. Hilary Putnam, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, is author of Meaning and Moral Sciences (1978), and, most recently, Realism with a Human Face (1990).

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
1. The Emotive Significance of Time
II. The Time Order of Mechanics
2. The Qualitative Properties of Time
3. The Causal Theory of Time
4. Causality in Classical Physics
5. The Causal Definition of Time Order
6. Intervention
III. The Time Direction of Thermodynamics and Microstatistics
7. Report on the Second Law of Thermodynamics
8. The Statistical Definition of Entropy
9. Extension of Statistics to Different Energy Levels
10. A Deterministic Interpretation of Thermodynamical Statistics
11. Determinism Versus Indeterminism in Classical Physics
12. The Probability Lattice
13. The Reversibility Objection
14. The Time Direction of the Space Ensemble
15. The Sectional Nature of Time Direction
16. The Hypothesis of the Branch Structure
IV. The Time Direction of Macrostatistics
17. Macroarrangements and Macroentropy
18. Cause and Effect: Producing and Recording
19. The Principle of the Common Cause
20. Entropy and Information
21. The Time Direction of Information and the Theory of Registering Instruments
22. A Completely Macrostatistical Definition of Time Direction
23. The Mark Principle and Causal Relevance
V. The Time of Quantum Physics
24. The Statistical Reversibility of the Elementary Processes of Quantrum Mechanics
25. The Indeterminism of Quantum Mechanics
26. The Genidentity of Quantum Particles
27. The Entropy Concept of Quantum Statistics
28. Extension of Quantum Statistics to Different Energy Levels
29. Particles Vanishing into Nonexistence
30. Particles Traveling Backward in Time
Appendix
Index