The Arrow of Time: From Local Systems to the Whole Universe

by Cristian López (Editor), Olimpia Lombardi (Editor)

Overview

The 'arrow of time,' a concept first introduced by Sir Arthur Eddington, reflects the one-way flow of time and its association with various physical asymmetries in thermodynamics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, field theories, and beyond. Yet, the foundations of the arrow of time continues to challenge physicists and philosophers, having profound implications across multiple theories and disciplines.This volume compiles insights from the international colloquium 'The Arrow of Time: From Local Systems to the Whole Univers' held in Buenos Aires in 2023. It explores diverse perspectives on the arrow of time in thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and cosmology, its relation to counterfactual reasoning, free will and the growing-block universe, the interplay between consciousness and time, and the implications of time-reversal invariance. Collectively, these contributions provide a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the enduring enigma of time's unidirectional nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009581578
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/30/2025
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Cristian López is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher with the Swiss National Science Foundation (FNS) at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and an Assistant Researcher at CONICET, Argentina. He has a broad research background spanning philosophy of physics, metaphysics of science, and political philosophy. He has authored numerous articles on the arrow of time, symmetries and quantum mechanics, and co-edited two books with Olimpia Lombardi for Cambridge University Press: What is Quantum Information? (2017) and Quantum Worlds (2019).

Olimpia Lombardi is a Superior Researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a Corresponding Member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences. She is also an Honorary Fellow of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, a member of the Foundational Questions Institute, and an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Lombardi has authored numerous articles in the philosophy of physics and chemistry, along with several books. Among her publications are two co-edited volumes with Cristian López for Cambridge University Press: What is Quantum Information? (2017) and Quantum Worlds (2019).

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Preface; Introduction; Part I. Local Systems: 1. The direction of time: from the cosmos to local systems David Albert; 2. Thermodynamics with and without irreversibility David Wallace; 3. Thermodynamics without time Francesca Vidotto; Part II. The Arrow of Time and Philosophical Issues: 4. Explaining the psychological arrow of time in time-symmetric physics Meir Hemmo and Orly Shenker; 5. The consequence argument meets the mentaculus Barry Loewer; 6. 'Freedom from inside out'. Revisited Carl Hoefer; 7. The arrow of time is alive and well but forbidden under the received view in physics Ruth E. Kastner; Part III. The Arrow of Time and Time-Reversal Invariance: 8. Time for pancakes: ontology and time reversal Valia Allori; 9. Insights into quantum time reversal from the classical Schrödinger equation Craig Callender; 10. Saving the appearances: the direction of time and time-reversal invariance Cristian López; Part IV. The Whole Universe: 11. Following Earman's time direction heresy: from the global arrow of time to local irreversible processes Olimpia Lombardi; 12. The seeds of cosmic structure, the black hole information puzzle and the entropic arrow of time Daniel Sudarsky and Elías Okón; 13. Finding time for Wheeler-DeWitt cosmology Nick Huggett , Karim Thébault; Index.