Entropy and Time

Arieh Ben-Naim*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The idea that entropy is associated with the "arrow of time" has its roots in Clausius's statement on the Second Law: "Entropy of the Universe always increases. " However, the explicit association of the entropy with time's arrow arises from Eddington. In this article, we start with a brief review of the idea that the "increase in entropy" is somehow associated with the direction in which time increases. Then, we examine three different, but equivalent definitions of entropy. We find that none of these definitions indicate any hint of a relationship between entropy and time. We can, therefore, conclude that entropy is a timeless quantity. We also discuss the reasons as to why some scientists went astray in associating entropy with time's arrow. Finally, we shall discuss Boltzmann's H-Theorem, which is viewed by many as a proof of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Original languageEnglish
Article number430
JournalEntropy
Volume22
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.

Keywords

  • Arrowof time
  • Entropy
  • H-function
  • H-theorem
  • Second law of thermodynamics
  • Shannon's measure of information

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