Are you defining "process" as a *pattern* of behavior which can be duplicated with different bits of matter, or as something that refers to some specific bits of matter, so that reversing a process would require doing it to the same bits of matter that underwent the original process? I think if a physicist talked about a "process" being reversible or not, they would be referring to the pattern-based notion. For example, take the process of a rogue planet coming close to a planetary system and getting captured by its gravitational interactions with the star and the planets in the system. With a pattern-based notion of process, that process is reversible in the sense that one could have a different star and different planets with identical masses, where the initial conditions were such that the planet got ejected from the system in a perfect time-reversed version of the behavior of the first system.
On Fri, Aug 5, 2022 at 7:44 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 6, 2022 at 9:29 AM Jesse Mazer <laserma...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> "The time invariance of the laws means that a photon coming in from outer >> space is consistent with the laws. But that cannot be the same photon." >> >> But "reversibility" as physicists define it has nothing to do with >> actually causing the same system to reverse itself, it's a more abstract >> notion that you could have a different system obeying the same dynamical >> laws whose behavior over time would be a perfectly time-reversed mirror of >> the first system's behavior. If you think it's about a single system >> evolving one way for some period of time and suddenly reversing itself so >> that its subsequent behavior looks like a reversed version of its initial >> behavior, that's just a misunderstanding of the concept. >> > > You are talking about the time-reversal invariance of the laws of physics. > That is one thing, but when people ask whether irreversible processes are > possible, then the emphasis is on the process, not the underlying laws. So > the issue is whether there are individual processes that cannot be > reversed, not whether there can exist separate processes that look like the > original process in reverse. > > This is important in the context of unitary evolution in quantum > mechanics. Unitary time evolution obeys time symmetric laws, but the > emission of a photon into an expanding universe, while consistent with > unitary evolution, is not a reversible process. > > Bruce > > > On Fri, Aug 5, 2022 at 7:14 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, Aug 6, 2022 at 7:54 AM Jesse Mazer <laserma...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Why do you say it's irreversible in principle? Wouldn't the >>>> time-reverse of that just be a photon traveling towards an atom and being >>>> absorbed, which is permitted by the laws of physics given a different set >>>> of initial boundary conditions? >>>> >>> >>> The laws of physics are invariant under the time-reversal operation. >>> That does not imply that irreversible processes are impossible. Brent has >>> pointed out that sending a photon out into an expanding universe is a >>> process that is irreversible in principle. The time invariance of the laws >>> means that a photon coming in from outer space is consistent with the laws. >>> But that cannot be the same photon. The idea that you can surround >>> everything with a perfectly reflecting mirror, so that all emitted photons >>> are returned, is just a fanciful diversionary tactic -- no such >>> reflective surrounds exist. Besides, reflecting photons back is not a >>> process reversal in an expanding universe. The red shift induced by the >>> expansion means that the returning photon inevitably has lower energy than >>> the emitted photon. >>> >>> Bruce >>> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLQEa1Xt7Q0sGMHUy7crGB4G5NJQvbdD7FEbzuxmhjD1Tg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLQEa1Xt7Q0sGMHUy7crGB4G5NJQvbdD7FEbzuxmhjD1Tg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAPCWU3Lei1xd4rzjWSkUpLH%3DRGA%3DsSY8X0TFXGbKSJLnzg%2BWLQ%40mail.gmail.com.
