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SUMMARY:Time-asymmetry in thermal physics - Katie Robertson (Faculty of Ph
 ilosophy\, Cambridge/University of Birmingham)
DTSTART:20181121T130000Z
DTEND:20181121T143000Z
UID:TALK111181@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Matt Farr
DESCRIPTION:The second law of thermodynamics has a lot to answer for. Reic
 henbach claims it was responsible for the direction of time. Atkins claims
  that 'the second law is one of the all-time great laws of science\, for i
 t illuminates why anything – anything from the cooling of hot matter to 
 the formulation of a thought – happens at all'. And Hawking claims it is
  a tautology.\n\nIn this talk\, I discuss the different concepts of time-a
 symmetry in thermal physics and claim that the second law has less bite th
 an the authors above suggest. Instead of an arrow of time\, it is more app
 ropriate to say\, as Uffink suggests\, that the second law describes the r
 avages of time. Instead of considering thermodynamics to be the source of 
 the arrow of time\, I claim that statistical mechanics is the theory we sh
 ould focus on. By looking at a particular framework advocated by Zwanzig\,
  Zeh and Wallace\, I discuss how the time-asymmetry in statistical mechani
 cs arises out of the underlying time-symmetric dynamics.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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