The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

The Origin
of the Universe
and the
Arrow of Time

Sean Carroll
California Institute
of Technology
preposterousuniverse.com

What is Time?

A label on points in the
universe, just like space.

Time helps us locate things.

[Jason Torchinsky]

We measure time using clocks:
repetitive, predictable motions.

[Sara Petagna, Flickr]

Biological rhythms -- our pulse, breathing,
nervous system -- are (somewhat) reliable clocks.
They allow us to feel the passage of time.

[Pattie Lee, Flickr]

A profound difference between time and space:
time has a direction, space does not.

[NASA]

The arrow of time
points from the
past to the future.

Things change, in
consistent ways, time

throughout the universe.

time time

Just as organisms
change and evolve,
so do stars, and so
does the universe.

[Sky & Telescope]

380,000 years: ripples in a smooth background

1010 years: stars and galaxies.

1015 years: black holes and rocks.

10100 years: empty space (forever).

There is no arrow of time in
the fundamental laws of nature.

time

Interactions between The arrow of time only
simple objects (atoms, emerges when there
billiard balls) are are many moving parts.
perfectly reversible.

What really happens as time passes?
The world gets messier -- more disorderly.

[Charles Mallery]

time

We can clean things up, but that takes effort;
it doesn’t happen by itself.
Disorder in the universe increases with time.

Disorder is measured
by Entropy. Messier,
less-organized things
Entropy

have higher entropy.

Time

The Second Law of Thermodynamics:
entropy increases with time (in closed systems).

Growth of entropy is responsible
for all the aspects of the arrow of time.

Life and death
Biological evolution
Memory
Cause and effect
[Roger Penrose] The “flow” of time

Without the arrow of time, the universe
would be in thermal equilibrium --
everything static, nothing ever changing.

Ludwig Boltzmann, 1870’s:

Entropy counts the number
of ways we can re-arrange
a system without changing
[Martin Röll,
its basic appearance. Wikimedia]

low entropy: high entropy:
delicately all mixed up
ordered

time

Boltzmann’s idea explains why entropy tends to go up:
there are more ways to be high-entropy
than to be low-entropy.
all possible
arrangements
of some system

But why did the entropy
start out so low?
low entropy
A question about
the early universe!

high entropy

regions denote
arrangements
that look the same

This includes ideas like
causality and even free will.

We can reconstruct the
past from the present only
by appealing to a low-
entropy boundary condition.

possible possible
pasts futures

correct reconstruction
low-entropy
past
what we know
about the present

The origin of the arrow of time is cosmological.

Entropy was low near the Big Bang. Our initial conditions
were finely-tuned, “unnatural.” Nobody knows why.

today -- galaxy distribution future -- emtpy space
(14 billion years): lumpy and sparse (100 billion years): dilute and cold
medium entropy high entropy

early -- microwave background
(380,000 years): smooth and dense
low entropy

Why was the early universe so “unnatural”?

Could the whole universe just
be a random fluctuation?

Boltzmann, 1895:
maybe there is a multiverse mostly in
high-entropy equilibrium, and our
galaxy is just a random fluctuation.

Boltzmann’s multiverse

The anthropic principle: in a big universe, we
will only observe those parts that are
hospitable to the existence of intelligent life.

Boltzmann wasn’t the first to suggest this scenario.

“For surely the atoms did not hold
council, assigning order to each, flexing
their keen minds with questions of place
and motion and who goes where.

But shuffled and jumbled in many ways,
in the course of endless time they are
buffeted, driven along, chancing upon
all motions, combinations.

At last they fall into such an arrangement
as would create this universe…”

-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, c. 50 BC.

In 1931, Sir Arthur Eddington
explained why we cannot be
just a random fluctuation.

Fluctuations are rare, and large
fluctuations are very rare.

This scenario predicts that we
should be the minimum possible
fluctuations -- “Boltzmann Brains.”

[New York Times]

Skeptical
voices are
important.

Perhaps the answer is to be found before the Big Bang.

General relativity predicts its
own downfall at the moment of
the Big Bang. Needs to be
replaced by something better.

There could be spacetime before
the Big Bang, and many possibilities
are currently being pursued.
[Getty Images]

A high-entropy universe would look like empty space.

That’s where our
universe is headed.

But in the presence of
vacuum energy, even
empty space has a
nonzero temperature.

Fields will constantly be
background
gently fluctuating, even
space though space is “empty.”

Einstein says that space and time are dynamical;
they will have their own fluctuations.

We can even imagine forming a new bubble of
spacetime -- a baby universe.

Baby universes start out small, with low entropy;
then they expand and cool, creating an arrow of time.

Just like the Big Bang.

Baby universes cost zero energy to produce.

A bubble could form in this room and we’d never know.

The universe is like an
eternal bubble-making
machine. It will
never turn off.

Each new bubble increases the entropy of the
larger multiverse. That’s the difference between
this scenario and Boltzmann’s; entropy grows
forever, rather than jiggling near a maximum.

This can happen in both directions in time.

Evolving empty space to the past, we would also see
baby-universes created; their arrow of time would be
reversed with respect to ours. The multiverse can be
perfectly time-symmetric; we just don’t see all of it.

The multiverse business
is obviously speculative.

What’s important is:

You remember the past and not the future because
the early universe had a very low entropy.

Understanding why is a profound challenge
for modern cosmology.

The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

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The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time