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The story of the beginning of the universe is well known, but perhaps it did not play out exactly as we were told.
According to the Big Bang theory, 13.8 billion years ago, a point smaller than an atom produced a large explosion.
From there, all the matter that makes up our universe was created, which still continues today expansion.
And it is also just at this moment that time has started to run, which since then also advances unstoppable. Tick, knock, tick, knock
The big explosion launched particles in all directions, which then came together to form stars, planets and galaxies that roam the universe.
Time, however, seems to travel in one direction, always forward, like an arrow flying through the air.
But why if space and matter extend in all directions, time only advances?
A seasoned theorist disputes this idea. In fact, it questions the classic Big Bang narrative and offers a new conception of time.
His name is Julian Barbour, a retired professor who has taught physics at the University of Oxford, who has published his research in the most prestigious scientific journals and who is recognized by his colleagues as someone with ideas. deep, original and daring on the fundamental affairs of the universe.
Barbour is the author of The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time, in which he offers a two-sided universe, with a time moves in two directions and to the one who predicts an end more promising than the cold death that some theories predict for our cosmos.
On BBC Mundo, we spoke with Julian Barbour to understand what his provocative idea is and how it can lead us to deep questions about our existence.
A universe with two faces
In ancient Roman mythology, Janus was the god of the beginnings and the ends.
He was usually depicted as a man with two faces opposite directions.
The figure of Janus illustrates very well Barbour’s idea of the beginning of the universe.
His proposal is that in the time of the Big Bang did not begin to pass One waybut was also able to start running in the exact opposite direction.
According to Barbour, if Janus had been in the Big Bang, he would have been able to see how time was starting to move in two opposite directions, which he could observe. simultaneously with both sides.
To understand how he came to this conclusion, we need to understand two key concepts: the second law of thermodynamics and entropy.
Disorder
Barbour turns to a new way of seeing second law of thermodynamics.
This law establishes that a system always evolves towards a state Mrs. Catico, but not the other way around.
The classic example is a glass tumbler. There will always be a good chance that this cup will break and he dispersed in a thousand pieces, but we know that after breaking it is impossible for these fragments to come together to leave the glass as it was.
So, glass is a neat object that when broken becomes messy, and it is a process irreversible.
In physics, this measure of disorder is called entropa.
The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can only increase, never decrease.
So from there we understand why we say time only advances in only one direction: because time advances only in the direction where entropy increases.
The longer you leave a glass on a table, the greater the risk of someone tripping and breaking it.
But after it’s broken on the ground, a thousand years can pass and the glass I will never rearm.
The same thing happens in the universe, the more time passes, the more its entropy increases.
Get off the beaten track
The laws of thermodynamics were established during the Industrial Revolution, when engineers tried to manufacture steam engines more efficient where less energy would be wasted.
The second law states that when energy is transferred and transformed, part of it dissipates. Concretely, it is wasted.
For Barbour, there is the problem, because this second law was made with the cylinders and machines in mind where energy and heat passed from one place to another confined in a space delimited.
For him, the mistake It is by believing that what happens in a closed space is the same as what happens on a large scale in a universe without limits.
In Barbour’s words, literally “go off the beaten track“.
Increased complexity
Let’s look at the example that Barbour uses.
If we put an ice cube in a box, the entropy will increase in this way: we will first have a very clean cube, that is, with low entropy.
So this cube is to melt and the water will spread through the box, the entropy increases.
Finally, the water can evaporate and its particles will be distributed indistinguishably throughout the box, entropy has reached its highest level.
In limitless space, says Barbour, these water particles could continue to travel and, thanks to gravity, join other particles to form new structures that will go growing in all directions of space and time.
Thus, according to Barbour, what determines the passage of time is not the increase in entropy, but the increased complexity, without limits of time or space.
An encouraging future
In the traditional view of physics, entropy increases continuously with the passage of time, which means that one day our universe will reach its maximum entropy state, that is, it will be so developed that he will be a total mess.
Pretend the universe is a jar full of marbles, at some point this jar will break and the marbles will stay scattered of catic form.
It’s him to come up that some experts predict to our universe.
As the universe expands and entropy increases, the heat and energy will dissipate until all is blah and inert.
This is what experts call the “thermal death“Or” The big freeze “.
Barbour, however, ventures out with a forecast ms optimista.
In his theory, the arrow of time does not necessarily advance towards full entropy, on the contrary, what he predicts is one universe at a time. more complex and more structured that grows without borders.
He doesn’t believe that time takes us in one direction towards an entropy that will turn everything into a set of particles indistinguishable from each other.
His vision is that of a growing universe varied and dynamic, where there is no lack of heat and energy to continue to grow in all directions of time and space.
Carpe Diem
For Barbour, his conception of time and the universe carries a message for life.
“Carpe Diem”, enjoy every daysaid the 83-year-old physicist.
Whatever the fate of the universe may be at the cosmic level, the truth is that for now every human being lives with a an indisputable certainty, he warns.
“I don’t wanna be melancholy, but you and me we are going to die“.
For this reason, just as his view of time and space represents a change from traditional notions of physics, Barbour believes that everyone could have a change in attitude towards life, thinking of the good of others.
“I think we can save the world if people get used to being better people with others“.
And above all, concludes the scientist, it does not matter in which direction the universe is moving ”.my advice is not to waste your time! “.
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