Physicist Taps Pop Culture to Explain New Theory of Time

December 21, 2009

Physicist Taps Pop Culture to Explain New Theory of Time
Sean Carroll’s office at Caltech is a jumble of brainy flotsam. There are books with titles like Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology; five empty champagne bottles, one for each of his students who’s earned a PhD; and a NASA-approved blow-up beach ball of the universe. And on the physicist’s computer screen is a graph of the narrative progression of the time-bending movie Memento. “Memento does this combination of flashbacks and reverse chronology,” he says excitedly. “The later scenes are played in reverse chronology, the earlier scenes are played in ordinary chronology, and they meet up.”

In January, Carroll will release his own pop take on the complexities of time with his much-anticipated debut book, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. Armchair Einsteins will geek out on his audacious thesis. He argues that our perception of time is informed by entropy — the level of disorder in a system — and that the movement from low to high entropy as the universe expands establishes the direction in which time flows. Furthermore, he posits that our cosmos may be a relatively young member of a large family and that in some of our sibling universes time runs in the opposite direction. Some others, he argues, don’t experience time at all; once a universe cools off and reaches maximum entropy, there is no past or present.

www.wired.com...

Sean Carroll is a Senior Research Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology. His research involves theoretical physics and astrophysics, focusing on issues in cosmology, field theory, and gravitation. His current research involves models of dark matter and dark energy, cosmological modifications of Einstein's general relativity, the physics of inflationary cosmology, and the origin of time asymmetry. He has received research grants from NASA, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation, as well as fellowships from the Sloan and Packard foundations.

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2e2cb44bbbc9.jpg[/atsimg]

Sean Carroll's interest is also origin and nature of the universe we live in, time travel is a passion of his. I have heard Art Bell interview him as recently as April, 2007.

If you want to learn more about Sean Carroll and his work check out his websties:

Websites:

cosmicvariance.com...

www.preposterousuniverse.com...

He also wrote a book called Spacetime and Geometry.

At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

I like this quote by Sean Carroll, don't consider myself a card carrying atheists but think he has it right.

cosmicvariance.com...

Interesting!

I really like to ponder the big questions like the nature of time. Debating about religion seems so shallow...