I'm forwarding this, my email, to math-fun because I somehow originally sent it only to the poster. ----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> To: meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2013 4:05 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] quantum theory foundational issues, my theory of how they should be resolved

...

________________________________ From: meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> To: Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com>; math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2013 3:16 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] quantum theory foundational issues, my theory of how they should be resolved

On 7/28/2013 3:06 PM, Eugene Salamin wrote:

...

...

________________________________ From: meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> To: Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com>;

math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>

...

...

Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2013 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] quantum theory foundational issues, my theory of how they should be resolved

On 7/28/2013 2:05 PM, Eugene Salamin wrote:

...

...

From: meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2013 11:53 AM Subject: Re: [math-fun] quantum theory foundational issues, my theory of how they should be resolved

The direction of physical time is determined by expansion of the universe (which allows entropy to increase) - which in a sense is a gravitational effect.

Brent What would be observationally different in a contracting or steady state universe? Depends.  If it contracted enough it would reach the maximum possible entropy density and everything would be in thermal equilibrium (and very hot).  We're possible because the rapid expansion of the universe provides an entropy sink, so we can live off the far-from-equilibrium radiation from the Sun.

...

Can the Hubble constant or the cosmological constant be deduced from a thermodynamic measurement, perhaps some chemistry experiment? No by any theory I know of.

Brent

...

      --  Gene _______________________________________________ Suppose the universe were contracting at the same rate it is expanding.  What would be observationally different concerning the increase of entropy in ordinary laboratory measurements.

Contracting at the same rate it's expanding AND is the same size? Nothing

...

...

If nothing different, then in what sense is the statement "The direction of physical time is determined by expansion of the universe (which allows entropy to increase)" anything other than a collection words strung together into a grammaticaly correct English sentence?

It's a sentence that expresses a relationship between a past event and a direction (not a rate), as in you are the size your are because you grew from a zygote.  You'd be the same size if you had shrunk from a giant, but in fact the former occurred and not the latter and hence it's correct to say you grew with time.

Brent

Then we seem to agree that the second law of thermodynamics, discovered by Clausius in the mid 19th century, has little relation to the expansion of the universe, discovered by Hubble in the early 20th century.  A contracting universe would "allow" entropy to increase just as much as does the expanding universe.

As for the other part of that statement, "The direction of physical time is determined by expansion of the universe", what does that mean?  Would the direction of time be reversed in a contracting universe, so that maybe observerers always see the universe to be expanding?  What happens at the boundary between a contracting region and an expanding region?  What sort of experiment might one perform to either confirm or refute this idea?

  --  Gene