Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

With irreversibility being so central to how things evolve, you would think we could easily identify its mathematical origin within the laws of physics. Surely, we should be able to point to something specific in the equations that ensures that although things can transform from this to that, the math forbids them from transforming from that to this. But for hundreds of years the equations we’ve developed have failed to offer us anything of the sort. Instead, as the laws of physics have been continually refined, passing through the hands of Newton (classical mechanics), Maxwell (electromagnetism), Einstein (relativistic physics), and the dozens of scientists responsible for quantum physics, one feature has remained stable: the laws have steadfastly adhered to a complete insensitivity to what we humans call future and what we call past.