

Two Futures Can Explain Time's Mysterious Past - softdev12
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/two-futures-can-explain-time-s-mysterious-past/

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graycat
> radioactive atoms decay rather than reassemble

Under appropriate conditions of temperature they can "reassemble".

> Omelets don’t transform back to unbroken eggs

Well, mud can settle out of muddy water instead of having the water dissolve
the mud.

And in principle if stir coffee long enough, then the cream will return as
close as we please to where it was when we first poured the cream into the
coffee -- this is Poincare mathematics based on ergodic theory.

For the coffee and cream, in simple terms, think of the positions of the cream
particles in the coffee. After some stirring, first-cut, all of the possible
positions are equally likely. But a huge fraction of the positions look
essentially the same and, in total, are very common. There are many fewer
positions that look distinctive. So, if we start with the cream in a
distinctive position, say, just after pouring it in and stir, then soon we
will likely have one of the positions that look the same, that is, _mixed in_.
Net, time does not have a direction or _arrow_ here.

