PIRSA:11070026

The Arrow of Time in an Eternal Universe

APA

Carroll, S.B. (2011). The Arrow of Time in an Eternal Universe. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/11070026

MLA

Carroll, Sean B.. The Arrow of Time in an Eternal Universe. Perimeter Institute, Jul. 16, 2011, https://pirsa.org/11070026

BibTex

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:11070026,
            doi = {10.48660/11070026},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/11070026},
            author = {Carroll, Sean B.},
            keywords = {Cosmology},
            language = {en},
            title = {The Arrow of Time in an Eternal Universe},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2011},
            month = {jul},
            note = {PIRSA:11070026 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Sean B. Carroll University of Wisconsin–Madison

Abstract

If we imagine that the universe is truly eternal, special challenges arise for attempts to solve cosmological fine-tuning problems, especially the low entropy of the early universe. If the space of states is finite, the universe should spend most of its time near equilibrium. If the space of states is infinite, it becomes difficult to understand why our universe was in a particular low-entropy state. I will discuss approaches to addressing this problem in a model-independent fashion.