Le contenu de cette page n’est pas disponible en français. Veuillez nous en excuser.
 

Lecture Series presented by KPMG - The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time



Playing this video requires the latest flash player from Adobe.

Download link (right click and 'save-as') for playing in VLC or other compatible player.


Recording Details

Speaker(s): 
Scientific Areas: 
PIRSA Number: 
09100006

Abstract

One of the most obvious facts about the universe is that the past is different from the future. We can turn an egg into an omelet, but can't turn an omelet into an egg. Physicists have codified this difference into the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the entropy of a closed system always increases with time. But why? The ultimate explanation is to be found in cosmology: special conditions in the early universe are responsible for the arrow of time. This talk will be about the nature of time, the origin of entropy, and how what happened before the Big Bang may be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today.