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I usually don't have the patience for videos, and I'm going to wait for reviews before considering his book, which on Wolfram's site is at: [0] However, maybe

I usually don't have the patience for videos, and I'm going to wait for reviews before considering his book, which on Wolfram's site is at: [0] However, maybe this helps: (1) perfectly reversible systems do not inherently increase entropy, and (2) irreversible systems generate entropy because they throw away information that could otherwise be used to run the system backwards. The role of information in thermodynamics typically arises in Statistical Mechanics [1] [0] https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolving-the-mystery-of-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/ https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolv... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics

xorbax 3y ago
I usually don't have patience for videos and this is no exception. It's a bad format to understand a new thing, in my opinion. I don't know if the fantasy of reversible systems is a new thing. What's the innovation?
- DougMerritt 3y ago
  You appear to be unhappy with the notion of reversible computation, but that is not the topic here. Time reversibility of most physics at the subatomic level is standard, mainstream, but also posed one of the biggest physics puzzles of the 20th century. It is still occasionally presented as a mystery, but generally speaking it is entropy at a macroscopic level that gives time a one-directional forward arrow. Edit: your profile makes it look like you might be a scientist, in which case nothing I said was new to you -- but then I don't know what you're referring to. Videos might be good for people to learn who don't want to read a book, I suppose, but books are typically far more information-dense.
  - karmakaze 3y ago
    The closest analogy I can think of is that of quantum decoherence--large things can in theory be in entangled states but they aren't. I think the topic here though is about the large scale and time reversibility isn't standard/mainstream.
  - xorbax 3y ago
    I don't have an opinion on reversible computing. I don't know what his revelation about entropy or reversibility is supposed to be - I guess I was just fishing for the two sentence summary. I assume it involves cellular automata.
karmakaze 3y ago
> (2) irreversible systems generate entropy because they throw away information that could otherwise be used to run the system backwards. It seems to me that the video is saying there are no irreversible states, only that we treat multiple states similarly in some cases and not others. It also assumes everything to have a definite measureable state and be perfectly deterministic. I would need more convincing to buy into these.
- DougMerritt 3y ago
  All of that appears to directly contradict things established by experiment, as well as mainstream theory, so I dunno.

xorbax 3y ago

I usually don't have patience for videos and this is no exception. It's a bad format to understand a new thing, in my opinion. I don't know if the fantasy of reversible systems is a new thing. What's the innovation?

DougMerritt 3y ago
You appear to be unhappy with the notion of reversible computation, but that is not the topic here. Time reversibility of most physics at the subatomic level is standard, mainstream, but also posed one of the biggest physics puzzles of the 20th century. It is still occasionally presented as a mystery, but generally speaking it is entropy at a macroscopic level that gives time a one-directional forward arrow. Edit: your profile makes it look like you might be a scientist, in which case nothing I said was new to you -- but then I don't know what you're referring to. Videos might be good for people to learn who don't want to read a book, I suppose, but books are typically far more information-dense.
- karmakaze 3y ago
  The closest analogy I can think of is that of quantum decoherence--large things can in theory be in entangled states but they aren't. I think the topic here though is about the large scale and time reversibility isn't standard/mainstream.
- xorbax 3y ago
  I don't have an opinion on reversible computing. I don't know what his revelation about entropy or reversibility is supposed to be - I guess I was just fishing for the two sentence summary. I assume it involves cellular automata.

karmakaze 3y ago

> (2) irreversible systems generate entropy because they throw away information that could otherwise be used to run the system backwards. It seems to me that the video is saying there are no irreversible states, only that we treat multiple states similarly in some cases and not others. It also assumes everything to have a definite measureable state and be perfectly deterministic. I would need more convincing to buy into these.

DougMerritt 3y ago
All of that appears to directly contradict things established by experiment, as well as mainstream theory, so I dunno.