Reimagining Physics — Part 3
The Reality of Time and Change — Reimagining Physics Part 1
Physics’ Timeless Universe — Reimagining Physics Part 2
A Thermocontextual Perspective — Reimagining Physics Part 3
What is Time? — Reimagining Physics Part 4
Wavefunction Collapse and Symmetry-Breaking— Reimagining Physics Part 5
Entanglement and Nonlocality — Reimagining Physics Part 6
The Arrow of Functional Complexity — Reimagining Physics Part 7
A Thermocontextual Perspective
In Part 2, Physics’ Timeless Universe, I described the historical roots of why physics regards the universe as fundamentally timeless and change as deterministic and reversible. Classical mechanics imagined physical reality as precisely defined in the absence of thermal noise. Physics has moved beyond classical mechanics, but it continues to define the physical state from the perspective of absolute zero temperature, where there is no thermal randomness, no dissipation, and no irreversibility. This directly conflicts with empirical observations of quantum measurements, which are intrinsically random and irreversible. Interpretations of quantum observations within the framework of classical mechanics have to resort to untestable and untenable metaphysical implications, such as superposed cats or exponentially splitting universes.
The Thermocontextual interpretation (TCI) [1] reimagines physics and provides an alternative perspective of physical reality. Like any conceptual model of physics, the TCI is an axiomatic system logically based on 1) empirically validated physical facts, 2) fundamental premises, and 3) a definition of perfect measurement.
The TCI accepts empirically validated facts as true. These include:
- Empirical conservation laws (e.g., energy, momentum, and charges)
- Empirical laws of motion (e.g., Newton’s Laws and quantum mechanics)
- Empirical laws of interaction (e.g., Law of gravitation, Planck’s Law of radiation)
Postulates of State
In addition to empirically established facts and physical laws, the TCI interprets the physical state based on the following postulates:
Postulate 1: The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics establishes the temperature of a thermally equilibrated system as a measurable property.
Postulate 2: The Third Law of thermodynamics establishes that absolute zero temperature can be approached but never be attained.
Postulate 3: There are no unmeasurable properties (hidden variables).
Postulate 1 establishes temperature as a measurable property. The Zeroth Law of thermodynamics defines a system’s temperature by the measurable temperature of a thermometer or probe with which it is thermally equilibrated.
Postulate 2 says that absolute zero temperature can be approached, but never attained. No system is perfectly isolated from its surroundings, and all systems have a positive ambient temperature. Even the universe, which, by definition, has no physical surroundings, has an ambient energy background for the exchange of photons, defined by its cosmic microwave temperature at 2.7 kelvins.
Postulate 3 is a statement about the TCI’s interpretation of physical reality. The rejection of hidden variables means that physical properties are measurable and that perfect measurement completely describes a system’s physical state. The microstate, which expresses everything measurable and knowable about a system, is therefore a complete description of a system’s underlying physical state.
Thermocontextual Properties of State
Thermocontextual properties are defined with respect to a reference state in equilibrium with the ambient surroundings at a positive ambient temperature. The TCI resolves a system’s total energy into thermocontextual components, given by:
Total energy (E) is noncontextually defined with respect to absolute zero, but it is resolved into thermocontextual system energy (E_sys) and ground state energy (Q_gs). System energy is the energy relative to the reference state, and ground-state energy is the energy of the ambient reference state with respect to absolute zero. System energy is further resolved into exergy and entropic energy (Q). Exergy is defined by the potential work that can be done on the ambient surroundings. Entropic energy is defined by Q=E_sys — X, and it has zero potential for work.
A system’s ambient temperature is defined by the positive temperature of its ambient surroundings. The ambient temperature defines a system’s temperature of thermalization. If the ambient temperature is lower than the system’s temperature, then the system’s thermal energy (q) is only partially thermalized, and it has a positive thermal exergy. The thermal exergy and entropic energy contents of an increment of heat dq are empirically given by:
Thermal exergy is the maximum amount of work that can be obtained from heat, given a perfectly efficient heat engine. The system’s total exergy is the sum of its thermal exergy plus its nonthermal exergy, which consists of kinetic and potential energies of the system’s measurable components.
The TCI entropy is closely related to entropic energy. The TCI defines entropy by S=Q/Tₐ. Like entropic energy, the TCI entropy is a thermocontextual property of state. TCI entropy is a generalization of thermodynamics’ Third Law entropy, which is defined with respect to absolute zero. TCI entropy applies to real systems with respect to their positive ambient surroundings.
The TCI State
The TCI defines a system’s state by starting with the conventional mechanical definition of state. It then adds thermocontextual properties (equation 3–1). Thermocontextual properties are defined by perfect reversible measurement with respect to an equilibrium ambient reference state (Figure 3–1).
A hot insulated gas has positive exergy and entropic energy with respect to its cooler ambient surroundings. A process of perfect measurement could extract heat energy via a heat engine until the gas reaches its ambient ground state, and it could store the heat’s thermal exergy in an external device (Figure 3–1). Using the stored exergy, we could pump heat back into the gas without any supplemental work. This would reverse the measurement process and restore the gas’s original state.
Summary and Conclusions
The TCI is a conceptual model and a simplification of reality, based on empirical facts, empirically justified postulates, and simple definitions. The TCI defines the state with respect to its actual ambient surroundings. Existing physical models define the state as one of two special TCI cases : 1) a thermally equilibrated state (or sum of thermally equilibrated states), or 2) a generally nonequilibrium state defined with respect to a reference state at absolute-zero temperature.
Special case 1 is the statistical mechanical macrostate. It is regarded as an approximation of the system’s actual mechanical microstate. Entropy is regarded as a measure of the macrostate’s missing information, and not as a fundamental property of state.
Special case 2 is defined with respect to a ground state at absolute zero. It is completely described by the classical mechanical microstate or by the quantum wavefunction. There is no entropic energy, and there is no possibility for irreversible dissipation of exergy. There may be change, but it is reversible, and there is no distinction between past and future.
The general TCI state exists between these two special cases, defined with respect the system’s actual positive-temperature surroundings. This is the region where irreversible dissipation and change exist. The TCI breaks the symmetry of time, and it directs the arrow of time in the direction of dissipation and increasing entropy.
The thermocontextual state extends physics by including thermocontextual properties of state. Thermocontextual properties are not the “hidden” variables that some interpretations hypothesize to restore determinism to quantum observations. Exergy and entropic energy are readily measurable, but they are thermocontextual and therefore not recognized by either physics or thermodynamics. The irreversible decline in exergy measures the irreversible increase in thermodynamic time. Exergy, entropic energy, and thermodynamic time are fundamental properties of the physical state, hiding in plain site.
Physics dismisses thermocontextual properties as phenomenological, emergent, and not fundamental, simply because they are incompatible with the assumption of noncontextuality. Noncontextuality, however, cannot possibly be empirically justified, because experiments and observations are inherently contextual. Noncontextuality is simply an unfounded assumption, rooted in classical mechanics. It is time to move on and embrace a thermocontextual perspective of physics.
- Time and Causality: A Thermocontextual Perspective, published in Time, Causality, and Entropy
