Foreign Media: Chinese scientists have made a theoretical breakthrough in the origin of time. A team of physicists from Hainan University has proposed a brand-new quantum-level explanation, explaining why time only flows forward and humans cannot go back to the past.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal "Annals of Physics." Unlike previous theories that relied on observations, measurements, or external disturbances, this framework suggests that the "arrow of time" can naturally arise from the increasing entanglement between different components within a quantum system. This process is inherently embedded in microscopic physical laws. The research points out that even though fundamental physical laws mathematically allow for time-reversed evolution, in reality, quantum entanglement spontaneously forms irreversible processes, making phenomena such as "broken eggs cannot be reassembled" and "people do not grow young again."
This achievement provides a new theoretical foundation for understanding the irreversible nature of time from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale of the universe, and also addresses a core physics problem raised by Boltzmann in the 19th century, namely, that "entropy increase determines the direction of time."
Original: toutiao.com/article/1852450739082252/
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