The Arrow of Time: We may be able to remember the future
I put the water in a mug and place the mug in the microwave. It takes 2 minutes on high to bring it to a proper boil. The microwave beeps and I drop the tea bag in, Earl Grey of course, listening for the sound of bubbling as the tea bag creates additional nucleation sites within the water.
The tea piping hot, I pull it out and set it on the counter to steep.
Suppose I play that back in reverse now.
I take the piping hot tea from the counter. I place it in the microwave and pull out the tea bag. The microwave beeps and the clock runs up to 2 minutes while the tea inside cools from boiling to room temperature. The microwave radiation inside removes the heat and stores it as electricity. The water now room temperature I take out the cup and the water leaps up into the tap.
Why is it that it makes sense in one direction but not the other?
It all has to do with cause and effect.
The microwave is the cause of the water heating. The water heating is the effect. If you reverse them, it makes no sense.
The reason why things make sense in a particular order from cause to effect has to do with the 2nd law of thermodynamics which says that entropy, the level of disorder in a system, must always increase…
