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What discerns past from future? | blogjou

Murray Gell-Mann

The Quark and the Jaguar

216
22 May 2024

What discerns past from future?


Another difference between the past and the future is the existence of records of the past, like tracks left in mica by the charged particles emitted when radioactive nuclei disintegrated long ago. Similar records of future disintegrations are conspicuous by their absence. That asymmetry between past and future is so obvious that we tend to overlook it.