Arrow of Time Reversed?

Interesting. It seems to suggest either information is another type of energy or that information might be convertable into matter or energy.

Also the prospects of a quantum heat pump are intriguing:. "... Thus, an anomalous heat current does not seem

to be restricted to extremely microscopic systems..."

Please define "Information".

Can information exist without an intelligent entity to recognize it as such?

All energy contains information if we could understand it.

Steven Hawking theorized that black holes could not destroy information even as they "evaporated" bit by bit.

He called these "Hairy Black Holes" and the information is stored in these "hairs."

If that is true, we must be showered all the time with information from all of the decaying black holes in the universe.

If information is energy, and E=MC squared, then information has mass.

If information has mass, then Dark Matter could possibly be information about all of the matter consumed in the black holes within a galaxy.

Just thinkin'

I agree this is a valid hypothesis....Dark hairy information, that can never go bald....

Here is a thought, neurons travel, their speed is irrelevant, they have contacts, these contacts may or may not form thought or action, thought is conscience, action is energy, which impacts mass and time. I think conscience is where usable information is stored, not a black hole where information becomes random. "IF" is the middle word of life and it's up to conscience to decide how information is used. Mass has a weight, conscience does not.

Craig, How much of your post is spin?

I have seen heat seemingly "repelled" by cold in the real word.

To see this effect,take an iron rod,and heat one end red hot,then immerse the end in cold water.The heat will travel up the rod much faster than if it was not immersed in the water.

To prove this to yourself,use two rods,heated red hot.

Immerse one,and do not immerse the other.You will see for yourself.

My theory of this is that the hot molecules are forced back together at the cold end as the metal contracts,and a "Shock wave" of sorts forces all of the remaining (hot) molecules away from the cold water end of the rod.

I have experienced this quenching metal. i am uncertain if the temperature reduction in and of itself is causing the apparent increase in heat transfer.

Another explanation could be that dipping metal in water causes rapid heat transfer upward due to the superheated steam rising and tending to adhere to the surface, transfering heat higher up on the metal until it condenses.

I haven't had an opportunity to test this out, but someone who lives up north and has the opportunity to quench metal could easily test this. Scribe marks on two similar lengths of steel. Heat an end of each pieces to a smilar temperature ....use a noncontact thermometer to measure the end and also at a scribe mark a certain distance up the piece. Quench one in water just above freezing to a certain depth. Plunge the other horizontally or better yet at a slight upangle into packed snow to the same depth. Measure the change in temp at the scribed mark on each.

Another explanation could be that dipping metal in water causes rapid heat transfer upward due to the superheated steam rising and tending to adhere to the surface, transfering heat higher up on the metal until it condenses.

That makes sense to me. I've been searching a while and haven't found any reference to the phenomenon. What happens if the quenching is done with oil instead of water?

Oil quenching is typically accompanied by a burst of flames. I'm going to blame the flames for my inattentiveness towards the heat transfer...but I will be more attentive next time I have such an opportunity.

Another thought occurred to me...

Iron changes its structure as it is heated from body-centered-cubic (α) to face-centered-cubic (γ) and back to body-centered-cubic (δ) as shown below. My understanding of quenching is that it cools the metal so quickly that it doesn't change phase. The metal that cools more slowly will change phase. Many times there is heat given off when there is a phase change. I am wondering if this is the case in this instance.

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.634.4351&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron

i like your thinking.

I don't think phase change can be responsible though because as you say, quenching sidesteps phase change.

Yeah, I was thinking that quenching would freeze the iron phase at the surface (surface hardening), but that the metal in the interior of the rod would cool slowly enough to allow phase change to take place there and to release latent heat.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.634.4351&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Interesting. Well even if it is quenched through, there is still a portion between the cool end and the hot end being cooled more slowly.

The article you linked shows a positive correlation between carbon content and latent heat of phase change. Pure iron being around 19 J/g. Latent heat increases with additional carbon.

The specific heat of iron is roughly 0.45 J/(g*K)

...so for pure iron the phase change involves an equivalent amount of heat as roughly a 40 °C (72°F) change in temp otherwise. With addition carbon that figure could double.

I'm still a little uncertain about how that would take place exactly, but it is an intriguing possibility.

Probably anybody who has done a lot of welding or soldering has noticed this phenomena....

If you heat one end of a metal rod, heat will flow from the heated end to the cooler end. This takes time. If you quench the hot end, there is still the heated portion in the middle which is now the hottest part of the rod. Heat should flow in both directions in the direction of cooler temperature.

At least, this is what the formulas predict. But then, I've heard of hot water freezing faster than cold water, so I have an open mind.

There really is increase heat transfer in the upward direction when you quench a length of steel. The upper portion quickly becomes much hotter...the previously cool end quickly heats whereas this would not happen rapidly if it were allowed to air cool.

One wouldnassume that quenching steel would make the cool end not experience a temperature higher than an air cooled piece but in the short term that is not always the case.

It is not unusual that the heat goes from hot to cold.

While I understand that the heat transfer is rather quick my question would be if the end that is not quenched gets hotter than the original temperature or if it is just a mater of the rather quick heat transfer (Conduction?) to the end in the air.

Is there any papers that analyses this that you know off?

I have not seen any papers. The occurance of the phenomena is fairly common knowledge AFAICT.

Just to be clear I am talking about an increase in the rate of heat transfer...not just that the cooler end gets warmer.

I am certain this is not a quantum effect,but imagine squeezing toothpaste from a tube.The bottom contraction forces the paste toward the opposite end.

I think the sudden contraction of the metal forces some the heat out of the now confined space and into a larger less dense space that has not been affected by the water.

If the rod cools slowly,the heat will travel much slower away from the hot end.

I am not sure if this is what is happening,but if you doubt that it happens, try it for yourself,then you will be a believer.

There's actually a common situation where heat flows from a cold system to a warmer system. A container of water exposed to the air loses heat as higher energy molecules leave the liquid, carrying heat away and leaving the remaining liquid cooler. This temperature difference can be exploited by a heat engine.

I don't know if this counts as reversing the thermodynamic arrow of time.

I'm pretty sure the container of water from which the bird 'drinks' can be warmer than ambient air (within reason...it probably can't be boiling) and the bird continues to dip unabated.

If the container is sealed and left for a long time, it reaches room temperature. The same amount of evaporation and condensation will occur as the partial pressure of water vapor above the liquid reaches the vapor pressure of the liquid.

If the container is then opened to the air, the vapor can diffuse into the room. More evaporation will occur than condensation (assuming the relative humidity in the room is less than 100%), and the water will be cooler than the room temperature.

The bird is just a convenient heat engine to illustrate there is a temperature difference caused by evaporation that can be exploited.

No argument there. xç

I was just pointing out that the temperature difference that is being leveraged is not between the cup of water and the room. In fact, the cup of water can be warmer than the room temperature and it will still operate...so long as the humidity is not too close to 100%.

If it were the cool cup of water serving as the sink then gases would condense in the bird's head, making it heavier. The cooling of consequence occurs when the bird is upright, drawing fluid up and moving the center of gravity above the pivot.

The link was much too vague to make any comment about. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it (or is that gain sleep?)

click on the PDF download to view the entire document

SO tell us Del, what kind of bow do we use for this particular arrow?

The article appears to be describing an observed phenomenon in the sub-micro scale. In this scale, a statistical portion of the contents of an observed population will appear to do the opposite of what is expected in the macro population. The macro population will still follow the expected entropy lifecycle even though individual particles may appear to do the opposite.

This would be exciting if the article proposed that the macro population could be made to do the same as the observed micro population. It is possible, though statistically it is extremely unlikely. No new news. Life continues unabated.

"... The article appears to be describing an observed phenomenon in the sub-micro scale. ...

...This would be exciting if the article proposed that the macro population could be made to do the same as the observed micro population..".

The full paper is available from the linked page.

"... While we have

observed reversal of the arrow for the case of two spins,

numerical simulations show that reversals may also oc-

cur for a spin interacting with larger spin environments

[25]. Thus, an anomalous heat current does not seem

to be restricted to extremely microscopic systems..."

...but, did they fully account for ALL of the NET sub-atomic potential energies. etc., in the first place?...

(i.e.: Only someone like ''Dr. Who'' could (un-shoot) a time-arrow... and then, only in some type of (Who-space) ... )

More like Dr. What(!?), the slightly less ept time lord who always showed up a day late in his time ship, the TARDY.

"Only someone like ''Dr. Who'' could (un-shoot) a time-arrow... and then, only in some type of (Who-space) "

Happens all the time in Who-ville.

Nice, I like it

Said Horten