A Lecture on the Occasion of Adolf Grübaum's 50 Years at the University of Pittsburgh

Time's Arrow and Eddington's Challenge
Huw Price, ARC Federation Fellow and Challis Professor of Philosophy
University of Sydney, Centre for Time
Friday, 29 October 2010
3:30 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning  

::: photos

Abstract:  When Sir Arthur Eddington died in 1944, TIME magazine noted that "one of mankind’s most reassuring cosmic thinkers" had passed away:  "Sir Arthur," TIME said, had "discoursed on his cosmic subject with a wit and clarity rare among scientists." 

One of Eddington's favorite cosmic subjects was "Time's Arrow", a term he himself introduced to the literature in his 1928 book, The Nature of the Physical World -- though without his celebrated clarity about what it actually means, as Grünbaum was later to note. What is clear is that Eddington thought that there is something essential about time that physics is liable to neglect: the fact that it "goes on", as he often puts it. 

Despite the best efforts of Grünbaum, Smart and others to pour cold water on this idea, similar claims are still made today, in physics as well as in philosophy. All sides in these debates can profit, in my view, by going back to Eddington. Eddington appreciates some of the pitfalls of these claims with greater clarity than most of their contemporary proponents; and also issues a challenge  to rival views that deserves to be better known.