Extra Credit: A Report on Sean Carroll s Lecture:

The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

Sean Carroll is a physicist and cosmologist at the California Institute
of Technology. He gave a lecture at Villanova University on the origin of the u
niverse and more emphatically on the nature of time. He opens with a question th
at he states is not a mystery: What is time? Time tells one what time of day it is
. Carroll emphasizes that most individuals do not get confused when they schedul
e an appointment. In this way, one uses time as a coordinate to understand a poi
nt in time just as one would use coordinates to find a place in space. Carroll s
tates that physicists still need to explain the continuity of time. He then expl
ains that we use the clocks of nature to determine coordinates in time. He discuss
es that Galileo, the Italian thinker, used his heart s rhythm to measure a chandel
ier s swing in his church. He determined that the oscillation of the pendulum was
independent of the amplitude. He moves toward his point that though one uses coo
rdinates in space, it is completely different from time in that time seems to on
ly move in one direction.
Why is there a difference? The laws of physics does not give directionalit
y to time. If one considers a pool table with scattered billiard balls and shoot
s a cue ball in to them, they will move all over the table. If there is footage
of the event and it is played in reverse, it is most likely one will not be able
to tell which direction of time the event happened. However, if the balls were
racked and then hit and scattered, one could determine the direction. Carroll ex
plains that this is a demonstration of an idea dealing with entropy. Ultimately,
according to the second law of thermodynamics, things move toward disorder . The f
uture can be affected, but the past can not be changed.
Why is the universe like this? Ludwig Boltzmann created an equation to exp
lain entropy: S=k_B ln W. The equation gives a number of microstates for a give
n macrostate of a system. High entropy can be interpreted to be a large number o
f microstates for a macrostate and low entropy to be a small number of microstat
es possible. Carroll notes that the begging question that Boltzmann did not answ
er is why there ever was a low entropy state of the universe. Carroll interprets
the past as being the direction moving toward lower entropy between which the f
undamental laws of physics do not distinguish.
The universe is changing in one direction. It can be viewed that the uni
verse is expanding. Edwin Hubble viewed galaxies moving away and it has been dis
covered more recently that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Th
is is attributed, at least to Carroll, to dark energy, or the energy of empty sp
ace, which was postulated by Albert Einstein. The universe moved from a smooth a
nd low entropy state to a rippled higher-entropy state. The universe is moving tow
ard an even higher entropy which is expected to come to equilibrium. The idea Ca
rroll is pushing is that order necessitates an explanation. Boltzmann s equation s
imply gives a probability that shows there are more ways in a high entropy syste
m for things to be arranged.
Carroll suggests that the universe may be a closed system that is within
a larger system. The suggestion comes out of the idea that there was a first mo
ment in time. He emphasizes that this does not mean nothing happened before the bi
g bang, but rather the current understanding of physics breaks down at that poin
t in time. Carroll takes this point and expands on it discussing the possible fl
uctuations of baby universes and incorporates ideas of Einstein and Stephen Hawkin
g. He then leads to the idea that the geometry of space allows for the universe
to be viewed as a bubble in which the total sum of energy sums to zero in accord
ance with space-time and the energy inside the universe. He briefly goes through
ideas of how this universe could have come together with its inherent laws of p
hysics. One of the ideas involve other universes bumping into ours. He cites a p
aper that says this is testable and there are spots in the universe in which the
re is radiation present in a circular shape that fits the initial criteria.
Sean Carroll ends his lecture discussing these things. He brings up some i
nteresting ideas that I could not fit well enough into the flow of his discussio
n. I think they are worth bringing up anyway based on their intriguing implicati

ons. He does state that though time passes, it is not felt. One may detect patte
rns of time s passing but can not sense it. He also brought up an idea that was a
bit over my head: the idea of infinite energy. According to Carroll, the curvatu
re of space-time allows for infinite energy. He does however stipulate that this
is not a form of useable energy. According to Einstein s theory, energy is not alwa
ys conserved. He also mentions that universes normal to ours can possibly take e
nergy from our universe.
Overall, the lecture was very interesting. It definitely gives motivation
to study modern physics more in-depth to hopefully understand it further in the
future.