 |
TIME
AND CHANGE
The symmetry of
time has been a fundamental concept of mathematics and phycics for ages and our scientific
understanding of the world is largely built on time-symmetric formulas and laws. The
Belgian nobellaureaat Ilya Prigogine has stated for some years now that theoretical
physics should not neglect the direction of time on the quantum-level. An interview with
the eighty-four year old physicist and chemist. I meet him at his
apartment in De Panne on the Belgium In wartime he chose
the study of science instead of music as his path of life. He had been a talented pianist
who just happened to be highly interested in chemistry as well. He takes a sip of his
mineral water and continues without asking: "Many people think that man is about to
discover the last secrets of the universe and that we almost have a clear and finished
picture of the world. But I don't understand how they can believe this, what is life then,
and death? What do we know about the direction of time, which is a feature of all natural
processes, including our daily lives? The majority of the
phycisists today for instance agree that there must have been a Big Bang and they say
there is an evolution of the universe. But that implies a direction of time. Yet nobody
knows how that comes about. My theoretical opponents have always said that the direction
of time or irreversibility is caused by the experimentator or the experiment, or because
one has to make use of finite numbers in the calculations. But if you say that, our lives
are illusions!” Perhaps time is not an illusion, but Einstein surely said that time was relative? "Einstein has
proven that time and space are interrelated. And of these two time was relative. Therefore
the spatial component has been given more scientific relevance and research than the
temporal element. Physics decribes the movement of matter in space, using time only as a
parameter. I think this model must change and that we must look for a way to incorporate
time in the picture; after all we live in space-time." Still, quantummechanics, based on time-symmetric mathematics, is a very succesfull theory. How do you explain that? “I don’t
fight against the exactness and trueness of quantummechanical experiments.
Quantummechanics is fine, as long as we don’t forget that it describes only very rare
situations of isolated systems. In real life all systems are non-isolated, and have
constant interactions with their environment. This is the reason why there aren’t any
descriptions of phase-transitions of matter
on quantumlevel. If we really want to
say anything about non-isolated systems, we have to accept that Mother Nature works with
statistics and probability. If we don’t accept this, we can never discuss
phase-transitions in science, cause these are non-isolated ensembles.” Where starts time
in physics? "The role of
time is essential for the formation of matter, molecules and the processes of life. The
very existence of matter, structures and processes starts with the formation of a
feedback-loop. It’s the building principle of nature. The principle allows the
forming of new and more complicated structures. All structures, processes and systems
repeat certain cycles and exchange information, internally and externally. By doing so a
system absorbs energy from its environment and is able to keep its structure in tact, in
time. The structure however, is one side of a coin. The other side is that the system
starts to produce disorder, warmth and waste; the so-called entropy will increase. The
production of waste is an irreversible proces and introduces the arrow of time. Some
people put it this way: there are no free lunches in nature." Does life
necessarily develope from simple forms towards more complicated structures? Is the
evolution one-directional and linear? "There is strong
evidence that the biological evolution in some cases shows a tendency towards the
development of more complex systems. But we must be very carefull. There are life forms of
great complexity, like plants, animals and man, but still the biggest part of the bio-mass
of our planet is formed by bacteria. Like Stephen J. Gould has said, I think the evolution
not necessarily moves toward more complexity. The evolution evolves in many directions and
dimensions at the same time. Some animals left the sea and started to live on land, some
went back into the water." The mathematics you
use are non-linear, and widely known as chaos-theory. Some people say that chaos-theory
and complexity research, despite their popularity have failed to fulfil their promises. Do
you agree? "The research of
non-linear systems certainly has astonished everybody. Some systems which we reckonned as
relatively simple are explosively complex, like the three-body problem. Others look
complicated but are relatively easy to describe with non-linear mathematics. Like some
economic phenomena. But on the whole non-lineairity poses many questions and no answers. I
think we are in need of more sophisticated mathematical tools, because our world is much
more complicated than we ever dreamed of." Is time linear or
circular? “One cannot say
that time is one of these two. Time is multi-dimensional. Nobody grows old in the same
way, for instance. Two, three or four dimensions are too simple. Maybe time is
ten-dimensional or more! Some of your
critics say you make up your own rules, you manipulate physics. “In our latest
research my co-workers and I have tried to give quantummechanics a broader mathematical
outlook. We tried to create a model for describing more-particle systems; our so-called
ensembles. This is a whole new area in maths so we had to develop new mathematical tools.
I don’t think people can blame us for that. We are only saying that irreversibility
starts at the quantum level and that the direction of time must be significant on that
level. We have to accept that time certainly is no illusion on the quantum-level.” Do you believe in a
so-called new science? “Science is an
expression of culture. The sciences today are totally different than at the beginning of
the 20th century. The same is true for our society. I think science and culture
are strongly interrelated. Some cultures, like the Chinese, would never have asked the
questions leading towards the discovery of the
Americas or the discovery of atoms and quarks. However, cultural creativity and science
are not the same thing. Quarks and other subatomic particles did exist before we
discovered them, they are no human inventions. In this sense I don’t believe in a new
science. But I think we can offer a new perspective which can give us a new look upon
reality. “Nowadays we
hardly realize how much our scientific thinking is influenced by cultural values. Take for
instance the growing influence of sponsors on all sorts of scientific research in the
west. The philosophy behind it is that one can manipulate nature and one can predict a
profittable outcome of research. This way of
reasoning is typical for the dominant
mechanistic worldview in the west. The Japanese are different. They are more open for
unexpected insights. Even Netwon believed that God was still creating the universe.” Do you believe in
God? “I think that
one must answer that question for oneself. But who ever takes a masterplan for granted, he
or she must accept the existence of some kind of creator or God. I think it’s also
possible that the universe is organizing itself, based upon some guiding principles. So is
God within or outside creation? I don’t know.” But how then, do
you explain the existence of patterns like atoms, bacteria, plants or other forms of life? “We now enter an
area of speculation. I think that energy potentialities and entropy are important building
principles, which can lead to the existance of quantumstructures and chemical processes
which sustain life. But the precize mechanisms are still undiscovered. We can only guess.
I think that will be the work for next generations. For the moment I think we should be
humble, we are only at the beginning of an understanding of time.” HERMAN NUNNINK Short biography Ilya Prigogine was
born in Russia in 1917. When he was four years old he fled with his parents for the onset
of the Russion Revolution, through Lithuania to Berlin. His family stayed there till 1929,
when they moved to Brussels. Here Prigogine starts to study chemistry and physics as a student of professor Théophile de Donder, one
of the pioneers of non-equilibrium dymanics.
In 1941 he graduates and in 1951 he succeeds De Donder as professor at the Free University
of Brussels. From that moment on
Prigogine’s fame grows rapidly and he acquires some professorates at different
universities in Belgium and abroad. In 1977 he is honored
with the Nobelprize for Chemistry, for his research on self-organizing chemical systems.
Prigogine showed that these dissipative structures also exist in evolution, embryology,
sociology, city-planning and trafficsystems. In 1989 The Belgium
King gives him a royal tittle for his work. Prigogine wrote many articles and books and he
is widely known as co-author of Order out of Chaos, which he wrote together with Isabelle
Stengers. His latest book, The End of Certainty, appeared in 1997. Prigogine still travels
between his Belgium International Solvay Institute of Physics
and Chemistry and the University of Texas, Austin. Terug naar het overzicht van columns...
|
Coast. A sober furnitured flat, clear and clean as the daylight that fills the room. That
afternoon a bomb from the Second World War has been detonated on a nearby beach. When I
ask him about his recollection of the war, he shruggs his shoulders, the war is a far
memory, and hasn’t made an exceptional impression upon him. Most of his youth he fled
with his parents, from Russia, through Lithuania to Berlin. And some years later to
Belgium, just before the outbreak of the war. The climate in Belgium towards jews appeared
to be reasonably tolerant. Prigogine stayed for the rest of his life.