“On The Reversiblity Of Motion”

[Actual title unknown.]

By Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson)

Excerpt from Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 8, 325 (1874)


Dissipation of energy, such as that due to heat conduction in a gas, might be entirely prevented by a suitable arrangement of Maxwell demons, operating in conformity with the conservation of energy and momentum. If no demons are present, the average result of the free motions of the molecules will be to equalize temperature-differences. If we allowed this equalization to proceed for a certain time, and then reversed the motions of all the molecules, we would observe a disequalization. However, if the number of molecules is very large, as it is in a gas, any slight deviation from absolute precision in the reversal will greatly shorten the time during which disequalization occurs. In other words, the probability of occurrence of a distribution of velocities which will lead to disequalization of temperature for any perceptible length of time is very small. Furthermore, if we take account of the fact that no physical system can be completely isolated from its surroundings but is in principle interacting with all other molecules in the universe, and if we believe that the number of these latter molecules is infinite, then we may conclude that it is impossible for temperature-differences to arise spontaneously. A numerical calculation is given to illustrate this conclusion.

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The essence of Joule’s discovery is the subjection of physical phenomena to dynamical law. If, then, the motion of every particle of matter in the universe were precisely reversed at any instant, the course of nature would be simply reversed for ever after. The bursting bubble of foam at the foot of a waterfall would reunite and descend into the water . . . Boulders would recover from the mud the materials required to rebuild them into their previous jagged forms, and would become reunited to the mountain peak from which they had formerly broken away. And if also the materialistic hypothesis of life were true, living creatures would grow backwards, with conscious knowledge of the future, but no memory of the past, and would become again unborn. But the real phenomena of life infinitely transcend human science; and speculation regarding consequences of their imagined reversal is utterly unprofitable. Far otherwise, however, is it in respect to the reversal of the motions of matter uninfluenced by life, a very elementary consideration of which leads to the full explanation of the theory of dissipation of energy.

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The equations of motion in abstract dynamics are perfectly reversible; any solution of these equations remains valid when the time variable t is replaced by Gamma t. Physical processes, on the other hand, are irreversible: for example, the friction of solids, conduction of heat, and diffusion. Nevertheless, the principle of dissipation of energy is compatible with a molecular theory in which each particle is subject to the laws of abstract dynamics.