Notre Dame Physicists Explore How Well We Can Know the Past

Presented by College of Science

Most research within the field of physics focuses on predicting the future. But how rapidly does our knowledge of the past deteriorate?

Consider a sugar cube dissolving in water. “If you know the initial shape of the sugar cube, it is very easy to predict the concentration of sugar over time,” said Dervis Can Vural, assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Notre Dame. “But given the final state—a sweet cup of water—it is very difficult to ‘retrodict’ the original shape of the sugar cube. The process is irreversible and you’ve lost that information.”