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Time's Second Arrow: Evolution, Order, and a New Law of Nature

Time's Second Arrow: Evolution, Order, and a New Law of Nature - Hardcover

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Availability:In StockContributor:Robert M. Hazen, Michael L. WongPublish date:2/10/2026Pages:192
Language:EnglishPublisher:W. W. Norton & CompanyISBN-13:9781324105480ISBN-10:1324105488UPC:9781324105480Book Category:ScienceBook Subcategory:Physics, Life Sciences, TimeBook Topic:EvolutionSize:8.30 x 5.60 x 1.00 inchesWeight:0.5997Product ID:SCXD698M9G

Of the codified laws of nature, famously, only one inscribes a direction to time: the dreaded second law of thermodynamics, which declares that the disorder of a closed system tends to increase as time passes. New shoes eventually scuff, our bodies weaken and die. Yet our senses tell us that miraculous order constantly emerges, too: children grow and learn; spontaneous patterns manifest in murmurations of starlings. Can it be true that the laws of our universe mandate only dissolution--rendering the intricate order of a butterfly's wing, the much-vaunted complexity of the human brain, merely incidental?

In Time's Second Arrow, star scientists Robert M. Hazen and Michael L. Wong overturn more than a century of scientific canon, arguing that, in fact, there must be a second "arrow of time"--a heretofore missing law of nature that explains how the marvelously complex constituents of our universe came to be. Evolution, they boldly propose, is a universal phenomenon--not only in biology, but in the entire atomic, chemical, mineral, and physical universe. Showing how a natural process of selection for increasing function has shaped the universe since its inception, they explore how this new law could possibly help us identify life on other planets and--perhaps--even understand the purpose and meaning of life on Earth in a new way.

Elegantly written and deeply moving, Time's Second Arrow reveals how our cosmic inheritance includes, even alongside loss and decay, a drive toward wondrous invention and progress--ultimately revising our understanding of the universe and our place within it.

Language:EnglishPublisher:W. W. Norton & CompanyISBN-13:9781324105480ISBN-10:1324105488UPC:9781324105480Book Category:ScienceBook Subcategory:Physics, Life Sciences, TimeBook Topic:EvolutionSize:8.30 x 5.60 x 1.00 inchesWeight:0.5997Product ID:SCXD698M9G
Hazen, Robert M.: - Robert M. Hazen, a geoscientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, is the author of Symphony in C, among other titles. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.Wong, Michael L.: - Michael L. Wong is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. He lives in Washington, DC.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

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