Time & Energy
Entropy, conservation, and the arrow of time
Overview
Energy and time are deeply linked by the laws of physics. Conservation of energy is a direct consequence of time-translation symmetry (Noether's theorem). The second law of thermodynamics — that entropy always increases — is why time has a direction at all. Energy is the engine of temporal change, and time is the dimension in which energy does its work.
Central Tension
Physics at the fundamental level is time-symmetric — the laws work equally well forward and backward. Yet macroscopic reality has an unmistakable arrow pointing from low entropy to high. Is the arrow of time a fundamental feature of energy, an emergent statistical fact, or a product of cosmic initial conditions?
Key Philosophical Questions
- Does energy require time to exist, or is energy what creates time by driving change?
- Why does entropy increase — is the arrow of time a law, a statistical tendency, or an initial-condition artifact?
- Can energy be conserved across all of time, including a beginning or end of the universe?
- Is "eternal" energy (infinite, pre-existing) compatible with time having a beginning?
Schools of Thought
Energy and time are both fundamental natural realities; the laws governing their relationship are complete without appeal to anything beyond nature.
The energy state at each moment fully determines the next; time is the sequence of energetically determined configurations.
Quantum uncertainty applies to both energy (via the energy-time uncertainty principle) and time; neither is fully determined at the fundamental level.
Energy is the activity of becoming; time is the medium of that becoming, and both are aspects of the same underlying creative process.
God created both time and energy; their lawful relationship (including conservation) reflects his faithful governance, not self-subsistent necessity.
Synthesis
Time and energy are bound together by the deepest laws of physics — conservation, entropy, and uncertainty. Their relationship tells us not just how the universe works, but why it has a direction, a history, and a future.