High School How do we know what would happen if time reversed?

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Sean Carroll's lectures highlight the CPLEAR experiment, which indicates that weak interactions differ when time is reversed. However, the assumption that reversing a particle interaction equates to actual time reversal is questioned. There is uncertainty about whether kaons would convert to anti-kaons at the same rate if time were truly reversed. The discussion emphasizes that this assumption lacks empirical support, as it presumes no other changes occur during the reversal. Ultimately, the complexities of time reversal in physics remain unresolved.
olamosey
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The weak interactions are different going forward and going backwards in time. But how can we know this, since we can’t actually reverse time?
In Sean Carroll's lectures Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time, he talks about the the CPLEAR experiment, which showed that the weak interactions are different going forward and going backwards in time. But it seems like there is a big assumption: reversing a particle interaction means that it is happening backwards in time. But it isn't, no time reversal is actually happening. How do we know that if we could actually reverse time, we would see kaons turning into anti-kaons at the same rate?
 
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olamosey said:
How do we know that if we could actually reverse time, we would see kaons turning into anti-kaons at the same rate?
We don't. You are correct in that there is an assumption that nothing else changes when we 'reverse' time.
 

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