The Direction of Time - Dover Physics Book for Science Studies

I have now read 3 of Dr. Reichenbach's books published on Kindle. All three illustrate the author's deep understanding of and appreciation for the modern foundations of physics. In this particular volume (the last book Dr. Reichenbach wrote and published after his death) the Dr. falls mid way (in a philosophical sense) between his even more philosophical exploration of space and time together ("The Philosophy of Space & Time") and his more technical exploration of quantum mechanics in "Philosophic Basis of Quantum Mechanics". In this book, Reichenbach is concerned to show how the direction of time can be derived from physics and he derives it in 4 different ways, from thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and the observation (in the macro-world) of marks, or history. He shows how each of these derivations is consistent with all the others. Indeed their consistency is in part based on an assumption common to each approach, that the over-all thermodynamic world-line of the universe throws off "branches" and that each of these branches proceeds semi-independently taking a course that, in general, but not in every particular, follows that of the general thermodynamic arrow.In these days it is said that every equation one puts in a book halves your readership. If that were the case Reichenbach would have about 2 readers in the world here and that goes double for the previous "quantum mechanics" book. But one can read past the equations (Indeed it makes the book go much faster if you do) and still get at what the author is trying to convey. Because of Reichenbach's place in the history of physics and philosophy of science he is able to focus on his subject with a level of detail that is simply glossed over in more modern treatments. As with the other two books, Reichenbach is very much at pains to point out that the assumptions and definitions we bring to the examination of physical phenomena do very much affect how we interpret our conclusions. Modern writers simply ignore this for the sake of explicating their particular point of view, but Reichenbach takes pains to explain the difference that the alternatives make. The next time I read Penrose, Stapp, Greene, Thomas, and others I'm going to understand them a lot better thanks to Reichenbach.