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2 votes
1 answer
48 views

Equivalence of various definitions of reversibility in classical mechanics

I was reading Classical Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind, and the definition of reversibility in that was: Given a state of a system, then we know exactly what state it came ...
0 votes
1 answer
105 views

Is determinism broken in special relativity?

Under classical mechanics, in an isolated system everything is deterministic given some initial conditions. Otherwise, we would have to consider some probabilities of interactions with the outside on ...
5 votes
1 answer
354 views

Are Hamilton's equations reversible?

Say I define a time dependent vector field $\Psi(t):\mathbb{R}^d\to \mathbb{R}^d$ as reversible (also here) if, for $f(x,y)=(x,-y)$, we have: $$ f\circ \Psi \circ f =\Psi(-t)=\Psi^{-1}(t).$$ Just to ...
4 votes
1 answer
1k views

Reversibility of Hamiltonian dynamics

I'm trying to understand a very basic property of Hamiltonian dynamics. I don't have a physics background but I do know some mathematics. I want to understand why negating the momentum is equivalent ...