time-reversibility
|time-re-ver-si-bil-i-ty|
🇺🇸
/taɪmˌriːvərsəˈbɪlɪti/
🇬🇧
/taɪmˌriːvə(r)səˈbɪlɪti/
unchanged by reversing time
Etymology
'time-reversibility' is a compound formed in English from 'time' + 'reversibility'. 'Reversibility' ultimately originates from Latin 'reversibilis', from the verb 'revertere', where the prefix 're-' meant 'back' and 'vertere' meant 'to turn'.
'reversibilis' passed into Old French and Late Latin forms and then into Middle English (e.g. 'reversibilite'/'reversibility'); the modern compound 'time-reversibility' arose in scientific usage (notably physics) in the 19th–20th century by combining English 'time' with 'reversibility'.
Originally referring generally to the capacity to be turned or reversed, the term evolved in scientific contexts to denote the technical notion of invariance under the time-reversal operation (t→−t).
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the property of a physical system, equation, or process that remains invariant under reversal of the direction of time (t → −t); i.e., the dynamics behave the same when time is run backward.
The time-reversibility of the idealized equations means that if you replace t by −t the solutions still satisfy the same laws.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/10/20 02:53