ABSTRACT
Our previous discussions in Chapters 4 and 5 have dealt almost exclusively with systems that were operating at a steady state. While this is a convenient situation to deal with and is a most simplifying assumption, no system on Earth is at a steady state. In fact, if the Earth operated at a steady state, we would probably not exist and would certainly have no conception of time. At steady state, we would never have time for an original thought, for changing clothes, for holding a conversation, or for reading a book. Instead, we would be eating, eliminating waste, and performing countless other tasks simultaneously. Life would be at once boring and bizarre, if not impossible. Either time exists because the universe is not at steady state or the universe is not at steady state because time exists.
