Daniel P. Sheehan, Its About Time

The phenomenon of time is one of the most familiar yet one of the most perplexing aspects of our existence. Questions surrounding it are legion and it now appears ripe for scientific revolution and redefinition. Perhaps its most vexing feature is that, whereas the central equations of physics are timesymmetric (that is, they admit both timeforward and timereversed solutions), our everyday experience is timeasymmetric, unidirectionally toward the future 13. The various forms of precognition presentiment, premonition) stand as counterexamples to this temporal unidirectionality. Although there is no consensus scientific explanation for it, precognition likely does not involve new physics; rather it requires that currently accepted physics be interpreted in a more forthright manner. In this talk, I will introduce the rudiments of time s symmetry and asymmetry, then propose an explanation for precognition in terms of currentlyaccepted physics. New research directions will be suggested, includi