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General relativity, thermodynamics, and the Poincaré cycle

Abstract

An arbitrarily close return to a previous initial state of the Universe, such as predicted by the Poincaré recurrence theorem, cannot occur in a closed universe governed by general relativity. The significance of this result for cosmology and thermodynamics is discussed.

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Tipler, F. General relativity, thermodynamics, and the Poincaré cycle. Nature 280, 203–205 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/280203a0

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