Abstract
This Letter describes the way that metastable systems escape from traps. Brief periods during which the system apparently runs backwards in time play a crucial role. These ideas are applied to a model for one of nature's most obviously irreversible phenomena, the shattering of a body by a crack.
- Received 4 November 1994
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.4547
©1995 American Physical Society
