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RECENT BLOG COMMENTS
James Putnam: "Dear Edwin, When I referred to empirical evidence, I had two thoughts in..." in Hanny's Voorwerp, and...
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RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
The Cosmic Family Tree
Mapping the ancestral history of spacetime in an effort to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Behind the Shadows
Imagining Schrödinger’s cat peering out from behind a black hole could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.
Why Did Nature Choose Quantum Theory?
Schrödinger’s cat may help reveal while some physical theories are better at describing reality than others.
Video Article: Through a Glass Darkly
Eight-dimensional numbers could be needed to handle string-theory’s 10-dimensional physics. This classic article, with new video content, also tackles the mystery of why elementary particles come in families of three—and maybe even how spacetime emerges in 4-dimensions.
Video Article: Evolving Time's Arrow
Why do we perceive time marching in one direction? In this classic article with new video, Craig Callender combines general relativity, evolutionary biology and cognitive science to bring the physics of time in line with everyday experience.
James Putnam: "Dear Edwin, When I referred to empirical evidence, I had two thoughts in..." in Hanny's Voorwerp, and...
Edwin Klingman: "James, You say, "It is not the theory that must be preserved. It is the..." in Hanny's Voorwerp, and...
John Merryman: "Paul, I suppose this boils down to the meaning of the terms, as what you..." in On the Origins of Quantum...
Edwin Klingman: "Dear FQXi'ers, Having spent the last day studying Rick Lockyer's site..." in On the Origins of Quantum...
Wilhelmus Wilde: "Paul ; comparing = measuring Sorry but I can not agree with you about the..." in Greetings from Goa
Pentcho Valev: "Einstein's theory is not just absurd. It is much more than that: ..." in The Whole and Nothing But
James Putnam: "Paul, "Lift up the monitor in front of you, now the processor. They have..." in The Secret History of...
Paul Reed: "James “No I do not know that there is anything physical in the mechanical..." in The Secret History of...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
The Cosmic Family Tree
Mapping the ancestral history of spacetime in an effort to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Behind the Shadows
Imagining Schrödinger’s cat peering out from behind a black hole could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.
Why Did Nature Choose Quantum Theory?
Schrödinger’s cat may help reveal while some physical theories are better at describing reality than others.
Video Article: Through a Glass Darkly
Eight-dimensional numbers could be needed to handle string-theory’s 10-dimensional physics. This classic article, with new video content, also tackles the mystery of why elementary particles come in families of three—and maybe even how spacetime emerges in 4-dimensions.
Video Article: Evolving Time's Arrow
Why do we perceive time marching in one direction? In this classic article with new video, Craig Callender combines general relativity, evolutionary biology and cognitive science to bring the physics of time in line with everyday experience.
FQXi BLOGS
February 4, 2012
It's been a while since my last post and the number one rule of blogging is never to apologise for your absence. On the other hand, since fqxi is all about breaking the rules I'll say that I'm sorry, but I have the excuse that there were good quantum foundational reasons for my absence.
Firstly, there is a month long series of workshops in Waterloo going on at the moment under the banner Taming The Quantum World. Last week we had a very interesting one organized by Paul Busch and Lucien Hardy entitled Operational Quantum Physics and the Quantum-Classical Contrast. You can find recordings of the talks here. Last time I checked the audio wasn't working, but hopefully that will be fixed soon.
What I liked most about this workshop was that it somehow managed to avoid the usual arguments about interpretations, i.e. which one is correct, that are often found at such meetings. Instead, it focussed on three main areas, all of which are becoming increasingly interesting to me:
- How to properly account for the emergence of apparent classicality from quantum theory.
- The relationship between quantum mechanics and causality.
- The relationship between quantum theory and information processing.
I highly recommend looking at some of the talks if you are interested in any of these areas.
The second major distraction was that a couple of weeks ago Lucien Hardy asked me to help with the assesment of the applications that we received for the Quantum Foundations Summer School to be held here this August. I am not sure I would have agreed if I had realized that there were over 350 applications to sort through! Many of them came from students in high energy and condensed matter physics, and not just from closely allied fields that traditionally worry about foundational issues, e.g. quantum cosmology. OK, so we did a good advertising campaign, but nevertheless this seems to be another piece of evidence that foundational research is gradually gaining credibility in the mainstream. I'd like to know if other people have the same impression, or if it's simply because I'm looking from the vantage point of an institute that cares deeply about foundational questions.
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
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Firstly, there is a month long series of workshops in Waterloo going on at the moment under the banner Taming The Quantum World. Last week we had a very interesting one organized by Paul Busch and Lucien Hardy entitled Operational Quantum Physics and the Quantum-Classical Contrast. You can find recordings of the talks here. Last time I checked the audio wasn't working, but hopefully that will be fixed soon.
What I liked most about this workshop was that it somehow managed to avoid the usual arguments about interpretations, i.e. which one is correct, that are often found at such meetings. Instead, it focussed on three main areas, all of which are becoming increasingly interesting to me:
- How to properly account for the emergence of apparent classicality from quantum theory.
- The relationship between quantum mechanics and causality.
- The relationship between quantum theory and information processing.
I highly recommend looking at some of the talks if you are interested in any of these areas.
The second major distraction was that a couple of weeks ago Lucien Hardy asked me to help with the assesment of the applications that we received for the Quantum Foundations Summer School to be held here this August. I am not sure I would have agreed if I had realized that there were over 350 applications to sort through! Many of them came from students in high energy and condensed matter physics, and not just from closely allied fields that traditionally worry about foundational issues, e.g. quantum cosmology. OK, so we did a good advertising campaign, but nevertheless this seems to be another piece of evidence that foundational research is gradually gaining credibility in the mainstream. I'd like to know if other people have the same impression, or if it's simply because I'm looking from the vantage point of an institute that cares deeply about foundational questions.
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
report post as inappropriate
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