LSE hosts the largest permanent group of philosophers of physics in Europe outside of Oxford, as part of a historic research group founded in 1946.
The exploration of physics and its philosophical foundations is an essential part of understanding the deep structure of the world. It also plays a crucial role in understanding the nature of probability, complex systems and causal structure. As a result, the philosophy of physics has always been a central concern of the Department of Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method, with past faculty such as Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Nancy Cartwright and Michael Redhead. The philosophy of physics group remains one of LSE’s most active and diverse research groups and a central part of the unique research environment at the School.
LSE philosophers of physics meet on Monday evenings during term for the Sigma Club lecture series, a London hub for philosophers, physicists and mathematicians interested in discussing philosophical foundations, with past lecturers including Stephen Hawking and Karl Popper. The group also hosts a wide variety of international conferences, including Foundations 2016, as well as PhD/MSc courses such as Ph451/Ph551 Advanced Topics in Philosophy of Physics.
The permanent philosophy of physics faculty include Roman Frigg, Miklós Rédei, Bryan W. Roberts and John Worrall. The group is regularly joined by philosophers of physics from around the world through the Visiting Scholars and Research Associates programmes at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences (CPNSS), as well as by members of the Sigma Club.
Selected Research Read more
- The sociology of property value in a climate-changed United States
Elliott, Rebecca ORCID: 0000-0001-6983-7026 - Carathéodory’s Principle and the Second Law: adiabatic comparability and irrecoverability
Lavis, David and Frigg, Roman ORCID: 0000-0003-0812-0907 - Mission-oriented innovation for sustainable polymers in liquid formulation
Massey-Brooker, Anju and Conway, Rowan (2024) Mission-oriented innovation for sustainable polymers in liquid formulation. Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 382 (2282). ISSN 1364-503X - The fundamentals of thermodynamics
Lavis, David and Frigg, Roman ORCID: 0000-0003-0812-0907 - Enhancing heatwave resilience in the UK: insights and strategies from stakeholders
Mehryar, Sara ORCID: 0000-0002-5755-0869 - The challenge of non-Markovian energy balance models in climate
Watkins, Nicholas W. ORCID: 0000-0003-4484-6588
Media
Weak interactions and the curious little arrow of time
In this talk from ETH Zurich’s Workshop on Time in Physics, Bryan Roberts introduces weak interactions and argues that the laws of nature are directed in time.
Christian List in Scientific American
In the latest issue of Scientific American, Professor Christian List discusses the philosophical foundations of Einstein’s view of quantum mechanics.
The simple failure of Curie’s Principle: How to get out what hasn’t gone in
It’s often been thought that Curie’s principle says something that’s just obviously true about the world. However, Bryan Roberts has discovered a simple way in which Curie’s principle fails.
