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Dennis Dieks (Utrecht): “Identical quantum particles as distinguishable objects”
Particles in classical physics are individuals that can be distinguished by identifying physical properties. By contrast, in quantum mechanics the “received view” is that particles of the same kind (``identical particles'') cannot be distinguished in this way. This standard view is problematic, though: not only is it at odds with the very meaning of the term ``particle'' in ordinary language, it also conflicts with how the term “particle” is actually used in the practice of present-day physics. Moreover, the indistinguishability doctrine prevents a smooth transition from quantum to classical particles (in the classical limit). We will discuss an alternative to the standard view that avoids these and similar problems. According to this proposed analysis, a particle picture is not always appropriate to represent what is usually called an “identical particle system”; but when such a picture is applicable, identical quantum particles are distinguishable no less than classical particles. As it turns out, this alternative approach connects to recent discussions concerning the question of when identical particle states should be considered to be entangled.
Find out more »Margherita Harris (LSE): “Model Robustness: Schupbach’s Explanatory Account of Robustness Analysis to the Rescue?”
In science, obtaining a "robust" result is often seen as providing further support for a hypothesis. The Bayesian should have something to say about the logic underpinning this method of confirmation. Schupbach's recent explanatory account (2018) of robustness analysis (RA) is a welcome attempt to do so. Indeed, by having 'as its central notions explanation and elimination' (ibid., 286), this account seems to fit very nicely with many empirically driven cases of RA in science, thereby revealing why these cases are able to lend confirmation to a hypothesis. The subject of this talk, however, is Schupbach's further claim that his account of RA 'applies to model-based RAs just as well as it does to empirically driven RAs' (ibid. 297), since when we arrive at this claim, he and I decisively part ways. I will argue that the application of Schupbach's account to model-based RAs is considerably more complicated than he and others (such as Winsberg (2018)) suggest and relies on several non-trivial and often dubious assumptions. By making these assumptions explicit, I will show that Schupbach’s account of RA is inapplicable to many cases of model-based RA’s, contrary to what has been assumed in the literature.
Find out more »Jacob Barandes (Harvard): “A New Critical Analysis of Everettian Quantum Theory”
In this talk, I'll review and expand on several problems faced by various forms of Everettian quantum theory, known more familiarly as many-worlds interpretations. I'll also introduce and discuss some new criticisms, one of which potentially applies to many-worlds interpretations in general, and another that's relevant to certain minimalist versions of Everettian quantum theory.
Find out more »Harvey Brown (Oxford) Sigma Club: What justifies the common claim that symmetries explain conservation principles?
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 ABSTRACT: It is widely claimed by physicists that symmetries have explanatory priority when it comes to the link between them and conservation principles. In the literature on Noether's first…
Find out more »Lucy James (Lancaster) Sigma Club, Naturalised Metaphysics: The Case of Separability
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: This talk begins with a review of the central tenets of the naturalised metaphysics of Ladyman and Ross, with particular emphasis on the negative role of intuition, and…
Find out more »Nick Huggett (U of Illinois, Chicago) Sigma Club: Quantum gravity in a laboratory
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 ABSTRACT: The characteristic – Planck – energy scale of quantum gravity is utterly beyond current technology, making experimental access to the relevant physics apparently impossible. Nevertheless, low energy experiments…
Find out more »Caspar Jacobs (Merton College): How (Not) to Define Inertial Frames
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: It is nearly impossible to open a textbook on Newtonian mechanics without encountering the concept of inertial frames: frames which are uniquely privileged by the theory's dynamics. In…
Find out more »Tushar Menon (University of Cambridge): ‘Inferential Scientific Realism’
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: A key scientific realist commitment is that at least some scientific expressions correspond to unobservable entities or structures out there in the world. This is usually cashed out as…
Find out more »Kiki Timmermans (King’s College London) Sigma Club: Analogies and Frameworks in Quantum Field Theory
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: In the philosophy of quantum field theory (QFT) it is common to analyse questions concerning the interpretation of theoretical structure appearing in both high energy particle physics (HEP)…
Find out more »Bryan W Roberts (LSE): ‘Is there a problem of thermodynamic irreversibility?’
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Title: Is there a problem of thermodynamic irreversibility? Abstract: No. The talk is based on this paper, and is a follow-up on Chapter 6 of Bryan's recent book Reversing…
Find out more »Alexander Franklin (KCL): ‘Weather Probabilities are Ontic and Objective’
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Title: Weather Probabilities are Ontic and Objective Abstract: In this talk I argue that at least some of the probabilities used to describe the weather are both ontic and…
Find out more »Gábor Hofer-Szabó (Hungarian Academy of Sciences): ‘Operational equivalence and causal structure’
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: In this talk, I will explore some consequences of abandoning operational equivalence in quantum mechanics. Two measurements are operationally equivalent if they yield the same distribution of outcomes…
Find out more »Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv University): ‘The impact of quantum mechanics on philosophy’
This will be a hybrid lecture: you can attend in person in our usual LAK 2.06 seminar room, or on Zoom: Join On Zoom Meeting ID: 852 3006 9457 Passcode: 297258 Abstract: Arguably, the main impact of quantum theory on philosophy is that people gave up the hope that science can explain everything in a deterministic way. Some even accept…
Find out more »Lucy Mason (Royal Holloway): ‘Temporal Perspectives, Probabilities, and Openness’
There will be tea starting 3:30pm. Abstract: One way to interpret the difference between presentism and eternalism is perspectively. This suggestion, from Savitt (2006), argues that from a perspective outside of time the world is eternalist, and from a perspective embedded within time the world is presentist. In this paper, I develop what it means to be in an embedded,…
Find out more »Simon Saunders (University of Oxford): ‘Quantum mechanics and intrinsic probability’
This is a Bristol-London-Oxford-Cambridge (BLOC) Philosophy of Physics event. Abstract: I examine the concept of interval or imprecise probability as applied to any admissible ensemble of microstates, in which the probability of a projector P in an ensemble is bounded by the frequency of +1 eigenstates (lower bound) and 0 eigenstates (upper bound). Given a Hilbert space H and quantum…
Find out more »Nadia Blackshaw (LSE): ‘Everett+: expanding the Everettian Picture’
There will be tea starting 2:30pm. Abstract: It is often claimed that Everettian Quantum Mechanics has the advantage of taking the physics seriously as is. By not adding to standard quantum theory, the argument for many worlds is thought to be more palatable and the interpretation sticks closer to actual science. But do Everettians truly not add anything? And is…
Find out more »Guido Bacciagaluppi (Utrecht University): Against ‘local causality’
Abstract: In his last paper on foundations, J. S. Bell suggested to characterise the causal constraints of relativity in terms of a condition he called 'local causality', to which he tentatively gave a precise mathematical form. In this form, local causality implies his famous factorisation condition and thus the Bell inequalities. This leads to the conclusion that both quantum mechanics and…
Find out more »David Wallace (University of Pittsburgh): What Gibbsian Statistical Mechanics Says
Abstract: I expound and defend the “bare probabilism” reading of Gibbsian (i.e. mainstream) statistical mechanics, responding to Frigg and Werndl’s recent (BJPS 72 (2021), 105-129) plea: “can somebody please say what Gibbsian statistical mechanics says? (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13875) David Wallace is a philosopher and physicist at the University of Pittsburgh, where he holds the Mellon Chair in Philosophy of Science. Schedule 15:30-16:00 tea/coffee…
Find out more »Victoria Wright (Quantinuum): Quantum field theory can be more contextual than non-relativistic quantum theory
Abstract: Quantum theory allows for correlations between spacelike separated experiments that go beyond the set of local realist correlations of classical physics. This phenomenon is often called Bell non-locality. However, since the resolution of Tsirelson's conjecture we know that the set of quantum commuting correlations---that is identified by the mathematical framework of algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT)---is strictly larger than…
Find out more »Silvia De Bianchi (University of Milan): ‘Atemporality from Conservation Laws of Physics in Lorentzian-Euclidean Black Holes’
Abstract: Recent results have shown that singularities can be avoided from the general relativistic standpoint in Lorentzian-Euclidean black hoes by means of the transition from a Lorentzian to an Euclidean region where time loses its physical meaning becoming imaginary. This dynamical mechanism dubbed “atemporality” prevents the emergence of black hole singularities thereby avoiding the violation of conservation laws. In this paper,…
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