Emergence and Effective Field Theories Conference - 2011

In 1665, the clockmaker Christiaan Huygens noticed that two pendulum clocks hanging on a wall tend to synchronize the motion of their pendulums. A similar scenario occurs with two metronomes placed on a piano: they interact through vibrations in the wood and will eventually coordinate their motion…

How can one model the behavior of materials that display radically different, dominant behaviors at different length scales. Although we have good models for material behaviors at small and large scales, it is often hard to relate these scale-based models to one another. Macroscale (effective)…

In the philosophical literature, effective field theories have been regarded as emergent in the sense of furnishing novel explanations. In particular, Batterman has argued that effective field theories in statistical mechanics are emergent in this sense. I will argue that effective field theories in…

This talk considers the extent to which the intertheoretic relation between an EFT and its (possibly hypothetical) high-energy theory supports a notion of emergence. When a high-energy theory exists, this relation is based on a process that involves the elimination of high-energy degrees of freedom…

Our ability to understand the physical world has to a large extent depended on the existence of emergent properties, and the separation of scales that permits effective field theory descriptions to be useful. Exploiting this fact, we can construct minimal models that enable efficient calculation of…

It is widely held that string theory shows that spacetime geometry and topology are emergent rather than fundamental. Often it is said that this follows from the various interesting dualities that exist within string theory. I will discuss the argument from duality, contrasting it with older…

The concepts of emergence and analogy are very closely related -- A is like B vs A is B. I will discuss this in the context of the emergence of/analogy with Hwking radiation in the arena of fluid systems, and the possibility of doing experiments in the lab. Does this mean gravity is emergent from…

At the level of effective field theory it is possible to establish analogies between non-gravitational and gravitational systems. For example, first order perturbation equations in an analogue gravity model can be written as a wave equation in a curved spacetime. Perhaps the most intriguing…

Prominent philosophers of physics, including Craig Callender and John Earman, have issued stern warnings against drawing any foundations of physics conclusions from theories obtained by taking the thermodynamic limit. Without dismissing these worries entirely, I argue that we shouldn't take them too…

This paper has two aims. The first is to improve upon the diverse and often muddled philosophical characterizations of emergence by articulating reasonably precise necessary and sufficient conditions for a phenomenon to count as emergent in physics. Central to this account of emergence is the idea…

I will begin by discussing some of the strongest observational evidence for Lorentz symmetry, and the essential role that Lorentz symmetry appears to play in the consistency of black hole thermodynamics. Next I will discuss some reasons for suspecting that Lorentz symmetry may nevertheless be…

The canonical example of emergence is how thermodynamics emerges from microscopic laws through statistical mechanics. One of the vexing questions in the foundations of statistical mechanics is though how is it possible to justify thermalization in a closed system. In quantum statistical mechanics…