Talks

Understanding the zero point energy of the quantum harmonic oscillator as a consequence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding why the minimum energy of a ball in a bowl must be greater than zero based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
• How the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle adds a purely quantum mechanical kinetic energy to the ball, in addition to its classical potential energy.
• Understanding graphically how the total energy – the sum of the classical potential energy and the new quantum kinetic energy – has a minimum that is greater than zero: the zero point energy.

A continuation of the SR-10 discussion on length contraction. Resolving Principle 2*.
Learning Outcomes:
• Relativity of simultaneity revisited – gaining a deeper understanding of what it means.
• A full understanding of the nature of length contraction based on relativity of simultaneity.
• Resolving a key paradox in special relativity: Principle 2*, introduced in SR-4. How it is possible to measure the same speed for the light whether you are running toward or away from a flashlight.

A discussion of the space and time axes of a moving observer and an introduction to length contraction.
Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding why and by how much a moving observer’s position axis is “tilted in time.”
• Understanding how a moving platform appears to a stationary observer.
• Beginning to understand the cause of length contraction.

Domains were introduced in computer science in the late 1960\'s by Dana Scott to provide a semantics for the lambda calculus (the lambda calculus is the basic prototype for a functional programming language i.e. ML). The study of domains with measurements was initiated in the speaker\'s thesis: a domain provides a qualitative view of information expressed in part by an \'information order\' and a measurement on a domain expresses a quantitative view of information with respect to the underlying qualitative aspect. The theory of domains and measurements was initially introduced to provide a first order model of computation, one in which a computation is viewed as a process that evolves in a space of informatic objects, where processes have informatic rates of change determined by the manner in which they manipulate information. There is a domain of binary channels with capacity as a measurement. There is a domain of finite probability distributions with entropy as a measurement. There is a domain of quantum mixed states with entropy as a measurement. There is a domain of spacetime intervals with global time as a measurement. In this setting, similarities between QM and GR emerge, but also some important differences. In a domain, if we write x <= y, then it means that x carries information about y, while x << y is a stronger relation that means x carries *essential* information about y. In GR, the domain theoretic relation << can be proven to be timelike causality. It possesses stronger mathematical properties than << does in QM. However, by an application of the maximum entropy principle, we can restrict the mixed states in consideration and this difference is removed: the domains of events and mixed states are both globally hyperbolic -- where globally hyperbolic is a purely order theoretic idea that just happens to coincide with the usual notion in the case of GR. Along the way, we will see domain theoretic ways of distinguishing between the Newtonian and relativistic notions of time, how to reconstruct the topology and geometry of spacetime in a purely order theoretic manner beginning from only a countable set, see that the Holevo capacity of a unital qubit channel is determined by the largest value of its informatic derivative and have reason to wonder if distance can be defined as the amount of information (capacity) that can be transmitted between two points.

Symmetry principles in physics are a very powerful guiding principle. Sometimes they are so powerful that they can determine a theory completely. This talk will be a tour from the Standard Model of particle physics to string theory compactifications using mostly symmetry arguments.

Taking our intuitive understanding of the quantum world gained by studying a particle in a one-dimensional box, we generalize to understand a quantum harmonic oscillator.
Learning Outcomes:
• Introduction to the classical physics of a ball rolling back and forth in a bowl, a simple example of a very important type of bounded motion called a “harmonic oscillator.”
• The quantization of allowed energies of a harmonic oscillator: even spacing between energy levels, and zero point energy.
• Being able to sketch the allowed wavefunctions and particle probability patterns of a quantum harmonic oscillator, including a new phenomenon called “tunnelling.”

By applying our understanding of the quantum harmonic oscillator to the electromagnetic field we learn what a photon is, and are introduced to “quantum field theory” and the amazing “Casimir effect.”
Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding that classical electromagnetic waves bouncing around inside a mirrored box will exist as standing waves with only certain allowed frequencies.
• How each of these standing waves oscillates harmonically, and thus why – at the quantum level – their energies must be discrete, which is interpreted as the presence of a discrete number of photons.
• What the zero point energy of the electromagnetic field represents, and its relationship to a remarkable property of the quantum vacuum called the “Casimir effect.”

Learning to use Minkowskian geometry to understand, very simply, a variety of aspects of Einstein’s spacetime.
Learning Outcomes:
• How a straight line is the longest path between two points in spacetime.
• How a light particle experiences space and time: its journey from one location in the universe to another involves zero spacetime distance, and is thus instantaneous!
• How Einstein’s special relativity has no difficulty handling accelerated observers.

A discussion of how to synchronize clocks that are separated in space, and how this leads to the relativity of simultaneity.
Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding that clock synchronization is a physical process, and exploring various methods of synchronization using spacetime diagrams.
• How to measure distance with a clock: the concept of radar ranging distance.
• A profound realization about the nature of spacetime: Events that are simultaneous for one observer might not be simultaneous for another.