Talks

Removing the mystery from quantum mechanics, the Bohmian perspective – a way of describing the motion of quantum particles, and applying this to spacetime singularities (where gravity becomes infinite) like those inside a black hole.

The nature of time, probability and quantum mechanics, philosophy of physics and metaphysics, especially issues involving the role of mathematical tools like symmetry in physics, and applying this formal apparatus to the philosophy of mind.

We know the mathematical laws of quantum mechanics, but as yet we are not so sure why those laws should be inevitable. In the simpler but related environment of classical inference, we also know the laws (of probability). With better understanding of quantum mechanics as the eventual goal, Kevin Knuth and I have been probing the foundations of inference. The world we wish to infer is a partially-ordered set ('poset') of states, which may as often supposed be exclusive, but need not be (e.g. A might be a requirement for B). In inference, a state of mind about the world degrades from perfect knowledge through logical OR, which allows for uncertain alternatives. We don't need AND, and we don't need NOT; we just need OR. This display of acceptable states of mind is [close to] a mathematical 'lattice'. We find that the OR structure by itself (!) forces the ordinary rules of probability calculus. No other rules are compatible with the structure of a lattice, so the ordinary rules are inevitable. The standard Shannon information/entropy is likewise inevitable. Taking this idea further, the OR of states of mind gives a lattice of 'Questions' that might be useful for automated learning. Disconcertingly, this lattice is very much larger (in class aleph-2), and the natural valuations on it exhibit large range. I will present this extension, and ask whether we can rationally foresee its use in practical application.

Quantum foundations in the light of gauge theories We will present the conjecture according to which the fact that q and p cannot be both ``observables'' of the same quantum system indicates that there is a remnant universal symmetry acting on classical states. In order to unpack this claim we will generalize to unconstrained systems the gauge correspondence between properties defined by first-class constraints and gauge symmetries generated by these constraints. As we shall see, this means that the uncertainty principle might be encoded in the very definition of the canonical variables q and p. According to the ontology of quantum objects that stems from this analysis, the quantum-mechanical description of physical objects is complete.

Quantum mechanics is a non-classical probability theory, but hardly the most general one imaginable: any compact convex set can serve as the state space for an abstract probabilistic model (classical models corresponding to simplices). From this altitude, one sees that many phenomena commonly regarded as ``characteristically quantum' are in fact generically ``non-classical'. In this talk, I'll show that almost any non-classical probabilistic theory shares with quantum mechanics a notion of entanglement and, with this, a version of the so-called measurement problem. I'll then discuss what's required for an abstract probabilistic theory to admit a somewhat simplified version of Everett's response to this problem -- an exercise that turns out to be instructive in several ways.

Our universe is unquestionably quantum in nature. What does this mean? Why does it matter? What’s in it for me? Join us for a fun and fascinating session on “what you need to know about the quantum.” Find out why we can’t live without it. Discover what’s so unbelievably quirky about it. And learn how it empowers amazing technologies, from present day (e.g. every electronic device on the planet) to future possibilities including quantum computing and global quantum communication. The half hour multimedia presentation will be followed by a half hour question and answer session with a leading scientist in the field. The future is quantum. Find out why.

A standard canonical quantization of general relativity yields a time-independent Schroedinger equation whose solutions are static wavefunctions on configuration space. Naively this is in contradiction with the real world where things do change. Broadly speaking, the problem how to reconcile a theory which contains no concept of time with a changing world is called 'the problem of time'. In this seminar we shall study this problem using a reformulation of Newtonian mechanics due to Jacobi (Jacobi's timeless mechanics) which allows one to study the problem of time without all the technical difficulties present in quantized general relativity. We show explicitly that Jacobi's timeless mechanics is a straightforward counterexample to the claim that all first class constraints generate gauge transformations, i.e. physically indistinguishable states. The implications of this is unclear. By making use of deBroglie-Bohm trajectories we derive a necessary and sufficient condition for a time-dependent Schroedinger equation to emerge for subsystems. The importance of 'strong' entanglement between subsystem and environment for the emergence of time is stressed.

Condensed matter systems at ultra low-temperature that show purely quantum phenomena – even on big scales (superfluidity, superconductivity, Bose-Einstein condensates); measurements in the quantum world; probing the foundations of quantum theory.

The essential ingredients of a quantum theory are usually a Hilbert space of states and an algebra of operators encoding observables. The mathematical operations available with these structures translate fairly well into physical operations (preparation, measurement etc.) in a non-relativistic world. This correspondence weakens in quantum field theory, where the direct operational meaning of the observable algebra structure (encoded usually through commutators) is lost. The situation becomes even worse when we want to give a more dynamical role to spacetime as for example in attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravity. I argue that a revision of the structures that we think of as fundamental in a quantum theory is in order. I go on to outline a proposal in this direction, based on the so called 'general boundary formulation', emphasizing the operational meaning of the ingredients. If time permits I will also comment on the relation to the framework of algebraic quantum field theory.

Both classical probability theory and quantum theory lend themselves to a Bayesian interpretation where probabilities represent degrees of belief, and where the various rules for combining and updating probabilities are but algorithms for plausible reasoning in the face of uncertainty. I elucidate the differences and commonalities of these two theories, and argue that they are in fact the only two algorithms to satisfy certain basic consistency requirements. In order to arrive at this result I develop an over-arching framework for plausible reasoning that incorporates both classical probability and quantum theory as special cases.

Lee Smolin has argued that one of the barriers to understanding time in a quantum world is our tendency to spatialize time. The question is whether there is anything in physics that could lead us to mathematically characterize time so that it is not just another funny spatial dimension. I will explore the possibility(already considered by Smolin and others) that time may be distinguished from space by what I will call a measure of Booleanity. The Bell-Kochen-Specker Theorem shows that the statistics of quantum systems (unlike that of classical systems) do not in general permit of a Boolean substructure. I will outline reasons for thinking that time is the dimension in which the Booleanity of spacetime (considered as a quantum system) varies, while space is characterized by constant Booleanity. I will not be able to give a mathematically complete characterization of the Booleanity of a region of spacetime, since that would require nothing less than knowing how to quantize spacetime; however, I will argue that something like this is needed if one is to make any sense of an ontological distinction between past, present, and future in terms of modern physics. I will also briefly consider possible objections to this view arising from the relativity of simultaneity, which (on its usual interpretation) apparently places all events on an equal ontological footing. In order to get around this we need a generalized conception of simultaneity that treats Einstein's notion of simultaneity as a special case, and which allows for equivalence classes of spacelike separate events distinguished by covariant quantities such as action, phase, and (as I will argue) any reasonable measure of Booleanity.

More than 40 years ago, Bell ruled out completely local hidden variable models as an explanation for quantum correlations. However, a new type of hidden variable model has recently been brought to light by the work of Leggett. Such a model has both local and non-local parts. Roughly speaking, having a local part means that the measurement outcomes can be guessed with better than 50% success. In this talk, I will explain that there exist quantum correlations for which any hidden variable model must have a trivial local part. I will then discuss how an extension of the original theorem implies that these correlations can be used to enhance the quality of a private random string.