Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars
Michaelmas Term 2013
Convened by Harvey Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-6, in the Lecture Room of the Philosophy Centre. In week 7, in place of the Thursday seminar, see
Relativity Meets Quantum Theory at the LSE, Nov 28-29th
(Centre for Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences, LSE), and Irreversibility in
Axiomatic Thermodynamics, Nov 30 (Department of Philosophy, University of Cambridge).
In week 8, in place of the Thursday
seminar, see
Anthropics: selection effects and fine-tuning in cosmology (miniseries as part of the 'Establishing the Philosophy of Cosmology' initiative, at St Anne's College, Oxford
University).
Please note the Centre's NEW ADDRESS: Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter,
Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. (This is the old Radcliffe Infirmary building.)
The Lecture Room is on the second floor.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the
phil-phys maillist.
Thu 17 October: Edward Anderson, DAMPT, Cambridge
Background independence
Thu 24 October: Basil Hiley, Birkbeck College, London
Bohmian non-commutative dynamics: local conditional expectation values are weak values
Thu 31 October: Paul Hoyningen-Heune, Leibniz University of Hannover
The dead end objection against convergent realisms
Thu 7 November: Sam Fletcher, University of California at Irvine
On the reduction of General Relativity to Newtonian gravitation
Thu 14 November: Jeffrey Bub, University of Maryland
D-CTCs, P-CTCs, and superluminal signaling
Thu 21 November: Paul Teller, University of California at Davis
TBA
Thu 28 November: No Seminar
Thu 5 December: No Seminar
****************************************************
Convened by Harvey Brown and David Wallace
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-7, in the Lecture Room of the Philosophy Centre.
Please note the Centre's NEW ADDRESS: Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter,
Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. (This is the old Radcliffe Infirmary building.)
The Lecture Room is on the second floor.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the
phil-phys maillist.
Thu 25 April: Eckehart Kohler, University of Vienna
Are Logical and Physical Information the Same or not: von Neumann vs. Carnap
Thu 2 May: Philip Stamp, PITP & Physics Dept., University of British Columbia; Mathematical Institute, Oxford
Intrinsic Decoherence and Gravitation
Thu 9 May: NO SEMINAR
Thu 16 May: Chris Timpson, Philosophy Faculty, Oxford
Cake: You still can't have it and eat it (Quantum nonlocality and separability, or Deutsch-Hayden revisted)
Thu 23 May: Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo
TBC Thu 30 May: Harvey Brown, Philosophy Faculty, Oxford How trees defy gravity: some remarks on the theory of the rise of sap
Thu 6 June: Klaas Landsman, Radbout University, Nijmegen
TBC
Thu 13 June: NO SEMINAR
************************************
Convened by Prof Simon Saunders
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room of the Philosophy Centre.
Please note the Centre's NEW ADDRESS: Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter,
Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. (This is the old Radcliffe Infirmary building.)
The Lecture Room is on the second floor.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the
phil-phys maillist.
Thu 17 January: Dr David Wallace, University of Oxford
The non-question of Gibbs vs Boltzmann entropy
Thu 24 January: Dr Brian Pitts, University of Cambridge
Energy and Change in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian General Relativity
Thu 31 January: Prof Dennis Dieks, University of Utrecht
Indistinguishability and Individuality: Classical and Quantum
Thu 7 February: Dr Terry Rudolph, Imperial College London
TBA
Thu 14 Febuary: Dr Jeffrey Ketland, University of Oxford
Leibniz Equivalence
Thu 21 Febuary: Dr Berry Groisman, University of Cambridge
Sleeping Beauty in Quantumland
Thu 28 Febuary: Dr Martin Sahlen, University of Oxford
Questions in Philosophy of Cosmology
Thu 7 March: NO SEMINAR
****************************
Convened by Prof Harvey Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room of the Philosophy Centre.
Please note the Centre's NEW ADDRESS: Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter,
Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. (This is the old Radcliffe Infirmary building.)
The Lecture Room is on the second floor.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the
phil-phys maillist.
Thu 11 October: Dr Owen Maroney, University of Oxford
No go theorems and statistical states
Thu 18 October: Dr Olivier Darrigol, CNRS/UniversitŽ Paris VII (Denis Diderot), Paris; University of California, Berkeley
Necessity or contingency of the laws of classical mechanics
25 October: Dr. Adam Caulton, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE
Hume's dictum as a guide to physical ontology
1 November: Dr. Gabor Hofer-Szabo, Institute of Philosophy, Research Center for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Bell Inequality and Common Causal Explanation in Algebraic Quantum Field
Theory
8 November: Dr. Eric Cavalcanti, Department of Computer Science, Oxford University; School of Physics, University of Sydney
What Bohr could have told Einstein at Solvay had he known about Bell
15 November: No seminar
22 November: Dr. Tracy Lupher, Department of Philosophy and Religion, James Madison University
The Limitations of Physical Equivalence
29 November: Dr. Juha Saatsi, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds
What is theoretical progress of science?
***********************************************************
Convened by Prof Simon Saunders
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
Thu 26 April: Mr Joshua Rosaler, University of Oxford
Decoherence and effective wave function collapse in the Bohm and Everett theories, and the emergence of macroscopic Newtonian behaviour
Thu 3 May: Prof Fay Dowker, Imperial College London
The Sum-Over-Histories Approach to Quantum Mechanics
Thu 10 May: NO SEMINAR
Thu 17 May: Mr Barrie Tonkinson, independent
The Behaviour of Clocks and Rods in SR and GR
Thu 24 May: Prof Jeff Barrett, University of California at Irvine
On the empirical adequacy of pure wave mechanics
Thu 31 May: Dr Tony Short, DAMTP Cambridge
Thu 7 June: Prof Ian Walmsley, Oxford
Entangbling - the strange case of quantum correlations between room-temperature diamonds
Thu 14 June: Prof Mauricio Suarez, LSE and Madrid
A critique of empiricist propensity theories
*************************************************
Convened by Dr C. Timpson
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
2-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
Thu 19 Jan : NO SEMINAR
Thu 26 Jan : Dr David Wallace, University of Oxford
Statistical mechanics is not statistical
Thu 2 Feb : TBC
Thu 9 Feb : Prof Mathias Frisch, University of Maryland
No place for causes? Causal skepticism in physics
Thu 16 Feb : Dr Nazim Bouatta, University of Cambridge
Quantum Field Theory: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
Thu 23 Feb : Dr Guido Bacciagaluppi, University of Aberdeen
Insolubility theorems and the EPR argument
Thu 1 Mar : Dr Jeff Russell, University of Oxford
On Where Things Could Be
Thu 8 Mar : Professor Tim Palmer, University of Oxford
The Invariant Set Postulate: a novel geometric approach to address the challenges of fundamental physics?
*******************************************
Convened by Prof H. Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist .
Thu 13 Oct: Prof William Harper, Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Isaac Newton's Scientific Method
Thu 20 Oct: Dr Matt Leifer, Quantum Information Group, Physics and Astronomy Department, UCL, and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Ontario, Canada
Quantum Theory as a Causally Neutral Theory of Bayesian Inference
Thu 27 Oct: Prof Simon Saunders, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
Newton's theory of gravity in the light of cosmology
Thu 3 Nov: Dr Matthew Pusey, Controlled Quantum Dynamics Centre for Doctoral Training, Imperial College
Local realism for product states needs the quantum state
Thu 10 Nov: Dr Fotini Markopoulou, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Ontario
Spin systems as toy models for emergent gravity
Thu 17 Nov: Dr Owen Maroney, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
What does violating the Leggett Garg Inequality actually tell us? (Two ways to be a macrorealist, and one way not to be.)
Thu 24 Nov: Prof Hasok Chang, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Operationalism and realism in 19th century chemistry
Thu 1 Dec: Dr Ward Struyve, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Catholic University of Leuven Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism
********************************
Convened by Prof H. Brown and Dr. O. Pooley
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
.
Thu 5 May: Prof Frank Arntzenius and Dr Cian Dorr, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
The ontology of gauge theories and differential geometry
Thu 12 May: Prof Nick Huggett, Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago
TBA Thu 19 May: Prof Bryan Roberts, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Thu 26 May - No seminar
[Tim Maudlin's Shearman Memorial Lecture take place this week in London]
Thu 9 June: Prof Richard Healey, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona
Thu 16 June: Prof James Ladyman, Department of Philosophy, Bristol University
Thu 23 June: Prof Simon Saunders, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
**************************************************
Convened by Prof H. Brown and Dr. D. Wallace
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
2-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
.
Thu 20 Jan: NO SEMINAR
.
Thu 27 Jan: Dr Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, LSE
Explaining thermodynamic-like behaviour in terms of epsilon-ergodicity
Thu 3 Feb: Prof Carl Hoefer, Department of Philosophy, Barcelona
TBC
Thu 10 Feb: Dr David Wallace, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford
Symmetry, locality, and space
Thu 17 Feb: Dr Jon Barrett, Department of Physics, Royal Holloway
TBC
Thu 24 Feb: Prof Steven French, Department of Philosophy, Leeds
Doing away with dispositions: towards a law-based view of modality
Thu 3 Mar: Dr Eleanor Knox, Institute of Philosophy, London
TBC
Thu 10 Mar: Prof Chris Wuthrich, Department of Philosophy, San Diego
TBC
****************************************
Convened by Prof H. Brown and Dr. O. Pooley
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
Thu 14 Oct: Prof Doreen Fraser, Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, Canada
Emergence and Explanation in Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Mechanics
Thu 21 Oct: Steve Simon, Department of Physics, Oxford University
Knots, World-Lines, and Quantum Computation
Thu 28 Oct: Dr Myles Allen, Climate Dynamics Group, Department of Physics,
Oxford University
What does an estimate of uncertainty in a prediction of the climate of 2100 actually mean?
Thu 4 November:
TBA
Thu 11 November: TBA
Thu 18 November:
Prof Vlatko Vedral, Department of Physics, Oxford University
TBA Thu 25 November:
Prof Michel Ghins, Centre for Philosophy of Science, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
Bas van Fraassen on scientific representation Thu 2 December:
Prof Steven French, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds
TBA
*********************************************************
Convened by Prof H. Brown and Dr C. Timpson
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
Thu 29 Apr: Mr Alastair Wilson, Oxford
Metaphysics in light of Everettian Quantum Mechanics Thu 6 May: Dr Andreas Doering, Oxford
Some basics of the topos approach to the formulation of physical theories Some recent developments in Quantum Electrodynamics Boltzmann's H-theorem and its discontents Who's afraid of external validity? Confirmation and the intersubjective interpretation of probability The logic of the Past Hypothesis Interpreting physical theories with symmetries Convened by Prof S W Saunders
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
2-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board, and sent out on the phil-phys maillist.
Thu 21 Jan: NO SEMINAR
Thu 28 Jan: Prof Anton Zeilinger, Vienna:
An experimentalist's view of the interpretation of quantum mechanics Thu 4 Feb:
Dr Julian Barbour, Independent:
Reflections on the Foundations of Geometry
Thu 11 Feb
Dr Miklos Redei:
Operational independence and operational separability in algebraic quantum field theory Thu 18 Feb: Dr John Manchak, Paris and Washington:
'What is a Physically Reasonable Spacetime?'
Thu 25 Feb:
Dr Antony Eagle, Oxford:
Can We Read Metaphysics Off Physics? Or, what presentists should say about special relativity
Thu 4 Mar:
Prof John Worrall, LSE:
Defending Structural Realism (Or: the "Newman Objection" what objection?)
Thu 11 Mar (Joint session with the Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
Seminars): Prof Charles Parsons, Harvard:
Some objections to structuralism Convened by Prof H. R. Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
22 October: Prof Robin Dunbar, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Oxford.
The Devil and the Detail. Testing Evolutionary Hypotheses in the Context of Complexity 29 October:
Dr Fay Dowker, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College
The Deep Structure of Spacetime 5 November:
Dr Erik Curiel, Dpeartment of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE
On Tensorial Concomitants and the Non-Existence of a Gravitational Stress-Energy Tensor 12 November:
Dr Charlotte Werndl, The Queen's College, Oxford
Determinism versus indeterminism: some results on observational equivalence 19 November:
TBA
26 November:
Dr Stephen Lyle
Self-Force and Inertia. Old Light on New Ideas Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford
TBA
*********************************************************
Convened by Prof F. Arntzenius
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
30 April: Mr Luke Glynn, Oxford
Title: Probability-Lowering Causes and Probability-Raising Non-Causes
7 May: Dr Guido Bacciagaluppi, Aberdeen
Title: Heisenberg on hidden variables
14 May:
No talk.
21 May: Mr Peter Byrne, Independent
Title: The Devil's Pitchfork: Multiple Universes,
Mutually Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family -- The Life of Hugh Everett III
28 May: Dr Jos Uffink, Utrecht
Title: Entanglement, entropy and utility: the analogy between
axiomatic approaches to quantitative measures thereof.
4 June: Dr Oliver Pooley, Oxford
Title: Relativity, Branching Spacetimes and the Passage of Time
11 June: Dr Cian Dorr, Oxford
Title: Expressivism about chance
18 June: Prof Tien Cao, Boston University
Title: TBA
Convened by Dr C. Timpson
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
22 January:
Dr Jon Barrett, Department of Physics, University of Bristol
Processing Information: Is Quantum Theory Special?
29 January: Dr David Wallace, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford
The irrelevance of gravitational entropy in cosmological thermodynamics. 5 February: Dr Jonathan Tallant, Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
Existence Presentism. 12 February: Dr Bob Coecke, Comlab, University of Oxford
High-level reasoning about the low-level scale. 19 February: Mr Dennis Lehmkuhl, Oriel College, University of Oxford
Is matter an aspect of spacetime structure? On Classical Unified Field Theories. 26 February: Prof Katherine Brading, Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Title TBC. 5 March: Dr Mark Sprevak, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Are computations objective features of the world? 12 March: Prof Dennis Dieks, Institute for History and Foundations of Science, Utrecht)
title TBC. Convened by Prof H. Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1-8, in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
23 October:
Prof Michel Janssen, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Minnesota/Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Berlin
Pascual Jordan?s Resolution of the Conundrum of the Wave-Particle Duality of Light
30 October:
Prof Décio Krause, Department of Philosophy, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Quantum (Non-) Individuality -- Logical aspects Which fine-tuning arguments are fine? Do we really need dynamical models for quantum state reduction ? Chance in the Everett Interpretation TBA Quantum Gravity, Microscopic Time Irreversibility and EPR Correlations Convened by Dr. D. Wallace
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
24 April: Prof Paul Griffiths, Sydney and Exeter
In what sense does ?nothing make sense except in the light of evolution"? 1 May: Ms Eleanor Knox, Oxford
Geometrizing gravity and vice versa: the force of a formulation 8 May TBC
15 May: Prof Frank Wilczek, MIT
TBA
22 May: Dr Roman Frigg, LSE
Typicality and the Approach to Equilibrium in Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics.
29 May: Dr Oliver Pooley, Oxford
How not to be a relationalist
5 June: Prof Joseph Silk, Oxford
Some Current issues in Cosmology
12 June: Dr Jeremy Butterfield, Cambridge
TBA
Convened by Dr. O. Pooley
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays, weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
17 January: Dr. Dharam Vir Singh Ahluwalia, Cantebury
A spin one half quantum field with mass dimension one A spin one half quantum field with mass dimension one
24 January: Dr Roberto Trotta, Oxford Shortcuts of anthropic
reasoning in cosmology 31 January: Dr F.A. Muller, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and Utrecht Leibniz's Revenge: how to discern elementary particles in quantum
mechanics 7 February: Prof Wayne Myrvold, Western Ontario and Oxford Physical Chances in a deterministic setting 14 February: Prof Robert Rynaziewicz, Johns Hopkins Simultaneity, convention, and gauge 21 February: Prof Frank Artnzenius and Dr Hilary Greaves, Oxford CPT, and all that jazz 28 February: Dr Jos Uffink, Utrecht Motivating outcome independence: locality versus sufficiency 6 March: Dr Matthew Parker, LSE Philosophical Method and the Concept of Motion Convened by Dr. S. Saunders
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
3 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
25 October: Hilary Greaves, Oxford
Everett and Evidence 8 November: Dr David Wallace, Oxford Postulate or Theorem? The Born rule, Everett-style Objectivity, Invariance and Convention: Symmetry in Physical Science 15 November: Dr James Ladyman, Bristol The Bankruptcy of Analytic Metaphysics 22 November: Dr Christopher Timpson, Oxford Quantum Bayesianism: Pros and Cons 29 November: Prof Jonathan Halliwell, Imperial Decoherent Histories Analysis of Quantum Cosmological Models
Convened by Prof. H. R. Brown and Dr. D. Wallace
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
27 April: Prof Richard Healey, University of Arizona. Gauge Symmetry and the Theta-vacuum. 3 May: NO SEMINAR
10 May: Dr Simon Benjamen, Oxford
Measurement as
the fundamental mechanism in a quantum computer
17 May: Dr Simon Saunders, Oxford
Probability and semantics for branching worlds
24 May: Prof Sandu Popescu, Bristol
Entanglement and the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics. 31 May. Prof Andrew Steane, Department of Atomic and Laser Physics,
Oxford.
TBA 7 June. Prof Tony Sudbery, Department of Mathematics, York.
TBA 14 June. TBA
****************************
Convened by Prof. H. R. Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
18 Jan: Prof Sandu Popescu, Bristol
Entanglement and the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics. 25 Jan: Dr David Wallace, Oxford (unconfirmed)
The Ontology of the Quantum State. 1 Feb: Prof David Deutsch, Oxford
Physics as Quantum Constructor Theory. 8 Feb: Dr Jan Broekaert, Vrije Universiteit, Brussels
Towards a Lorentz-Poincaré type interpretation of General Relativity Theory. 15 Feb: Prof Stephan Hartmann, LSE and Tilburg
Probability and decoherence. 22 Feb: Prof Ian Percival, Queen Mary, London
Newton, Berkeley and quantum theory. 1 Mar: Dr Pieter Kok, Oxford and Sheffield
Cluster states: a new class of entanglement. 8 Mar: Prof Jeffrey Bub, Maryland
Two dogmas about quantum mechanics. **********************************************************
Convened by Dr. S. W. Saunders
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Lecture Room, 10 Merton St.
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
12 October: Dr. Pedro Ferreira, Oxford University
Solving the dark matter problem with the aether. 19 October: Dr Guido Bacciagaluppi, Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, CNRS, Paris.
.
Non-equilibrium, Non-locality and Non-linearity
26 October: Dr. Rob Spekkens, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University
Quantum coherence: fact or fiction?
2 November: Professor John Mayberry, University of Bristol.
Extensional structuralism and the problem of indiscernibles 9 November: Dr. Ioannis Votsis, Philosophisches Institut
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Structural realism 2.0 Where Rational Choice and Evolution Part Ways Inflationary cosmology as a probe of primordial quantum mechanics Newton?s Corollary VI, and all that: why absolute rotation is relational
**********************************************************
Convened by Dr. H. Brown
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
April 27th Prof Michael Weissman, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Towards a rational account of quantum probabilities
May 4th Dr Klaas Landsman, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics, and Particle Physics, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Rethinking the Einstein-Bohr debate
11 May Prof Ian Walmsley, Head of Atomic and Laser Physics, Oxford University
Coherent control of decoherence.
Analytical mechanics with time as a coordinate.
25 May
Dr Hans Westman, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada.
General covariance and observables in general relativity
1st June
Prof Nick Huggett, Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago.
TBA
Renormalization? a novel explanatory strategy?
Daseinization and the redemption of quantum theory
**********************************************************
Convened by Dr. J. Butterfield
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be
given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
19 January: Dr James Ladyman and Dr Tony Short, Bristol
The Connection between Logical and Thermodynamical Irreversibility
26 January: Prof Brian Davies, King?s College London
Newton's Inductive Methodology
2 February: Mr Justin Pniower, Oxford
Thermodynamic Entropy and Permutation Symmetry
9 February: Prof Geoffrey Sewell, Queen Mary London
Can the Quantum Measurement Problem be Resolved within the Framework of Schroedinger Dynamics?
16 February: Dr Oliver Pooley, Oxford
General Covariance
23 February: Prof Graeme Segal, Oxford
Locality in Quantum Field Theory
2 March: Dr David Wallace, Oxford
Probability in the Everett Interpretation: the state of play
9 March; Dr Chris Timpson, Leeds
The Ontological Status of Quantum Information: progress and outstanding questions
**************************************************
Convened by Antony Eagle and Simon Saunders All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.30 pm, in the Lecture Room, Philosophy Centre, 10 Merton St.
Convened by Dr O.E.E. Pooley
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
28 April: Prof. Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Middlesex
Classical mechanics as formalisable sciences 5 May: Prof. Ruediger Schack, Royal Holloway, London
Subjective probability in quantum mechanics
12 May: Dr Katherine Blundell, Oxford
Evidence in astronomy and cosmology
19 May: Dr Alastair Rae, Birmingham
``Ceci n'est pas un quantum'' - Some Comments on the Consistent Histories Approach to Quantum Measurement 26 May: Paul Mainwood, Oxford
Phase Transitions in Finite Systems 2 June: Dr Jeremy Butterfield, Oxford
Conserved quantities and symplectic reduction: counting possibilities in classical mechanics 9 June: Prof. Ion Olimpiu Stamatescu, Heidelberg
Image and concept in modern physics 16 June: Prof. Jonathan Haliwell, Imperial College, London
Emergent Classicality via Commuting Position and Momentum Operators **************************************************
Convened by Dr J.N. Butterfield
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 6, and 8. The seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
20 January: Dr Thomas Mueller, Bonn and Oxford
A space-time model for objective probabilities, with an application to quantum mechanics
27 January: Dr Oliver Pooley, Oxford
Haecceitism: Physics versus Metaphysics
3 February: Prof Samson Abramsky, Oxford
Abstract Quantum Mechanics
10 February: Prof Wayne Myrvold, Western Ontario and Oxford
Why I am not an Everettian
17 February: Prof Clive Kilmister, King's College London
Can Eddington be Rehabilitated?
24 February: Dr Harvey Brown, Oxford
The Strong Equivalence Principle in General Relativity, and in a Recent Modification
3 March: No meeting
10 March: Dr Richard Dawid, Vienna
How String Theory could matter in Philosophy of Science
**************************************************
There will be no Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars this term.
**************************************************
Convened by Harvey Brown
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
2-8, and at 4.30 on WEDNESDAY at 4.30 p.m. in week 1. All seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
28 April. Prof Adam Elga, Department of Philosophy, Princeton
University
Chances and Branches
6 May. Dr Katherine Blundell, Department of Astrophysics, University of
Oxford
Evidence in astronomy and cosmology
13 May. Dr Keith Hutchison, Department of History and Philosophy of
Science, University of Melbourne
Miracle or mystery: False hypotheses
and novel predictions in Rankine's thermodynamics
20 May. TBA
27 May. Prof Philip Stamp, Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of British Columbia TBA
3 June. Dr. Jeremy Butterfield, All Souls College, Oxford
On the
persistence of matter, in classical physics and in metaphysics
10 June. Prof Mark Wilson, Department of Philosophy, University of
Pittsburgh: TBA
17 June. Dr Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy and Scientific
Method, London School of Economics
Collapse interpretations of
quantum mechanics
**************************************************
Convened by Jerremy Butterfield
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1-8. The seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
22 January: Prof Gerard Emch, Florida and Oxford
Heuritsic and Logical Models in Theoretical Physics
29 January: Dr John Roche, Oxford
Seven Types of Ambiguity in the Formalism of Classical Physics
5 February: Prof Bill Demopoulos, Western Ontario and Oxford
Some Remarks on the Concept of an Elementary Proposition
12 February: Prof Lane Hughston, King's College London
Probability and Causality in Relativistic Quantum Theories
19 February: Prof Chris Fuchs, Bell Labs and Dublin
What is the Difference between a Quantum Observer and a Weatherman?
26 February: Prof Eli Zahar, Cambridge
Realism and Ramseyfication
4 March: Dr Stephan Hartmann, London School of Economics
Modelling High-Temperature Superconductors: Correspondence at Bay?
11 March; Dr Chris Philippidis, Bath
Bohm's Physics in the Context of Twentieth Century Thought
**************************************************
Convened by Antony Eagle and Simon Saunders All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.30 pm, in the Lecture Room, Philosophy Centre, 10 Merton St.
Convened by Harvey Brown, Jerremy Butterfield, and Simon Saunders
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 and 3-8. The seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
NOTE LATER TIME OF 4.30 PM
1 May: Dr Oliver Pooley, Oxford
Descartes and Newton on Place, Space and Motion
8 May: No seminar
15 May: Prof Bas van Fraassen, Princeton and Oxford
The Ideal of a Purely Structural Description of Nature
22 May: Dr Harvey Brown, Oxford
Spacetime Structure from a Dynamical Perspective
29 May: Dr Janneke van Lith, Utrecht and Oxford
Models and Idealizations in Statistical Physics
5 June: Dr David Corfield, Oxford
How Natural is our Mathematics?
12 June: Chris Timpson, Oxford
Information is Physical? Reflections on foundational implications of quantum information
19 June: Prof Josep Pons, Barcelona and Imperial College
Constrained Systems and Dirac's Conjecture
**************************************************
Convened by Harvey Brown, Jerremy Butterfield, and Simon Saunders
Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
The following seminars will take place at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in weeks
1 to 8. The seminars will be given in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
NOTE LATER TIME OF 4.30 PM
23 January: Dr Meinard Kuhlmann, Bremen and Oxford
On What There Is: Properties and Representations in Quantum Field Theory
30 January: Dr Carl Dolby, Oxford
Simultaneity and the Concept of `Particle'
6 February: Prof Michael Dickson, Indiana and Oxford
A View from Nowhere: Quantum Reference Frames and the Uncertainty Principle
13 February: Dr Keith Hannabuss, Oxford
Non-commutative Geometry in Physics
20 February: Prof Huw Price, Edinburgh and Sydney
New Thoughts on the Arrow of Radiation
27 February: Dr Jon Dorling,London
Why does the Universe exist?
6 March: TBA
13 March: Dr Jeff Ketland, Leeds University
Structuralism in Mathematics and Physics
**************************************************
Convened by Harvey Brown, Jeremy Buttefield, and Simon Saunders Abstracts, where available, will be posted on the Bulletin Board. All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.00 pm, in the Old Library, All Souls College. Thursday 17 October: Kathleen Wilkes, University of Oxford Models and Realism; the Animal Model in the Brain and Behavioural Sciences
Thursday 24 October: Nicholas Jardine, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Whigs and Stories: Herbert Butterfield and
the Historiography of the Sciences Thursday 31 October: David Papineau, Kings College, University of London Decisions and Many Minds Thursday 7 November: John Campbell, University of Oxford Causal vs Epiphenomenal Progressions Thursday 14 November: Tim Williamson, University of Oxford Evidential Probability Thursday 21 November: Frank Jackson, Australia National University The How and Why of Narrow Content Thursday 28 November: Rom Harre, University of Oxford Science as Model Making: Two Roles for Iconic Representations Thursday 5 December: Nancy Cartwright, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, LSE, and University of California at San Diego Causes and Probabilities
**************************************************
All meetings except the first are on Thursdays at 4.00 pm, in the Wharton Room, All Souls College.
TUESDAY 23 April: Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia
5.00 pm IN THE OLD LIBRARY
Physical Chances
Thursday 25 April: David Lavis, Kings College London
Equilibrium and (Ir)reversibility in Classical Statistical Mechanics
Thursday May 2: No seminar
Thursday May 9: Tom Ryckman, Berkeley
Causality as a Condition of Possible Experience: Hilbert's 2nd Note on the
"Foundations of Physics"
Thursday May 16: Subir Sakar, Oxford
Possible astrophysical tests of quantum
gravity
Thursday May 23: Peter Holland, Oxford
TBA
Thursday May 30: Itamar Pitowsky, Hebrew University
Bayesian Quantum Probability
Thursday June 6: Orly Shenker, LSE
Logic and entropy: some presuppositions
June 13: Joseph Melia, Leeds
TBA
June 20: Bob Coecke, Oxford
Operational logicality of physical properties: Constructing quantum causality and informatics
All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.00 pm, in All Souls College
Note: this term meetings take place in the Old Library, not the Wharton Room.
17 January: Dr Leah Henderson, Bristol
Nonlocality of quantum operations
24 January: Prof Jeeva Anandan, South Carolina and Oxford
Laws and Symmetries
31 January: Dr Tim Palmer, ECMWF, Reading
Complex structure from self-similar permutations: implications for
foundations of quantum theory
7 February: Prof Colin Howson, London School of Economics
A new Kind of Logic (Leibniz)
14 February: Dr Lionel Mason, Oxford
A beginners guide to twistor theory
21 February: Prof Michael Mackey, McGill
The Elusive Origin of Dynamic Irreversibility: Clues from the Second Law
28 February: Dr Adrian Kent, Bristol and Cambridge
On the cryptographic power of quantum information
7 March: Dr Andrew Warwick, Imperial College London
Pedagogical Underworlds: the culture of mathematical physics in Victorian
Cambridge
Additional meeting ninth week (note Tuesday meeting:
Tues March 12: Dr Bob Coecke, Oxford
Operational logicality of physical properties: Constructing quantum
causality and informatics
All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.00 pm, in All Souls College, Wharton Room
11 October: NO MEETING
18 October: David Wallace, Oxford
Localised Particles in Quantum Field Theory
25 October: Michaela Massimi and Prof Michael Redhead, London School of Economics
Weinberg's Proof of the Spin-Statistics Theorem
1 November; Prof John Cardy, Oxford
S-Matrix Theory Redux
8 November: Prof Colin Howson, London School of Economics
A New Kind of Logic' (Leibniz)
15 November: Dr Tim Spiller, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol
To be announced
22 November: Prof Rafael Sorkin, Syracuse and QMW London
General Covariance and the "Problem of Time" in a Discrete Cosmology
29 November: Dr Michael Teper, Oxford
Solving quantum field theory by computer simulation
All meetings are on Thursdays at 4.00 pm, in All Souls College; MOSTLY in Wharton Room. But
Sometimes in Hovenden Room
April 26: Dr Robert Bishop (Fribourg)
Statistical Mechanics Brussels-Austin Style
Abstract:
For nearly forty years Ilya Prigogine and his collaborators have
been pursuing a dynamical explanation for irreversibility and the second
law of
thermodynamics. After discussing some of the motivations animating this
long search and some brief history of their work, I will describe the
Brussels-Austin Group's recent approach to these questions involving the
analysis of so-called Large Poincaré System in extended spaces. This will
be
followed by a critical assessment of what I think the Brussels-Austin
Group has
accomplished and what outstanding questions remain to be addressed.
3 May: Dr Fred Muller, Utrecht
Refutability Revamped: whether and how quantum mechanics saves the
phenomena
10 May; Prof Ian Aitchison, Oxford
Topics in Thermal Field Theory
17 may: Dr Henrik Zinkernagel, Madrid
The cosmological constant problem - what do we really know about the
quantum vacuum?
24 May: Prof Lee Smolin, Imperial College
TBA
31 May: Dr Yves Pierseaux, Louvain
TBA
7 June: Prof Guido Bacciagaluppi, UC Berkeley
TBA
14 June: Prof Joseph Silk, Oxford
TBA The John Locke
Lectures 2001 Professor B. van
Fraassen (Princeton University): Structure and Perspective: an Empiricist View. The
lectures are on the following Tuesdays 5 - 7 in the Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre,
St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford 24
April: The Visible World 01
May: Structural Realism and the Phenomena 15
May: Weyl's Paradox and Carnap's Lost World 22
May: Metaphysical Oblivion: Realism's Return 29
May: Metaphysics Abandoned: Realism Evaded 05
June: I, Structure/Perspective Professor
van Fraassen will lecture for approximately one hour. The remaining time will
be available for open discussion
Philosophy CentreTrinity Term 2013
Hilary Term 2013
Michaelmas Term 2012
Trinity Term 2012
A quantum approach to equilibrium
Hilary Term 2012
Michaelmas Term 2011
Trinity Term 2011
Symmetries in the Foundations of Quantum Theory
Relativistic Quantum (Im)Possibilities
How quantum theory helps us explain
The Two-State Vector Formalism of Quantum Mechanics, Weak Values, Weak Measurement and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
TBA
Hilary Term 2011
Michaelmas Term 2010
Trinity Term 2010
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Hilary Term 2010
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Michaelmas Term 2009
December 3rd (week 8):
Tinity Term 2009
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Hilary Term 2009
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Michaelmas Term 2008
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Trinity Term 2008
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Hilary Term 2008
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Michaelmas Term 2007
Dr Talal Debbs, LSE
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Trinity Term 2007
Hilary Term 2007
Michaelmas Term 2006
Trinity Term 2006
Hilary Term 2006
Michaelmas Term 2005
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Trinity Term 2005
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Hilary Term 2005
Michaelmas Term 2004
Trinity Term 2004
Hilary Term 2004
Michaelmas Term 2003
Trinity Term 2003
Hilary Term 2003
Michaelmas Term 2002
Trinity Term 2002
Hilary Term 2002
Michaelmas Term 2001
Trinity Term 2001
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