Bose-Einstein Condensate Philosophy of Physics
University of Oxford

 

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

Thu 24 October: Basil Hiley, Birkbeck College, London

Thu 31 October: Paul Hoyningen-Heune, Leibniz University of Hannover

Thu 7 November: Sam Fletcher, University of California at Irvine

Thu 14 November: Jeffrey Bub, University of Maryland

Thu 21 November: Paul Teller, University of California at Davis

Thu 28 November: No Seminar

Thu 5 December: No Seminar

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Trinity Term 2013

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

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

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Hilary Term 2013

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

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Michaelmas Term 2012

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?

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Trinity Term 2012

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

    A quantum approach to equilibrium

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

    *************************************************

    Hilary Term 2012

    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?

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    Michaelmas Term 2011

    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

    ********************************

    Trinity Term 2011

    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

      Symmetries in the Foundations of Quantum Theory

    Thu 26 May - No seminar [Tim Maudlin's Shearman Memorial Lecture take place this week in London]

    Thu 2 June: Prof Adrian Kent, Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations, DAMTP, University of Cambridge, and Perimeter Institute

      Relativistic Quantum (Im)Possibilities

    Thu 9 June: Prof Richard Healey, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona

      How quantum theory helps us explain

    Thu 16 June: Prof James Ladyman, Department of Philosophy, Bristol University

      The Two-State Vector Formalism of Quantum Mechanics, Weak Values, Weak Measurement and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

    Thu 23 June: Prof Simon Saunders, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University

      TBA

    **************************************************

    Hilary Term 2011

    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

    ****************************************

    Michaelmas Term 2010

    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

    *********************************************************

    Trinity Term 2010

    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

    Th 13 May: Dr Keith Hannabuss, Oxford

      Some recent developments in Quantum Electrodynamics

    Thu 20 May: Prof Harvey Brown, Oxford

      Boltzmann's H-theorem and its discontents

    Thu 27 May: Prof Nancy Cartwright, LSE

      Who's afraid of external validity?

    Thu 3 June: Dr Darrell Rowbottom, Oxford

      Confirmation and the intersubjective interpretation of probability

    Thu 10 June: Dr David Wallace, Oxford

      The logic of the Past Hypothesis

    Thu 17 June: Mr Adam Caulton, Cambridge

      Interpreting physical theories with symmetries

    *****************************************************

    Hilary Term 2010

    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

    ******************************************************

    Michaelmas Term 2009

    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

    December 3rd (week 8):

    Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford

      TBA

    *********************************************************

    Tinity Term 2009

    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

    *****************************************************************

    Hilary Term 2009

    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.

    *********************************************************************

    Michaelmas Term 2008

    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

    6 Nov: Dr Alexei Grinbaum, LARSIM laboratory, CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission)-Saclay, France

      Which fine-tuning arguments are fine?

    13 Nov: Prof Lane Hughston, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College

      Do we really need dynamical models for quantum state reduction ?

    20 Nov: Prof Simon Saunders, Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University

      Chance in the Everett Interpretation

    27 Nov: Dr David Frame, Department of Physics, Oxford University

      TBA

    4 Dec Prof Nick E. Mavromatos, Department of Physics, King's College London

      Quantum Gravity, Microscopic Time Irreversibility and EPR Correlations

    *******************************************************************

    Trinity Term 2008

    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

    ******************************************************************************

    Hilary Term 2008

    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

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Michaelmas Term 2007

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

Dr Talal Debbs, LSE

    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

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Trinity Term 2007

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

****************************

Hilary Term 2007

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.

**********************************************************

Michaelmas Term 2006

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

16 November: Professor Samir Okasha

    Where Rational Choice and Evolution Part Ways

23 November: Dr. Antony Valentini, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo

    Inflationary cosmology as a probe of primordial quantum mechanics

30 November: Dr. Simon Saunders, University of oxford

    Newton?s Corollary VI, and all that: why absolute rotation is relational

**********************************************************

Trinity Term 2006

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.

18 May Prof. Oliver Johns, San Francisco State University

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

8 June Mr Paul Mainwood, Philosophy Faculty, Oxford

Renormalization? a novel explanatory strategy?

15 June Prof. Christopher Isham, Theoretical Physics, Imperial College

Daseinization and the redemption of quantum theory

**********************************************************

Hilary Term 2006

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

**************************************************

Michaelmas Term 2005

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.

13 October: Gerard Emch, University of Florida
Classical aspects in quantm statistical mechanics

20 October: Steven French, University of Leeds
Science as a weapon of the realist

27 October: Michel Ghins,University of Louvain-la-Neuve
On Thomas Ryckman's "The Reign of Relativity

3 November: Luc Bovens, LSE
Cartel Formation and voting in a federal assembly

10 November: Nick Shea, University of Oxford
Representation in the genome and in other inheritance systems abstract

17 November: Toby Handfield, Monash University
The metaphysics of causal models: Where's the biff? abstract

24 November: Alexander Bird, University of Bristol
Necessary connections: laws and properties

1 December: Michela Massimi, University College London
Where Kuhnian incommensurability leaves us: a lesson from the crisis of the old quantum theory
*********************************************************

Trinity Term 2005

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
abstract ]

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
abstract ]

26 May: Paul Mainwood, Oxford

Phase Transitions in Finite Systems
abstract ]

2 June: Dr Jeremy Butterfield, Oxford

Conserved quantities and symplectic reduction: counting possibilities in classical mechanics
abstract ]

9 June: Prof. Ion Olimpiu Stamatescu, Heidelberg

Image and concept in modern physics
abstract ]

16 June: Prof. Jonathan Haliwell, Imperial College, London

Emergent Classicality via Commuting Position and Momentum Operators
abstract ]

**************************************************

Hilary Term 2005

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

**************************************************

Michaelmas Term 2004

There will be no Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars this term.

**************************************************

Trinity Term 2004

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

**************************************************

Hilary Term 2004

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

**************************************************

Michaelmas Term 2003

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.

16 October: Professor Peter Lipton, Cambridge University
The Ravens revisited

23 October: Margaret Boden, Sussex University
Not what they're made out to be: on Vaucanson, Babbage, and AI

30 October: John Worrall, LSE
Why there's no cause to randomize

6 November: Ian Maclean, Oxford University
Attributing meaning to early modern mathematical and scientific texts: some case histories

13 November: Susan Hurley, Warwick University
Active perception and perceiving action; the shared circuits hypothesis

20 November: Michael Redhead, LSE
Minds, machines, and all that

27 November: Nicholas Maxwell, University College London
What Kind of Inquiry can Best Help us Create a Better World? Popper, Science and Enlightenment

4 December: William Unruh, University of Vancouver
Closing in on non-locality

Trinity Term 2003

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

**************************************************

Hilary Term 2003

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

**************************************************

Michaelmas Term 2002

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

**************************************************

Trinity Term 2002

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

Hilary Term 2002

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

Michaelmas Term 2001

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

Trinity Term 2001

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

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