Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars
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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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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