Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars
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
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 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
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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
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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]
- 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
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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
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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
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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
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
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
Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford
TBA
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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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.
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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
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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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.
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
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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
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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 ]
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Hilary Term 2005
abstracts/ar.html |
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
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Michaelmas Term 2004
There will be no Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars this term.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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