[PhilPhys] Ch. Wuethrich, philosophie de la physique, 15 et 16 octobre 2009

[GRINBAUM Alexei]

Séminaire des fondements et de philosophie de la physique

Christian Wüthrich (University of California, San Diego)

Séminaire à l'IHPST (13 rue du Four 75006 Paris)

15 octobre à 17h
"An old and a new theorem in quantum mechanics and what they don't imply for indeterminism"
It is known, at least since Bell (1966), that Gleason's theorem does not rule out either hidden-variables interpretations of quantum mechanics or determinism, despite numerous assertions to the contrary. Recently, John Conway and Simon Kochen have published what they call the 'free will theorem' and proclaimed that it establishes that Nature herself is indeterministic. I will review the common argument why Gleason's theorem is thought to rule out determinism and Bell's response to it before I embark on an analysis of the free will theorem and its alleged implications. Alas, I will conclude that nothing as grand as what is claimed is in fact established.


Séminaire au LARSIM (CEA-Orme des Merisiers, bât. 774, salle 50, plan  <http://ipht.cea.fr/en/Phocea-SPhT/ast_visu_spht.php?id_ast=388> d'accès)

16 octobre à 14h15
"Let's go for a ride on a time machine"
For over a century, the science fiction literature has offered ever more fanciful scenarios involving time travel in one's own past, while science has never seriously entertained their possibility. Even Gödel's discovery in 1949 of a general-relativistic spacetime with causal loops did not change that. For the last two decades, however, physicists and philosophers have ventured more boldly - and more seriously - into the business of time travel. I will show why time travel and time machines, understood in a technical sense to be defined, become serious business in modern spacetime theories and how they illuminate important foundational issues such as the cosmic censorship hypotheses and the quest for a quantum theory of gravity.

 
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Programme 2009-2010  "Fondements  <http://www-llb.cea.fr/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast_visu.php?id_ast=761> de la physique en région parisienne" 
 
Prochaine semaine de philosophie de la physique : 14-18 décembre 2009
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