[PhilPhys] Séminaire Philosophie et Physique. Dennis Dieks. Identity and distinguishability, classical and quantum.

[Alexis de Saint-Ours]

La prochaine séance du séminaire Philosophie et Physique du Laboratoire SPHERE*  aura lieu le vendredi 28 mars, salle Valentin, 454A, 
de 14h à 17h. 

Nous aurons le plaisir d’entendre 

Dennis Dieks (University of Utrecht)


Identity and distinguishability, classical and quantum.

The notion that particles can be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, which poses a challenge to traditional notions of individuality and identity, has first come up in the context of classical statistical mechanics. In particular, the Gibbs paradox has been interpreted as a sign of the untenability of the classical concept of a particle and as a premonition that quantum theory is needed to make sense of the situation. These ideas have been criticized in the literature, and completely classical solutions of the Gibbs paradox have been proposed. We shall argue, however, that although the criticism was justified, the proposed solutions have not gone to the heart of the matter. As we shall show, the solution of the Gibbs paradox in classical physics is in fact unrelated to fundamental distinguishability issues; only distinguishability in a pragmatic sense plays a role (in this we develop ideas of van Kampen). With regard to quantum mechanics we shall show that the paradox survives in basically the same form even here, in spite of the quantum mechanical (anti-)symmetrization postulates. 



* Bâtiment Condorcet, 
Université Paris Diderot-Paris7 


4, rue Elsa Morante, 75013 Paris. Plan

Métro : Ligne 14, RER C, arrêt : Bibliothèque-François Mitterrand. Autobus : 62 89 325 64.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://listbox.elte.hu/mailman/private/philphys/attachments/20140324/7bdce3f0/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 2998 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://listbox.elte.hu/mailman/private/philphys/attachments/20140324/7bdce3f0/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: logo_sphere_grand.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 483 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://listbox.elte.hu/mailman/private/philphys/attachments/20140324/7bdce3f0/attachment-0001.gif>