Conferences and Workshops
IPP Conference and Workshop
Relativistic Causality in QFT and GR
Conference: Thursday, 4 April 2013
Workshop: Friday-Sunday, 5-7 April 2013
Center for Philosophy of Science
QFT Workshop
Friday - Saturday, 14-15 October 2011
Center for Philosophy of Science
Program
CPS Lunch Talks
Talks this term
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
How Physics Works
Nicholas Rescher (University of Pittsburgh)
Abstract
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Why Einstein Never Really Cared for Geometrization
Dennis Lehmkuhl (CPS Visiting Fellow)
Abstract
View past talks
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Common Causal Explanations and the Bell Inequalities
Gábor Hofer-Szabó (CPS Visiting Fellow)
Abstract
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Splitting the Hairs of Locality: How and Why?
Adrian Wüthrich (CPS Postdoctoral Fellow)
Abstract
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
On the Status of the Geodesic Principle in Newtonian and Relativistic Physics
James Owen Weatherall (UC Irvine)
Abstract
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Approximation and Idealization: Why the Difference Matters
John Norton (CPS Director and Pitt HPS)
Abstract
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
The New Quantum Logic
Robert B. Griffiths (Carnegie Mellon University)
Abstract
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Newton and Proclus on the Geometry of Absolute Space
Mary Domski (CPS Visiting Fellow)
Abstract
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
The Second Law of Thermodynamics in Quantum Field Theory
David Snoke (University of Pittsburgh)
Abstract
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Bell Inequality and Common Causal Explanation in Algebraic Quantum Field Theory
Gábor Hofer-Szabó, (CPS Visiting Fellow)
Abstract
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Galileo's Refutation of the Speed-Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated
John D. Norton and Bryan Roberts (University of Pittsburgh)
Abstract
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Conservation, Activity, and the Anti-Cartesian Argument of the Queries to Newton's Opticks
Katherine Dunlop (Brown University)
Abstract
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Isaac Newton's Scientific Method
William Harper (University of Western Ontario)
Abstract
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Renormalization, Coarse-Graining, and the Fragile Individual
Simon DeDeo (Santa Fe Institute)
Abstract
CPS Annual Lecture Series
Friday, 9 December 2011, 3:30 pm
Entropy, Entanglement and Utility
Jos Uffink (University of Minnesota)
Seminars
Fall 2012
History of Old Quantum Theory
John Norton
HPS 2532
Thursday 9:30-12:00
Modern quantum mechanics emerged in the first 30 years of the twentieth century. It began with an account of the statistical physics of heat radiation by Planck in 1900, with Einstein's proposal of the light quantum in 1905 and with Bohr's 1913 account of atomic spectra. The modern theory emerged in the mid to late 1920s in researches by Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac and more. This seminar will review the historical development of these three decades and will seek to place special emphasis on the developments of the mid to late 1920s.
Spring 2013
Philosophy Of Space And Time
Eleanor Knox
PHIL 2675
Wednesday 9:30-12:00
This course will consider the interpretation of spacetime theories, past, present (and perhaps future). We'll begin by looking at the traditional debate over the reality of space and spacetime (that is, the debate between relationism and substantivalism) in both Newtonian and relativistic theories. We'll move on to think about the role that the formalism plays in these and related debates, specifically considering the relationship between geometry, coordinate systems and reference frames. Finally, we'll consider how we might interpret alternatives to the standard spacetime theories, including geometrized Newtonian gravitation (Newton-Cartan theory).
Foundations of Quantum Field Theory
Giovanni Valente
PHIL 2677
Wednesday 5:00-7:30
Relativistic causality is the requirement that causal processes cannot propagate faster than light. Allegedly, such a requirement is incorporated in Einstein's theory of relativity. Indeed, relativistic causality is often referred to as Einstein's causality principle, and it is understood to determine the causal structure of spacetime. Yet, there is an outstanding problem in philosophy of physics concerning the status of relativistic causality. In fact, in the last few decades a number of experimental and theoretical results have raised questions about what, precisely, the relativistic prohibition on superluminal causal processes amounts to. Furthermore, our most fundamental relativistic theories abound with different formulations of relativistic causality. In this seminar we investigate the status of relativistic causality in quantum field theory and general relativity, with a focus on the philosophical consequences that its violation would entail.
View past seminars
Fall 2011
Topics in Philosophy of Physics
Giovanni Valente
PHIL 2626/HPS 2626
Tuesday 2:00-4:30
This seminar deals with the foundations of statistical mechanics.
Specifically, we address the issue of how the theory can account for the irreversible thermodynamic behavior observed at the macroscopic level. The problem is that the microscopic dynamical laws of statistical mechanics are time-reversal invariant, and thus some additional time-asymmetric ingredient ought to be introduced. Yet the jury is still out concerning what such an ingredient would be. We shall focus, in particular, on the emergence of irreversibility in modern approaches to statistical mechanics.
Spring 2012
Topics in Philosophy of Science
Bob Batterman and Mark Wilson
PHIL 2622/HPS 2622
Wednesday 4:00-6:30
Philosophers have generally not appreciated the degree to which productive science often succeeds through blending "theories" pertinent to different size scales of observation in manners that prove "greater than the sum of their parts" with respect to the amalgam's empirical reliability and universality. A nice illustration of such policies can be found in the manner in which rather amorphous requirements on energy balance at the molecular level are selectively blended with empirical observations obtained at much higher scale lengths to frame the reliable treatments of material behavior employed in modern engineering.
The key to these successes lies in the underlying policies of "selective blending." In this seminar we'll try to isolate how such strategies for "combining theories from different scale levels" operate. We will see that these methodologies conform neither to the simple "reductive" patterns championed by Nagel et al., nor to the "special sciences" models provided by Fodor, Cartwright and others. In addition, recent work in materials science explores more sophisticated patterns for "combining theories from different scale levels" utilizing so-called "renormalization group techniques" in an effort to break the "tyranny of size scales" problem that has limited traditional modeling
efforts in unsatisfactory ways. We'll try to survey some of this exciting new work in "theory blending" as well.
We shall try to present the pertinent material in a pedagogically gentle manner and will not require any particular scientific background for this
seminar. It is our hope that our investigations may break down current
"unity of science"/"disunity of science" stereotypes in helpful ways.
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