Two Talks this week

[Dardashti, Radin]

Speaker: Heinz-Jürgen Schmidt (Osnabrück)
Wednesday 27th Nov 2013
Location: Ludwigstr.31 Room E021
Time: 6 to 8 pm

Title: The Bohmian Challenge

Abstract:
The Bohmian extension of quantum theory claims to solve the measurement 
problem by re-establishing, in some sense, the classical ontology of
particle trajectories on a microscopic level. In this talk I will not 
dwell upon the pros and cons to this claim but rather try to explain why
this enterprise constitutes a challenge for philosophy of science, 
especially for those branches striving for rigorous methods.
The Bohmian extension is empirically equivalent to standard quantum 
mechanics and mathematically only an extension by definitions. The main
difference to other interpretations of quantum theory seems to be the 
belief into the reality of the Bohmian trajectories. Are the theory
concepts used in philosophy of science rich enough to represent this 
crucial difference? In particular, I will scrutinize the theory concept 
of
Günther Ludwig that was explicitly developed to foster his statistical 
interpretation of quantum theory and contains as a central notion the
“reality domain” of a physical theory.  A partial result will be that 
the Bohmian trajectories are not “objective properties” of  particles in 
the
sense defined by Ludwig, since the velocity of the Bohmian particles is 
not observable.


And before this event at the Physics department

Speaker: Lars Brink (Chalmers University Goeteborg)
Wednesday 27th Nov 2013
Location: A348/349, Theresienstr. 37/III
Time: 4 to 6 pm

Title: The history behind the Brout-Englert-Mechanism and the Standard 
Model

Abstract:
I will describe the process of how to award Nobel Prizes and then give 
the history behind this year's prize.