Talks at the MCMP and the MPQ (this week)

[Dardashti, Radin]

Speaker: Lucas Clemente
Date: Wed., January 14
Location: Herbert Walther lecture room, MPQ Garching
Time: 11:30 - 13:00

Title: Macrorealism

Abstract:
Macrorealism — the world view that physical properties of
macroscopic objects exist independent of measurements and are
not influenced by them — has recently been a focus of both, theoretical
and experimental work in quantum physics. As experiments get closer to
showing quantum superpositions of macroscopically distinct states, it
becomes interesting to look at conditions for macrorealism beyond the
well-known Leggett-Garg inequalitites. In this talk I will discuss a
condition called no-signaling in time, that, in the right combination,
can serve not only as a necessary, but also as a sufficient condition.
We will show how to apply these conditions to physical experiments, and
construct a definition for the classicality of quantum measurements and
Hamiltonians. The talk's slides can be found at
https://clemente.io/macrorealism.


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Speaker: Gia Dvali
Date: Wed., January 14
Location: Ludwigstr. 31, ground floor, room 021
Time: 18:15 - 19:45

Title: Corpuscular Structure of Geometry

Abstract:
We review some recent ideas on quantum-corpuscular structure of 
gravitational metric backgrounds, such as black holes and cosmological 
spaces. We show how this picture sheds light on seemingly-mysterious 
properties, such as, black hole information processing and evaporation, 
as well as how it excludes eternal de Sitter space.  This picture sheds 
a very different light on notion of "holography" and cosmological 
constant problem.


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Speaker: Molly Kao
Date: Thu., January 15
Location: Ludwigstr. 31, ground floor, room 021
Time: 12:15 - 13:45

Title: Background Knowledge in Pursuing the Quantum Hypothesis

Abstract:
In the years from 1900 to 1913, the hypothesis of quantized energy was 
introduced and subsequently appealed to in different contexts in an 
attempt to understand phenomena that could not be accounted for by 
theories of classical physics. Unfortunately, the hypothesis itself 
seemed to contradict certain aspects of classical physics. I attempt to 
justify the pursuit of the quantum hypothesis by analysing its 
predictive power in a Bayesian framework. I also argue that by carefully 
delimiting the background knowledge scientists took for granted in each 
case of confirmation, we see that the justification for pursuing this 
hypothesis was grounded on commitments to the accuracy of experimental 
results, which were common to the scientific community.