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. ------------------------- 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. ------------------------- 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.