*Foundations of Physics seminar series double header* Tuesday the 1st of February
New Law Building Annex seminar room 020, 2:30pm to 5:30pm 2:30pm: David Jennings (Imperial) Entanglement and the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time. Abstract: I will discuss some recent work that applies techniques in Quantum Information Theory to the topic of the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time. Firstly, I will discuss a recent attempt to explain the perceived Thermodynamic Arrow, and why the argument is technically incorrect. The technical failure illustrates some unusual aspects of how quantum correlations can behave. I will then discuss how an apparent reversal of the Thermodynamic Arrow can act as a novel form of an 'entanglement witness'. This witness relies crucially on state transformations rather than physical observables, and thus is distinct from those witnesses found normally in Quantum Information Theory. The analysis of these reversals in simple multi-particle systems, in which thermality arises solely from entanglement, admits a tidy geometric description, and time permitting I will discuss connections with multipartite correlations and some open problems in the area. 4:15pm: Howard Wiseman (Griffith) Can ANY Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? --- Bell retolled Although the EPR paper is famous for arguing that quantum mechanics is incomplete, their detailed criterion for completeness has been largely ignored. Here I formalize this criterion, and show that their argument can be made absolutely rigorous, and does not rely upon any additional assumptions of a metaphysical nature e.g. locality. If it is reasonable to similarly formalize Bohr's defence of the completeness of quantum mechanics, it would seem to rely upon a different concept of *disturbance*. Next, I propose a more general criterion for completeness, based on EPR's criterion. Using this, I derive a new formulation of Bell's theorem: Any theory that predicts violation of a Bell inequality cannot be both complete and free of space-like disturbances. Crucially, this theorem holds for both EPR's and Bohr's concept of disturbance. All welcome. Information on the website: http://bit.ly/SydFop
_______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 945 subscribers now served. To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
