Atoms are quantum!
28 April - 29 May 2024
Professor Nick Huggett was a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2022 when he worked with Professor James Ladyman on Quantum Gravity at the Big Bang and on a Table Top.
Biography
Nick Huggett is an LAS Distinguished Professor (PhD Rutgers University, 1995). His specialties are the philosophy of science and the philosophy of physics. His early publications concentrated on quantum field theory (for example, "Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory" in Philosophy of Science Today, Oxford University Press, 2003). More recent work concerned theories of space from antiquity to the present (e.g., Space from Zeno to Einstein, MIT Press, 1999; "The Regularity Account of Relational Spacetime" in Mind, 2006; and with Craig Callender [UCSD] an anthology on the philosophy of quantum theories of gravity, Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale, Cambridge University Press, 2001). He has also collaborated with Tom Imbo (UIC Physics Department) on the foundations of quantum mechanics (e.g.,"Indistinguishability" in the Compendium of Quantum Physics, Springer, 2009). His book Everywhere and Everywhen (Oxford University Press, February 2010) introduces a general audience to the philosophy of physics. In recent years he has been collaborating with Christian Wüthrich (University of Geneva) on a project, supported by ACLS, NSF and the John Templeton Foundation, on philosophy and quantum gravity: see beyondspacetime.net for information. They have written articles (for example, “Emergent Spacetime and Empirical (In)coherence” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 2013), organized conferences, edited a journal special edition, and are completing a book. Most recently he completed a short book with Niels Linnemann and Mike D. Schneider, Quantum Gravity in a Laboratory? (Cambridge University Press, 2023). In recent years he has held visiting positions at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Bristol, and Oxford University.
Visit Summary
During the original visit Nick Huggett and Karim Thebault wrote a paper on the emergence of time in quantum cosmology, which included discussion of the ‘Born-Oppenheimer’ approximation method, which plays an important (and controversial) role in the derivation. This method (which was mentioned in a recent movie about Oppenheimer) was developed in the 1930s to give a quantum account of the structure and energy levels of molecules, and so is central to the relationship between chemistry to quantum physics. In recent years, several philosophers working in the philosophy of chemistry (Chang and Lombardi, in particular) have suggested that the method violates quantum mechanics due to a supposed inconsistency with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and have concluded that chemistry is therefore not reducible to physics. With the work we have done already, the planned visit will provide time to complete a paper explaining how the method is quantum mechanical, and to show that (at least in this regard) there is no block to a quantum explanation of chemical properties nor any inconsistency between quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry. Our work will allow a coherent and scientifically informed narrative regarding the unity of chemical and physical modelling to be established.
In addition, NH will work with James Ladyman and Nadia Blackshaw to build on work completed under the first visit, on the philosophical implications of ‘decoherence’ in quantum theory: essentially, interactions with the environment, make it very hard to observe the quantum behaviour of systems. In particular, we would like to apply this model to recent discussion of the ‘extended Wigner’s friend’ thought experiment.
Nick Huggett will also give lectures to faculty and students on this work, and that undertaken while a Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor.
Professor Huggett is hosted by Professor James Ladyman in the Department of Philosophy.
More details of Professor Huggett's lectures and seminars will be posted in due course, in the meantime please contact Professor Huggett's host for further information.
