The Rise and Fall of the Foundations of Physics

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I do think that really philosophy has been a refuge. It's the same way that Aristotle kind of had to be squirreled away in the Islamic world for a while and then eventually found his way back. I actually got an email kind of out of the blue from a chair of a physics department who said we're thinking of trying to introduce foundations of physics into our program. Don't spend your time thinking about this. And slight generalization, but the philosophers, to their credit, have kept the flame alive. They've been thinking about these things.

Last year's Nobel Prize for experimental tests of Bell's Theorem was the first Nobel in the foundations of quantum mechanics since Max Born in 1954. Quantum foundations is enjoying a bit of a resurgence, inspired in part by improving quantum technology but also by a realization that understanding quantum mechanics might help with other problems in physics (and be important in its own right). Tim Maudlin is a leading philosopher of physics and also a skeptic of the Everett interpretation. We discuss the logic behind hidden-variable approaches such as Bohmian mechanics, and also the broader question of the importance of the foundations of physics.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/06/26/241-tim-maudlin-on-locality-hidden-variables-and-quantum-foundations/

Tim Maudlin received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently a professor of philosophy at New York University. He is a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow. He is the founder and director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics in Croatia.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.