| HPS 2626 Phil 2626 |
Topics in Recent Philosophy of Physics | Fall 2013 |
Back to course documents.
Topics and Readings
Leo Szilard (1929) "On the Decrease of Entropy in a Thermodynamic System by the Intervention of Intelligent Beings," Translation of Zeitschrift fur Physik 53: 840–856.
Landauer, R., 1961, “Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process”, IBM Journal of Research and Development, 5: 183–191.
Bennett, C.H., 1982, “The thermodynamics of computation—a review”, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 21(12): 905–940.
Background reading:
Wayne C. Myrvold, (2011) "Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics: A Maxwellian View."
Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 42, Issue 4, November 2011, pp 237–243.
[Preprint] http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8638/
John D. Norton, "All Shook Up: Fluctuations, Maxwell's Demon and the Thermodynamics of Computation," Prepared for the journal, Entropy.
John D. Norton, "Brownian Computation is Thermodynamically Irreversible."
Background:
Smoluchowski, Marian von (1912). “Experimentell nachweisbare, der üblichen Thermodynamik widersprechende Molekularphänomene,” Physikalische Zeitschrift, 13, pp.1069-1080.
More, including Powerpoints:
Rotman Institute of Philosophy Summer School Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
John D. Norton, "When a Good Theory Meets a Bad Idealization: The Failure of the Thermodynamics of Computation." Goodies.
Jan Hilgevoord "Time in Quantum Mechanics: A History of Confusion,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 36 (2005), pp.29–60.
P. Busch, “The Time-Energy Uncertainty Relation,” http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105049 Read 3.1-3.2 and 3.5 - 3.6.1.
Tom Pashby, "Time and Quantum Theory: A History and A Prospectus."
John D. Norton, "The Dome: An Unexpectedly Simple Failure of Determinism" Philosophy of Science, 75, No. 5, (2008). pp. 786-98
or the short version in
John D. Norton, “The Dome: A Simple Violation of Determinism in Newtonian Mechanics,” In Goodies.
Balazs Gyenis, " "Determinism, physical possibility, and laws of nature"," manuscript.
Some nice introductory survey of standard cosmology, including inflation.
A unique survery, worth a full week:
G. F. R. Ellis, "On the Philosophy of Cosmology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 2013 (in proofs)
Chris Smeenk, “Philosophy of Cosmology,” Ch. 17 in R. Batterman, ed., Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics.
Andreas Albrecht et al. Report of the Dark Energy Task Force. 2006
M. Barnard, A. Abrahamse, A. Albrecht B. Bozek, M. Yashar "Exploring Parameter Constraints on Quintessential Dark Energy: The Albrecht-Skordis Model" arXiv:0712.2875, Phys. Rev. D 77, 103502 (2008)
M. Barnard, A. Abrahamse, A. Albrecht B. Bozek, M. Yashar "A measure of the impact of future dark energy experiments based on discriminating power among quintessence models" arXiv:0804.0413 Phys.Rev.D78:043528 (2008)
Mordehai Milgrom, “MOND–a pedagogical review,” arXiv:astro-ph/0112069 v1
Peter Kosso, “Evidence of dark matter, and the interpretive role of general relativity,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 44, Issue 2, May 2013, pp 143–147.
Benoît Famaey and Stacy S. McGaugh, "Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND): Observational Phenomenology and Relativistic Extensions", Living Reviews of Relativity 15, (2012), 10.
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2012-10
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3960
Huge survey of the observational testing of MOND.
For background reading, an enormous survey of alternative theories of gravity:
T. Clifton et al., “Modified gravity and cosmology,” Physics Reports, 513, Issues 1–3, March 2012, Pages 1–189
Max Tegmark, "The Multiverse Hierarchy" http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.1283v1.pdf
Eric Hatleback, "Cosmological Induction: A Familiar Philosophical Foe."
Jeremy Butterfield, “Underdetermination in Cosmology,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. LXXXVI
John D. Norton, "Observationally Indistinguishable Spacetimes: A Challenge for Any Inductivist." In G. Morgan, ed., Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 164-176.
Gibbons, G. W.; Hawkings, S. W. and Stewart, J. M. 1987. “A Natural Measure on the Set of All Universes.” Nuclear Physics B281: 736-51.
Gibbons, G. W. and Turok, Neil. 2008) “Measure Problem in Cosmology,” Physical Review, D77, pp. 063516-1-12.
Hawking, S. W. and Page, Don N. 1988 “How Probable is Inflation?” Nuclear Physics B298: 789-809.
Tegmark, Max; Aguirre, Anthony; Rees, Martin J. and Wilczek, Frank. 2006. “Dimensionless Constants, Cosmology, and Other Dark Matters.” Physical Review D73: 023505-1-28.
Weinberg, Steven. 2000. “A Priori Probabilities of the Cosmological Constant.” Physical Review D61: 103505-1-4.
Yann Benetreau-Dupin, "Cosmic Surprise, Anthropic Reasoning, and Bayesian Analysis". Abstract at http://publish.uwo.ca/~ybenetre/Research_&_Publications_files/Cosmic_Surprise_Abstract_rev.pdf
John D. Norton, "Cosmic Confusions: Not Supporting versus Supporting Not-". Philosophy of Science. 77 (2010), pp. 501-23.
Roberts, Bryan W. (2012) The simple failure of Curie's Principle. [Preprint] http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9862/
Matthew F. Pusey, Jonathan Barrett, Terry Rudolph, “On the reality of the quantum state,” http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328
Matt Leifer, “Can the Quantum State be Interpreted Statistically.” Blog at http://mattleifer.info/2011/11/20/can-the-quantum-state-be-interpreted-statistically/
Maximilian Schlosshauer and Arthur Fine, “Is the Pusey–Barrett–Rudolph Theorem Compatible with Quantum Nonseparability?” http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.5805
M. S. Leifer, R. W. Spekkens, “Formulating Quantum Theory as a Causally Neutral Theory of Bayesian Inference,” 2011 http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5849
Treats quantum relations as analogous to probabilistic inference, but governed by a new quantum inductive inference.
Itamar Pitowsky, “Quantum mechanics as a theory of probability” in W. Demopolous, I. Pitowsky (Eds.), Physical theory and its interpretation, Springer, Dordrecht (2006), pp. 213–240
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0510095
Christopher A. Fuchs, “QBism, the Perimeter of Quantum Bayesianism,” 2010 http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5209
Armond Duwell, “Uncomfortable bedfellows: Objective quantum Bayesianism and the von Neumann–Lüders projection postulate,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 42, Issue 3, August 2011, Pages 167–175
What are we to make of the fact that we need to rotate a spinor by 4 pi to complete a spatial rotation of 2 pi.
Robert Weingard and Gerrit Smith, "Spin and space," Synthese, 50, Issue 2, pp 213-231.
Christian, Joy (2013) Macroscopic Observability of Spinorial Sign Changes under 2pi Rotations. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9810/
Jos Uffink, “Compendium of the foundations of classical statistical physics,” http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2691/
See Time Symmetry: A Unified Approach.
A two-day international conference on the philosophy of time symmetry.
Centre for Time, University of Sydney, Quadrangle, Room S401, August 29-30, 2013
Craig Callender, “Reducing thermodynamics to statistical mechanics: The case of entropy,” Journal of Philosophy 96 (7):348-373 (1999). http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ccallender/index_files/reduction.pdf
David Albert, Time and Chance. Chapters.
Frigg, Roman (2012) What is Statistical Mechanics? [Preprint] http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9133/
Wallace, David (2012) The Arrow of Time in Physics. [Preprint] http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9192/
North, Jill (2011) Time in Thermodynamics. [Published Article] http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8947/
Myrvold, Wayne C. (2012) “Probabilities in Statistical Mechanics: What are they?” http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9236/