Author: francesco

Popper against the ideas of dignity, wholeness, real truth, and essentiality in science

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popper

Thus I freely admit that in arriving at my proposals I have been guided, in the last analysis, by value judgments and predilections. But I hope that my proposals may be acceptable to those who value not only logical rigour but also freedom from dogmatism; who seek practical applicability, but are even more attracted by the adventure of science, and by discoveries which again and again confront us with new and unexpected questions, challenging us to try out new and hitherto undreamt-of answers.

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 2nd Edition (Routledge, 1999), p.38.

Trip to Bihar, India

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I was invited to talk at the 3rd International Conference on Quantum Foundations in Patna, the capital city of the Indian state of Bihar. Great hospitality and many brilliant students eager to discuss and interact with the international community. A visit to the remains of the ancient university of Nalanda completed the program.

The Many Facets of the Information-Disturbance Tradeoff in Quantum Theory

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heisenberg-vs-demon
Heisenberg defeats Laplace’s demon!

Next Wednesday, I will be giving an invited lecture at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, about all that I’ve learnt concerning the information-disturbance tradeoff in quantum theory. Keeping a unified viewpoint, I will cover many aspects of the problem: from the difference between physical and stochastic reversibility, to qualitative “no information without disturbance” statements and quantitative balance equations, up to the two-observable approach à la Heisenberg.

Click the drawing above for the PDF.

Quantum uncertainties defeat Laplace’s demon

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I recently gave a colloquium at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Hanyang University in Ansan, Korea, in which I tried to introduce the idea of incompatibility of quantum measurements to students that were not all perfectly fluent in quantum theory.

Incompatibility, in the form of uncertainty relations, is available in many flavours: statistical and dynamical, variance-based and entropy-based, state-dependent and state-independent… As I was asked to share the slides, I’m now making them publicly available (click on the cover below):

quantum-unc-cover

The mechanical hybris is defeated!

See also: Heisenberg’s principle, Shannon’s information, and nuclear (research) reactors