Constructing the Ultimate Machine
The mathematician and engineer Claude Shannon kept a machine on his desk, which he called “The Ultimate Machine.” As it turns out, there are a number of clever instantiations of…
Read moreWigner’s elegant characterization of time reversal
There’s a nice post at The Eternal Universe illustrating discrete symmetries like time reversal. The father of this idea, Eugene Wigner, actually gave a very elegant characterization in his 1931…
Read moreConferences for Philosophers of Physics, Summer 2010
April 30 – May 2. Washington, D.C. New Directions in Foundations of Physics. Speakers: Michel Janssen, Tony Duncan, Elise Crull, Fernando Brandao, Bill Unruh, Dan Browne, Scott Aaronson, Valerio Scarani,…
Read moreDavid Albert on symmetries of motion in quantum mechanics
In Time and Chance, David Albert writes that since the Schrödinger equation involves a first (instead of a second) derivative, “the dynamical laws that govern the evolutions of quantum states in…
Read moreBob Batterman moves to University of Pittsburgh
Bob Batterman, currently at the University of Western Ontario, has been hired by the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Philosophy. One more reason to love history and philosophy of science at the…
Read more