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course information | lectures | assignments | term project | additional materials
| Course Information | |
Winter 2005 - PHYS 490 / PHYS 773 Course Outline (in .doc format) Instructors: Joseph Emerson jemerson ["at"] perimeterinstitute ["dot"] ca Raymond Laflamme laflamme ["at"] iqc ["dot"] ca Dates & Times: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:15pm - 3:45pm, January through April, 2005 (Winter Term). Location: Perimeter Institute, Room 405. (Note: Thursday, 3 March, the lecture will be at UW in BFG 2125 at the usual time.) | |
| Lectures | |
Click on the image to view the lecture in Mediasite Live format, which requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (for Windows or Mac) and Windows Media Player. Macromedia Flash versions of the lectures are also available here.  WEEK 1: Postulates of Quantum Theory Joseph Emerson4 January - Lecture 1: Postulates of Quantum Theory I 
6 January - Lecture 2: Postulates of Quantum Theory IIBibliography for Week 1 
WEEK 2: Measurement & Interpretation Joseph Emerson11 January - Lecture 3: Generalized States, Measurements, Transformations 
13 January - Lecture 4: Interpretations of Bohr, von Neumann, and Dirac
Bibliography for Week 2  WEEK 3: State Collapse & Hidden Variables Joseph Emerson18 January - Lecture 5: Problems for the Orthodox Interpretation 
20 January - Lecture 6: Incompleteness and Constraints on Hidden VariablesBibliography for Week 3  WEEK 4: The Many Worlds Interpretation David Wallace
25 January - Lecture 7: Many Worlds I 
27 January - Lecture 8: Many Worlds IIAssigned Reading for Week 4 
WEEK 5: The de Broglie-Bohm Interpretation Sheldon Goldstein1 February - Lecture 9: de Broglie-Bohm I 
3 February - Lecture 10: de Broglie-Bohm IIAssigned Reading for Week 5 
WEEK 6: The Statistical Interpretation Leslie Ballentine8 February - Lecture 11: Statistical I 
10 February - Lecture 12: Statistical IIAssigned Reading for Week 6 
WEEK 7: Spontaneous Collapse Models Philip Pearle15 February - Lecture 13: Continuous Spontaneous Localization "Lite" 
17 February - Lecture 14: Continuous Spontaneous LocalizationAssigned Reading for Week 7 
WEEK 8: Experimental Interlude I Anton Zeilinger1 March - Lecture 15: Interference of Macromolecules 3 March - Lecture 16: Complementarity and Which-Path Information Assigned Reading for Week 8 
WEEK 9: The Consistent Histories Interpretation Robert Griffiths8 March - Lecture 17: Consistent Histories I 
10 March - Lecture 18: Consistent Histories IIAssigned Reading for Week 9 
WEEK 10: Experimental Interlude II Alain Aspect15 March - Lecture 19: Bell's Theorem & Non-Locality 
17 March - Lecture 20: Entanglement & Superluminal SignalingAssigned Reading for Week 10 
WEEK 11: Axioms and Logic Lucien Hardy / Matthew Leifer22 March - Lecture 21: Physical Axioms for Quantum Theory 
24 March - Lecture 22: Quantum LogicAssigned Reading for Week 11 
WEEK 12: Advanced Topics in Hidden Variables Antony Valentini29 March - Lecture 23: Quantum Non-Equilibrium Systems I 
31 March - Lecture 24: Quantum Non-Equilibrium Systems IIAssigned Reading for Week 12 
WEEK 13: Epistemic Features of the Quantum State Joseph Emerson5 April - Lecture 25: Chaos and Quantum/Classical Correspondence Assigned Reading for Week 13 | |
| Assignments | |
Assignment 1, due 8 February, 2005. Assignment 2, due 15 March, 2005. Assignment 3, due 29 March, 2005. Solutions coming soon! | |
| Term Project | |
Goal: Prepare a report, showing that you understand the basic conceptual and mathematical/technical features of your topic, and that you can make critical comments about the issues relevant to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. You should present the material with enough detail that your fellow students would be able to understand your arguments. In other words, you may only assume your reader is familiar with the mathematical and conceptual material that was reviewed in the first two weeks of the course. Format: 10 - 15 pages for undergrads 20 - 25 pages for grad students Please take care of having a good introduction stating the problem(s) being addressed, a conclusion stating what you have learned, a table of contents, references, etc. Your submission must be an electronic document in .pdf format (with hyper-references, preferably prepared using LATEX). Deadline: To be sent electronically to qipcours ["at"] iqc ["dot"] ca before midnight on 12 April, 2005. Subjects: Describe/review two of the interpretations of quantum mechanics discusssed during the course and compare them, pointing out pros and cons. Your first goal is to demonstrate that you have understood and can explain the interpretations. Your second goal is to offer a critical evaluation. (While you should draw your own conclusions, papers offering little more than opinions and speculation have not met the goals of the term project.) OR Describe one interpretation which has been covered and for which there is a published criticism (e.g., "Againt Many Worlds" by A. Kent). Review both the interpretation and the criticism, critically evaluate them, and draw conclusions. OR Describe one interpretation of quantum mechancis not discussed in the course and critically analyse it in the same sense as outlined above. Possible topics include: - Decoherence approach, W.H. Zurek, Review of Modern Physics 75, 715, 2003. - Modal interpretation, Jeffrey Bub, Interpreting the Quantum World, Cambridge University Press. - Macro Realism, A.J. Leggett, A. Garg, Physical Review Letters 54, 857, 1985. OR Review and critically analyze one or more papers in the collection of historical articles in J.A. Wheeler and W.H. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton, 1983. You should critically evaluate the paper(s) not just using your own ideas and analysis, but also by directly referring to the papers it addresses and subsequent publications which address it. OR Review several papers on a major topic impacting interpretations, such as EPR, non-locality or contextuality (or, even better, analyze the relationship between two of these; e.g., Mermin, 1993), or an experiment with a significant impact on interpretation (e.g., the experimental realization of "Schrödinger's cat states"). OR You can suggest a subject, but it must be approved by J. Emerson or R. Laflamme. |
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| Additional Materials | |
Course-related content at the Perimeter Institute Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics Class Survey Thank You Card | |
Institute for Quantum Computing | www.iqc.ca