1. Why Philosophy of Physics is Awesome!
Niels Martens

2. Statistical Mechanics
Philosophy of Science
Epistemology
Scientific method
Specific sciences
(Anti)-realism
Metaphysics
Specific sciences
Phil of Biology
Phil of Mind
Phil of Physics
Phil of Mathematics
Phil of Physics
Quantum (info)
Thermodynamics/
Statistical Mechanics
Space, Time & Spacetime

3. Oxford Philosophers of Physics

4. Philosophy of Space Is space real? Einstein’s Relativity Theory
Time slows down!
Space contracts!
Cosmology/Big Bang
Emergent Space(time)

5. Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence
Newton
Clarke
Leibniz
SUBSTANTIVALISM
RELATIONALISM
All talk about space is reducible to talk about relations between particles
Compare with family relations
Space exists!
It makes sense to talk about empty space
‘Even if there is no play tonight, the theatre is still there’

6. `Leibniz shifts’: space must be relational

7. `Newton’s bucket’: let’s look at science!
Ernst Mach
The relative motion between bucket and water is the same in picture 1 and 3, but the relative motion with respect to the stars is not!
Problem: physics becomes nonlocal

8. Let’s use your left and right hands
Immanuel Kant
There is a difference between your right and left hand
The relationalist explains the different handedness of two objects via relations
What about a single hand in an empty universe?
Earman
Handed laws of nature

9. Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

10. Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics
Metaphysics: What does the world look like according to quantum mechanics?
Quantum information
Probability/determinism/free will

11. Interpreting Quantum Mechanics
Does light (and everything else in the world) consist of particles? Or waves?
Photo-electric effect (Einstein  Nobel Price): particles
Double split experiment: waves

12. Double slit experiment

13. Double slit experiment

14. Double slit experiment

15. Double slit experiment

16. Double slit experiment
Does the photon (light particle) go through both slits at the same time? Can we measure which slit it goes through?
Even if you only send one photon through the slits, we still get an interference pattern!
 Photons are waves (and electrons, and protons)
You cannot say that there is a localised particle that goes through one of the two slits: there is a wave that goes through both slits: the photon is in a SUPERPOSITION of going through the left and the right slit at the same time

17. This is absurd!
So, at the smallest scale, our world consists of quantum waves: light, electrons, protons, everything is a quantum wave, meaning that the `particles’ are at several places at the same time.
Schrödinger (Magdalen College Alumnus):
This cannot be true.
If it would be true, it should also apply to large objects
(since they are made up out of small objects), and it would be
absurd to have a large object - like a table - being here and
somewhere else at the same time!
We never see tables in superpositions!

18. Schrödinger’s cat

19. Ways out Instrumentalism Measurement `collapses the wavefunction’
If you measure with a big apparatus, you will find the particle or cat in one specific place: the probability of that place depends on how large the wave is at that point.
Consciousness `collapses the wavefunction’
Pilot-wave theory
Many-worlds interpretation

20. Questions?