Tuesday, 1 March 2005
Towards Relativistic Quantum Histories: A Branching Space-Times
Approach
Thomas Mueller, University Bonn, Philosophy
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Abstract:
It is notoriously difficult to combine quantum mechanics with relativity
theory in a satisfactory way. In my talk, I wish to sketch an attempt
at meeting some aspects of the challenge by combining the consistent
histories approach to quantum mechanics with the logical framework
of branching space-times.
The
consistent histories approach to non-relativistic quantum mechanics
describes the evolution of a closed quantum system in the form of
a temporal stochastic process. I will first show that most aspects
of that approach can be expressed naturally in the form of a probability
theory based on the logical framework of branching time. The framework
of branching space-times (BST), developed by Nuel Belnap in 1992,
is a relativistic extension of branching time. There is thus some
hope that a probability theory based on BST could be used to formulate
a relativistic extension of the consistent histories formalism.
In the second part of my talk I will therefore introduce BST probability
theory and indicate some steps towards a formulation of relativistic
quantum histories.
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