Physics Frontiers

Latest Episodes:

Episode 73: Quantum Money with Jiahui Liu Jun 18, 2023

Show notes

Jim discusses quantum money with Jiahui Liu. Quantum money is a linchpin of quantum cryptography. The ability to create secure banknotes using quantum computers would allow even more secure methods of encryption for communications.

Episode 72: Born Rule and Gravity with Antony Valentini Apr 23, 2023

Show notes

Jim talks with Antony Valentini about the difficulties of interpretation of quantum mechanics in light of quantum gravity. In particular, Antony discusses the failure of the Born Rule due to the impossibility of normalization (the fact that probabilities must sum to 100%) at that scale, and therefore the need to interpret the wavefunction as something more than merely the knowledge of the observer about the system. They spend some time talking about the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation in light of quantum gravity.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/72

Episode 71: Primordial Graviton Background Feb 19, 2023

Show notes

Jim talks with Sunny Vagnozzi about using the Primoridial Graviton Background to rule out all inflation models.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/71

Episode 70: Path Integrals and Entanglement with Ken Wharton Dec 18, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Ken Wharton about how to describe entangled states as sums over histories of particle paths using the path integral method. He shows how this works for Bell-type experiments, entanglements swapping, delayed choice experiments, and the triangle network. This leads to a second way to describe what happens quantum mechanically without introducing non-locality (but requiring other classical ideas to break down).
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/70

Episode 69: The Flavor Puzzle with Joe Davighi Nov 20, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Joe Davighi of the University of Zurich about the flavor unification at high energies - the merging of all leptons into one kind of particle. The discussion includes symmetries in particle physics, symmetry breaking at low temperatures, and unification schemes in general. Joe also discusses both leptoquarks and proton stability in the context of his theory.

Episode 68: Quantum Resource Theories with Gilad Gour Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Gilad Gour of the University of Toronto about quantum resource theories. These are theories of largish systems that describe the relationships between possible states by the different levels of resources required for each. By using resources, a system can move from one state to another. This results in a partial order where between two states there could be two different states inaccessible to one another. Although (usually) these coalesce into an order based on a single property of thermodynamically-sized systems, the entropy, a few do not.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/68

Episode 67: Optical Gravity with Matthew R. Edwards Aug 14, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Matthew R. Edwards about his theory of Optical Gravity. This is a Le Sage model of gravity based on graviton filiments.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/67

Episode 66: The Limit of General Relativity with James Owen Weatherall Jun 26, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with James Owen Weatherall about his work on viewing general relativity as an effective field theory and where it should give way to another theory. General relativity does a very good job of describing the world we see in astronomical observations, but certain results, e.g. singularities, and certain limits, e.g. the Planck scale, hint that there should be another theory that supersedes it. Jim Weatherall argues that this is in a high curvature regime.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/66

Episode 65: Causality, Time and the Experiment Paradox with Michal Eckstein May 22, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Michal Eckstein of the Copernicus Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies about how two different kinds of ordering, chronological and causal, give rise to a robust idea of time. Additionally, we discuss the Experiment Paradox, a generalization of other measurement-type paradoxes in physics.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/65

Episode 64: Born's Rule with Blake Stacey Apr 24, 2022

Show notes

Jim talks with Blake Stacey about recent attempts to replace Born's rule. Born's rule is the principle used in quantum mechanics that associates quantum states to the probability of measurement. There has been a recent interest in Quantum Foundations to try to find a less arbitrary rationale for this procedure.
Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/64

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