From Ancient Egypt to Leibniz... Brand‑new interview out with Robert Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute, one of the sharpest minds working on quantum foundations.
The interview itself is quite expansive and covers many topics that most would think have NOTHING to do with quantum physics, but Spekkens deftly demonstrates their overlooked relevance. For instance, Leibniz’s principle of indiscernibility and what we can learn from Egyptian hieroglyphs illustrate that there was a category mistake that held back decipherment for centuries… and that we may be making a similar mistake regarding quantum theory and its numerous interpretations.
He also goes against the grain regarding the ontological status of the wave function, agreeing with Jacob Barandes that the wave function doesn’t refer to an element of reality per se, although he disagrees with Jacob about what it indeed does refer to.
We also talk about Bell’s theorem and …
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Curt Jaimungal to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
