Mathematical Physics Seminar
Jürg Fröhlich - "Ultimate Statistical Physics:" Quantum Mechanics as a Complete Theory
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 10:45am - 11:45pm
Jürg Fröhlich - ETH Zurich
Wednesday, March 15, 10:45AM (Zoom meeting starts at 10:30 EDT)
"Ultimate Statistical Physics:" Quantum Mechanics as a Complete Theory
I present a proposal of how to complete Quantum Mechanics (QM) to a theory that actually makes sense. My proposal is called ETH - Approach to QM; "E " standing for Events, "T " for Trees, and "H " for Histories. This approach supplies the last one of three pillars QM can be constructed upon, which are: (i) physical quantities characteristic of a system are represented by selfadjoint operators. Their time evolution is given by the Heisenberg equations; (ii) introduction of meaningful notions of states and of potential and actual events; (iii) a general Law for the non-linear stochastic time evolution of states of individual systems. After explaining general ideas underlying the ETH-Approach I discuss an application to the quantum theory of fluorescence of an atom coupled to the radiation field. The goal of my presentation is to help removing some of the enormous confusion befuddling many people who claim to work on the foundations of QM.
