Events in Physics
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
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Physics Colloquium - Professor Sir Roger Penrose (University of Oxford)L3Professor Sir Roger Penrose (University of Oxford) - “Wave-function Collapse: Resolving a Tension between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics” 'The foundation stone of general relativity is the Galilei-Einstein principle of equivalence, according to which a uniform gravitational field is physically equivalent to an acceleration. However, when applied to quantum states, we find that the two descriptions involve different vacua. This becomes problematic when different gravitational fields are in quantum superposition, and a tension arises that appears to demand a limited lifetime for such superpositions. Implications of this conclusion will be discussed and suggestions as to how to proceed will be given.' |