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Direction of Time and Foundations of Statistical Physics

Wed 16:00-17:30 Room i/224

Lecturers: Márton Gömöri and László E Szabó

Language: English

Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89872357445?pwd=UVE5b1BEV0Y0K2hKVkNoZVNxODhrZz09

Codes:

BMI-LOTD-611E.01
BMA-LOTD-611.01

The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to the conceptual foundations of statistical physics and survey its main philosophical problems.

The course will touch on the following topics:
  • The problem of irreversibility and the direction of time
  • Bolztmann’s approach and the H-theorem
  • Gibbs’s approach
  • Probability and typicality
  • Indeterminism, randomness, chaos
  • Reduction and emergence

Grading criteria, specific requirements:

Oral exam from the material of the lectures.
Prerequisites: knowledge of basic mathematics is beneficial.

Readings:

The video records and the slides and other pdf materials of the lectures will be available for preparation to the exam.

Suggested reading:

Huw Price:  Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point : New Directions for the Physics of Time, Oxford Univ. Press, 1996.

Lawrence Sklar: Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics, Cambridge: CUP 1993.

Hemmo, M. and Shenker, O.R.:  The Road to Maxwell's Demon: Conceptual Foundations of Statistical Mechanics, Cambridge: CUP 2012.

2021-05-08

  

Records and slides




  TTK-s és IK-s BSc hallgatók!

Filozófia minor


TTK-s és IK-s BSc hallgatók!
 
Logika és tudományfilozófia MA szak




Master's in Logic and Philosophy of Science

(in English)






 
2008