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Prof. Baptiste Le Bihan, Dr Enrico Cinti17/11/2025, 09:30
The idea that spacetime is not fundamental comes in several versions, depending on which aspects of space, time, or spacetime are called into question. Philosophically, such views can be framed as elimination, reduction, or derivativism — each offering a different metaphysical picture of how the world is structured. But what are the broader implications for physics, and for philosophy? A...
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Prof. Daniele Oriti17/11/2025, 10:45
I discuss the general (formal and conceptual) steps that should be climbed for showing the emergence of space and time from non-spatiotemporal quantum structures. I illustrate an example of such emergence in the context of the tensorial group field theory formalism for quantum gravity, leading to an effective cosmological dynamics. Finally, I emphasize a number of conceptual/philosophical...
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Prof. Ziqi Yan (Stockholm University, Nordita)18/11/2025, 09:30
I will give an introduction to how quantum gravity emerges from string theory and, furthermore, a relatively simple quantum system of an N x N matrix. In the large N limit, it was conjectured that matrix quantum mechanics describes full M-theory in eleven dimensions. This idea is closely related to the quantization of membranes in M-theory. I will then discuss recent progress on how...
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Prof. Richard Dawid18/11/2025, 10:45
The web of dualities encountered in the context of string theory creates a serious problem for scientific realism: how can a scientific realist about string theory anchor realist commitment, given that the dual theories seem to suggest vastly different ontologies? A response that has gained significant traction in recent years is the common core view: identify what is invariant under duality...
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Prof. Paolo Perinotti19/11/2025, 09:30
In the early 2000s the idea that quantum mechanics could be formulated starting from informational axioms broke the ground, as an outcome of the second quantum revolution. Since then, the formalism of Hilbert spaces, density matrices, quantum instruments and POVMs was successfully recovered in this perspective, marking an important milestone along the path. The next question regards the...
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Prof. Emily Adlam19/11/2025, 10:45
Although there are good reasons to believe that quantum states are sometimes relativized to observers, there are difficulties for the view that quantum states can only be relativized to conscious macroscopic observers, and also for the view that quantum states can be relativized to any physical system. In this talk, I will argue for an alternative `emergence' approach such that we can indeed...
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Dr Barbara Soda20/11/2025, 09:30
In the first part of the talk, I will present a joint work with M. Reitz and A. Kempf. In the second part, I present new results, when we add interactions between the matter fields, and the physical process where an effective change in the signature occurs. We use a result of Hawking and Gilkey to define a Euclidean path integral of gravity and matter which has the special property of being...
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Prof. Charles Cao20/11/2025, 10:45
Rather than seeking to quantize gravity, we explore how classical structures such as spacetime geometry and Einstein gravity can emerge from complex quantum systems. Guided by quantum error-correcting codes and the AdS/CFT correspondence, we show that while entanglement provides the scaffold for emergent geometry, an orthogonal resource—quantum magic—is essential for recovering gravitational...
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Prof. Stefano Liberati21/11/2025, 09:30
Despite partial successes, our attempts to construct a consistent quantum theory of gravity remain incomplete. In recent years, however, the idea that spacetime itself may be an emergent concept has gained growing interest across a broad and diverse community. In this talk, I will outline some of the motivations for pursuing this perspective, and present a selection of toy models, largely...
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Prof. Sebastian De Haro21/11/2025, 10:45
In this talk, I will discuss the programme of viewing theories as geometric objects and its possible implications for quantum gravity. The talk aims to introduce, into philosophical discussions of quantum gravity and spacetime emergence, four elements from recent physics that I will argue are useful: namely, moduli spaces, metrics on spaces of theories, quasi-dualities, and the effective field...
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