Doctoral Dissertation Research: Quantum Physics and the Future

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Susan Harding, Ph.D. student Christopher Cochran will adopt an ethnographic approach to study of the normative aspects of physics practice that shape subjectivity and the authority of the discipline. He will also document the ways that other scientists are collaborating with or using the work of quantum physicists, e.g. psychiatrists who collaborate with theoretical physicists to apply mathematical techniques of quantum field theory to neuronal networks, and analytic philosophers who hope that paradoxes of the mind-body problem can be fixed with concepts from quantum physics. The co-PI will investigate how concerns about the future are implicated in attempts to invent new ways of articulating scientific questions and new methods to obtain answers and may result in the creation of a new social/scientific formation. The research promises to promote scientific literacy about quantum physics by encouraging understanding of the difference between empiricism and speculation. After completing the dissertation the co-PI plans on publishing his results as a book aimed at a wide public audience.