Jointly organised by Asia Research Institute, & Humanities and Social Sciences Research, Office of the Deputy President (Research & Technology), National University of Singapore.
WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
Prof Prasenjit Duara, Director, Asia Research Institute, & Director of Research, Humanities and Social Sciences, Office of the Deputy President (Research & Technology), National University of Singapore.
CHAIRPERSON
Dr Arun Bala, (Author of The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science) Senior Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
ABSTRACT
Quantum mechanics has been enormously successful in describing nature at the atomic level, and most physicists believe that it is in principle the “whole truth” about the world even at the everyday level. However, such a view prima facie leads to a severe problem: in certain circumstances, the most natural interpretation of the theory implies that no definite outcome of an experiment occurs until the act of “observation”. For many decades this problem was regarded as “merely philosophical”, in the sense that it was thought that it had no consequences which could be tested in experiment. However, in the last dozen or so years the situation has changed very dramatically in this respect. Professor Leggett will discuss the problem, some popular “resolutions” of it, the current experimental situation and prospects for the future.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sir Anthony J. Leggett is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on superfluidity and low temperature physics, and was knighted (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 “for services to physics.”
