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Other Southampton events

A Universe in Crisis

Accessible facilities.
Past event - 2022
09 May Doors open 7pm
Event 7.30pm to 9:30pm
Harbour Lights Cinema, Maritime Walk,
Southampton SO14 3TL
Sold Out!
Observe, formulate a hypothesis and then test it. But, can we actually observe without interfering? Do we have enough information to hypothesize? What’s the validity of existing theories?
Join us for a night full of questions, possibilities, and pints, where we’ll discuss unsolved problems about the universe, from quantum science to cosmology.

Does "Reality" Exist Before it's Measured ?

Abdul Afzal (PhD Student in Quantum Physics at University of Southampton)
Quantum Mechanics is an effective tool employed in some of the best tested scientific theories. However, its very nature is still a hotly debated topic among physicists (normally over a few drinks) due to an outstanding problem at the very heart of quantum mechanics known as “The measurement problem”. Join me as we get philosophical and tipsy while exploring some of the creative solutions on offer for the measurement problem and ponder over the bizarre implications they have for our picture of reality, from the multiverse to the role of consciousness in physics.

Pilot wave Quantum Mechanics, Gravity and the Information paradox

Arvind Shekar (PhD Student in Theoretical Physics at the String theory and Holography group at the University of Southampton.)
You might’ve heard of the Schrodinger’s cat. The cat is in a superposition of being dead/ alive. On observing it collapses to one of them with a probability. Similarly, Quantum mechanics (QM) says that our Universe behaves ‘indeterministically’. What if the cat (particle) is surfing on a certain wave? We’ll then see how accelerating in a car captures gravity all the way to galaxies and beyond! We would love to see how QM and gravity together describe particles. But QM says information must always be preserved while it seems to be permanently erased by gravity due to black holes! Or is it?

A crisis in theoretical physics: Why is the universe expanding?

Filip Landgren (Mr. Filip Landgren is a research PhD student at the STAG Research Centre at the University of Southampton where he explores string theory, black holes, quantum gravity and quantum information. )
There is a crisis in theoretical physics... We can see with telescopes and observations that the universe is expanding due to "dark energy". But no theory can explain why. Since string theory is supposed to be a "theory of everything" it should also be able to explain why the universe is expanding and what this dark energy really is. I will present the latest developments that aim to answer these questions using string theory.
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