CONVERSATION, LECTURE / 18:00 17 AUG 2012 / Ständehaus
The Keynote Lectures
English with German translation
INFORMATION IN THE QUANTUM WORLD
In this lecture, Anton Zeilinger explains how information plays a threefold role in quantum physics. Firstly, in a double-slit experiment, for example, interference arises if and only if no information exists about the path taken, independent of whether or not an observer takes notice. Secondly, encoding information in quantum states, for instance in qubits (quantum bits), allows novel concepts of computation and communication including quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation. Thirdly, information emerges as fundamental in the conceptual and mathematical foundations of quantum physics.
A DIFFERENT MODEL OF OBJECTS
As Graham Harman explains in his lecture, the world is filled with objects, and they come in two varieties: the objects immanent in the mind that phenomenology calls “intentional” objects, and the “real” objects that transcend the mind and affect one another even if sentient organisms are nowhere on the scene. Any object is something more than what we can see or say about it. Real objects withdraw from human access, and only become accessible indirectly or by means of allusion. But more than this, direct causal access between inanimate things is impossible as well, so that causation can only be indirect or vicarious.
The lecture is followed by a conversation, moderated by Joasia Krysa.
This Keynote Lecture is supported by the Universität Kassel.
