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SUMMARY:Spacetime Quantum Mechanics: 20 Years On - James Yearsley (Univers
 ity of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20120216T141500Z
DTEND:20120216T151500Z
UID:TALK35480@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Paul Skrzypczyk
DESCRIPTION:In 1992 James Hartle delivered a series of lectures at the Les
  Houches summer school concerned\, in part\, with the problem of\, "How to
  formulate quantum mechanics generally enough so that it can answer questi
 ons in any quantum theory of spacetime." In these lectures Hartle proposed
  using the Consistent Histories approach to quantum theory to construct a 
 theory where the observables concerned\, not the state at a particular mom
 ent of time\, but rather the probabilities for entering given regions of s
 pacetime. Unfortunately this program never obtained its full potential due
  to the difficulties\, conceptual and technical\, associated with construc
 ting concrete examples of these 'spacetime observables'.\n\nIn this talk I
  will describe recent progress towards completing the program of construct
 ing 'spacetime quantum mechanics'. I will describe how recent work has dem
 onstrated that the problems with this approach may be solved\, and I will 
 also show how the solutions shed new light on the quantum Zeno effect and 
 the interpretation of time in quantum theory.
LOCATION:MR4\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences
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