Berlin 2014 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 5: Quantum-Classical Divide III

AGPhil 5.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 20, 2014, 16:15–17:00, SPA SR22

Entropy, entanglement and utility — •Jos Uffink — Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

This talk explores a formal analogy between the study of entanglement in quantum theory, entropy in classical thermodynamics, and utility in decision theory. Roughly speaking, I will argue that in all three cases, the mathematical problem arises of finding and characterizing those functions that respect a given pre-ordering relation, subject to certain auxilliary conditions. Moreover, theorems have been obtained in these three separate areas that might be applied to them in common. It is my main purpose to draw attention to these analogies, and argue how they might be useful in thermodynamics and quantum theory.