Professor Karim Thébault, Professor of Philosophy of Physics, will co-lead the project Open Quantum Systems and Causal Structure of Reality supported by a £3m John Templeton Foundation award, working with Co-Investigator Professor James Ladyman and an international team of philosophers, mathematicians and physicists in Bristol, Milan, Munich, Groningen, Lancaster, Vienna, Madrid and Chapman (California).
The project challenges two long-standing assumptions in physics by combining the framework of “open” quantum systems with the idea of non-fixed causal structure. The research team will shed new light onto fundamental questions such as why time seems to flow in one direction and how the universe may have behaved soon after the Big Bang, whilst developing new mathematical models, philosophical frameworks, and applications of quantum technology.
Professor Karim Thébault said: “I'm delighted that the John Templeton Foundation have decided to support our project. Our aim is to show the potential for multidisciplinary collaborations to reshape our understanding of the physical world by integrating foundational, formal and experimental methods."
Alongside this, Professor James Ladyman, Professor of Philosophy, has been awarded £1.1m by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to lead Prediction, Explanation and Understanding in Chemistry in the Age of AI, working with Co-Lead Dr Emanuele Ratti, colleagues in the School of Chemistry, at Durham University, and project partners the Francis Crick Institute and the Alan Turing Institute.
With AI already being used to discover new substances and uncover the reaction pathways behind chemical processes, this project will examine whether artificial intelligence changes what it means to genuinely predict, explain and understand new discoveries in chemistry.
Combining philosophical analysis with first-hand interviews and lab observations of chemists and AI researchers at work, the research aims to produce a framework that can be used to examine AI’s impact on other sciences, such as physics and biochemistry.
Professor James Ladyman said: “I am delighted that the AHRC is supporting our pioneering work in the philosophy of AI and the long-standing collaboration between philosophers of science and scientists at the University of Bristol.”
Bristol is ideally suited to lead the project as AI University of the Year 2024, home to world-leading AI research and teaching, and host of Isambard-AI, the world's fastest university supercomputer.