The Bristol Philosophy Department has been awarded a major international and interdisciplinary research project on the formal and conceptual foundations of Open Quantum Systems.
Karim Thébault 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 on 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.
The three-year project will produce groundbreaking new results answering mathematical, philosophical and experimental questions and is planned to have impacts that range from ground-breaking quantum technology to teaching resources for A-level physics students and teachers, developed with Bristol’s Thinking Science programme.