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HomeHomePeter Evans: "What Can Bouncing Oil Droplets Tell Us About Quantum Mechanics?"
Peter Evans: "What can bouncing oil droplets tell us about quantum mechanics?"

A recent series of experiments from a team in Paris have demonstrated that an oil droplet bouncing on a vibrating fluid surface displays behaviour that is typically considered to be quantum behaviour. The suggestion has been made that this fluid mechanical system provides a single particle classical model of the pilot wave mechanism of the de Broglie-Bohm theory of quantum mechanics: the wave on the fluid surface acts as a pilot wave that guides the behaviour of the oil droplet in analogy to the way in which the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave guides the behaviour of the quantum particle configuration. In this talk I assess the possibility, using recent work on analogue simulation, that these experiments are telling us something substantial about quantum mechanics.

Date & time

  • Thu 14 Sep 2017, 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room A

Event Series

Philosophy Departmental Seminars