Jim talks with James Owen Weatherall about his work on viewing general relativity as an effective field theory and where it should give way to another theory.  General relativity does a very good job of describing the world we see in astronomical observations, but certain results, e.g. singularities, and certain limits, e.g. the Planck scale, hint that there should be another theory that supersedes it.  Jim Weatherall argues that this is in a high curvature regime.Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/66 

Episode 66: The Limit of General Relativity with James Owen Weatherall

Jim Rantschler and Randy Morrison discuss physics from elementary particles to cosmological effects at the limits of our theoretical knowledge or have recently emerged. 

Science

Physics

Jim talks with Alex Jurgens about Maxwellian ratchets, automata that are similar to Maxwell's Demon.  They talk about their implications for information processing and entropy.http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/77

Episode 77: Maxwellian Ratchets with Alex Jurgens

Jim talks with Claus Kiefer about the implications of Goedel's incompleteness theorems on the search for the theory.Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/76

Episode 76: Undeciability and Theories of Everything with Claus Kiefer

Jim talks with Nick Ormrod and V. Vilasini about their use of categorical probability theory to analyze the measurement problem.  We discuss categorical probability theory, which allows them to abstract from particular mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics to more general ideas about states and measurements and observers than found in Hilbert space formulations.  They use this to look at the various properties of quantum mechanics and how they relate to each other, in particular how relativity affects the measurement problem.Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/75

Episode 75: Categorical Probability and the Measurement Problem

Jim talks with David Wolpert about the non-equilibrium behavior of computation, what it means for entropy, and how it relates to traditional thermodynamics.Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/74

Episode 74: Stochastic Thermodynamics with David Wolpert

Jim discusses quantum money with Jiahui Liu.  Quantum money is a linchpin of quantum cryptography.  The ability to create secure banknotes using quantum computers would allow even more secure methods of encryption for communications. 

Episode 66: The Limit of General Relativity with James Owen Weatherall

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