Doctoral Dissertation Research: Quantum Physics and the Future

在Susan Harding博士的监督下，学生克里斯托弗·科克伦将采用人种学方法来研究物理实践的规范性方面，这些规范性方面塑造了学科的主体性和权威性。他还将记录其他科学家与量子物理学家合作或使用量子物理学家工作的方式，例如与理论物理学家合作将量子场论的数学技术应用于神经网络的精神病学家，以及希望身心问题的悖论可以用量子物理学的概念来解决的分析哲学家。 共同主要研究者将调查对未来的担忧如何与试图发明阐述科学问题的新方式和获得答案的新方法有关，并可能导致创建新的社会/科学形态。这项研究有望通过鼓励理解量子论和投机之间的区别来促进量子物理学的科学素养。在完成论文后，合作PI计划将他的结果作为一本书出版，面向广大公众。

Under the supervision of Susan Harding, Ph.D. student Christopher Cochran will adopt an ethnographic approach to study of the normative aspects of physics practice that shape subjectivity and the authority of the discipline. He will also document the ways that other scientists are collaborating with or using the work of quantum physicists, e.g. psychiatrists who collaborate with theoretical physicists to apply mathematical techniques of quantum field theory to neuronal networks, and analytic philosophers who hope that paradoxes of the mind-body problem can be fixed with concepts from quantum physics. The co-PI will investigate how concerns about the future are implicated in attempts to invent new ways of articulating scientific questions and new methods to obtain answers and may result in the creation of a new social/scientific formation. The research promises to promote scientific literacy about quantum physics by encouraging understanding of the difference between empiricism and speculation. After completing the dissertation the co-PI plans on publishing his results as a book aimed at a wide public audience.