Autumnal Talks and Travels

October is yielding just as much excitement as this past summer of wanderlust, but here at home in Munich!  The term has now commenced, bringing new faces to the MCMP. Having already met some of them, maybe I’ll see more at my talk at the Center’s philosophy of science colloquium series on October 15th, or even on October 14th at the biweekly philosophy of physics reading group on classical mechanics that I’m convening this term.  (The first reading is Mark Wilson‘s entry on “Classical Mechanics” in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

The travel starts again in early November, first to the big tent event—not the Oktoberfest, of course, but the Philosophy of Science Association’s Biennial Meeting! There I’ll be chairing the symposium on the foundations of gravity and thermodynamics, which features many friends and colleagues, including Erik Curiel, Craig Callender, Karim Thébault, Eric Winsburg, Radin Dardashti, Bob Wald, and David Wallace.  It will be my first (albeit brief) return to the US since moving to Munich in late June.

Then, from 17–18 November I’ll be in Bucharest to give a talk at the Philosophy Faculty and participate in a half-day philosophy of physics workshop with Slobodan Perovic, all organized by Iulian Toader.  This (American) Thanksgiving will see me on a flight to Paris to attend a workshop on quantum mechanical entanglement.  I hope to catch up on what’s hot in the subject apropos of a little, germinal project I have on re-evaluating quantum holism.

December will see more travels to interesting new places, first to give a colloquium talk at the University of Salzburg on December 2nd, and then on 8–9 December to Krakow as an honorary participant of the Budapest-Krakow Research Group on Probability, Causality and Determinism.  Finally, I’m organizing an Irvine-Munich workshop (with Karim Thébault) on foundations of field theories that will take place on December 14th.  More on that to come as the details are finalized!