Seminars & Colloquia Calendar
Classical dynamics, arrow of time, and genesis of the Heisenberg commutation relations
Detlev Buchholz - Universität Göttingen
Location: Hill 703
Date & time: Thursday, 06 June 2019 at 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Abstract: Based on the assumption that time evolves only in one direction and mechanical systems can be described by classical Lagrangians on configuration space, a dynamical C*-algebra is presented for nonrelativistic particles at atomic scales. This algebra relies only on classical concepts, without presupposing any quantization scheme. But it is inherently non-commutative and comprises a large set of dynamics. The Heisenberg commutation relations for position and velocity measurements are derived from it and Hilbert space representations of the algebra lead to the conventional formalism of quantum mechanics.
(Joint work with Klaus Fredenhagen.)