I came across a videotaped lecture by Itamar Pitowsky given at PITP some years ago on the question of probability in physics that we discussed in two earlier posts on randomness in nature (I, II). There are links below to the presentation slides, and to a video of the lecture.
A little over a week ago on Thursday, Itamar, Oron Shagrir, and I sat at our little CS cafeteria and discussed this very same issue. What does probability mean? Does it just represent human uncertainty? Is it just an emerging mathematical concept which is convenient for modeling? Do matters change when we move from classical to quantum mechanics? When we move to quantum physics the notion of probability itself changes for sure, but is there a change in the interpretation of what probability is? A few people passed by and listened, and it felt like this was a direct continuation of conversations we had while we (Itamar and I; Oron is much younger) were students in the early 70s. This was our last meeting and Itamar’s deep voice and good smile are still with me.
In spite of his illness of many years Itamar looked in good shape. A day later, on Friday, he met with a graduate student working on connections between philosophy and computer science. Yet another exciting new frontier. Last Wednesday Itamar passed away from sudden complications related to his illness.
Itamar was a great guy; he was great in science and great in the humanities, and he had an immense human wisdom and a modest, level-headed way of expressing it. I will greatly miss him.
Here is a link to a Condolence page for Itamar Pitowsky
Probability in physics: where does it come from? |
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(Here is the original link to the PIPS lecture) My post entitled Amazing possibilities about various fundamental limitations stated by many great minds that turned out to be wrong, was largely based on examples provided by Itamar.
I am having trouble viewing the slides. I tried both my pdf reader and google docs … any other sources?
GK: I dont know; some people had difficulties also with the video; The best advice I can think of is to try from another computer.
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