Virtual entities in science: a virtual workshop

Europe/Zurich
Online

Online

RWTH Aachen, Templergraben 57, 52062 Aachen, Germany TU Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Robert Valentin Harlander (Rheinisch-Westfaelische Tech. Hoch. (DE)), Jean-Philippe Martinez (RWTH Aachen University), Friedrich Steinle (HU Berlin), Adrian Wüthrich (HU Berlin)
Description

Workshop dates:

  • Friday, March 5, 2021
  • Friday, March 12, 2021
  • Friday, March 19, 2021
  • Friday, March 26, 2021

Organized by the project "Virtual Particles" (A1) of the DFG Research Unit "The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider"

 

The concept of the “virtual” has a long tradition in physics, with "virtual displacements" or "virtual images" dating back to long before the dawn of the digital age. In today’s physics, the term "virtual" is mostly associated with the quantum world, first and foremost with the “virtual particle” of quantum field theory.

In other disciplines, however, use of the term "virtual" without a digital connotation is much rarer. The basic idea behind the terminology of the virtual, however, could be much more common, even outside of physics. 

For this workshop we invite contributions that address the historical formation and philosophical interpretation of concepts of virtual entities in physics and other disciplines – in whatever terms they may come. The main goal of the workshop is to bring to the fore similarities and differences in the meanings and functions of these concepts. Work that integrates philosophical and historical approaches is particularly welcome.

The workshop will be held online on four consecutive Fridays: March 5, 12, 19, and 26, 2021.

    • 14:00 14:30
      Poster Session
    • 14:30 15:10
      Contributed Talks
      • 14:30
        How possible is the virtual? Lessons from the mechanical tradition 40m
        Speaker: Michael Stoeltzner
    • 15:10 15:25
      Break 15m
    • 15:25 16:45
      Contributed Talks
      • 15:25
        Substitute Radiators, Virtual Oscillators, and Actual Transitions: Radiation Processes in the Old Quantum Theory and Quantum Mechanics (1913–1927) 40m
        Speakers: Alexander Blum, Martin Jähnert
      • 16:05
        “The new conception of the postulates:” Virtual entities and the Bohr-Kramers-Slater reformulation of the (old) quantum theory 40m
        Speaker: Daniel Jon Mitchell
    • 16:45 17:00
      Break 15m
    • 17:00 18:00
      Keynote: JoAnne Hewett
      • 17:00
        Layers of Virtuality in Particle Physics 1h
        Speaker: JoAnne Hewett (SLAC)
    • 14:00 15:00
      Keynote: Tarja Knuuttila
      • 14:00
        Synthetic biology in between the actual, virtual — and fictional 1h
        Speaker: Tarja Knuuttila
    • 15:00 15:15
      Break 15m
    • 15:15 16:35
      Contributed Talks
      • 15:15
        Material and virtual agents of heredity, 1870 to 1930 40m
        Speaker: Mike Buttolph
      • 15:55
        False Mathematical Entities and Aesthetic Economic Explanations as Virtual Matters 40m
        Speakers: Gonzalo Carrión, Sandra Visokolskis
    • 16:35 16:50
      Break 15m
    • 16:50 18:10
      Contributed Talks
      • 16:50
        The Ghost in the Machine: Emergent Metaphors of ‘Virtual’ and ‘Artificial’ in Computer Science in the 1950s 40m
        Speaker: Joseph Wilson
      • 17:30
        What’s a virtual entity? 40m
        Speaker: Alexandre Declos