Charles T. (Chip) Sebens
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
| Mail Code: | MC 101-40 |
| Office: | 301 E Dabney |
| Phone: | 626-395-1218 |
| Email: | csebens@caltech.edu |
Research Interests
Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Physics and Classical Field TheoriesRESEARCH AREAS
Origins and Foundations of Science; Scientific Philosophy
COURSES
HPS/Pl 123. Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics. 9 units (3-0-6): first term. This course will examine the philosophical foundations of the physical theories covered in the freshman physics sequence: classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and special relativity. Topics may include: the goals of physics; what laws of nature are; the unification of physical theories; symmetries; determinism; locality; the reality of fields; the arrow of time.
Selected Publications
2018 Forces on Fields, Charles T. Sebens, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 63, pp. 1-11
2018
Self-Locating Uncertainty and the Origin of Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics, Charles T. Sebens and Sean M. Carroll, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69(1), pp. 25-74
2016
Constructing and Constraining Wave Functions for Identical Quantum Particles, Charles T. Sebens, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 56, pp. 48-59
2015
Killer Collapse: Empirically Probing the Philosophically Unsatisfactory Region of GRW, Charles T. Sebens, Synthese 192(8), pp. 2599-2615
2015
Quantum Mechanics as Classical Physics, Charles T. Sebens, Philosophy of Science 82, pp. 266-291
2014 Many Worlds, the Born Rule, and Self-locating Uncertainty, Sean M. Carroll and Charles T. Sebens, in Struppa, D. and Tollaksen, J. (eds), Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story, Yakir Aharonov Festschrift, pp. 157-169