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Philip W. Anderson, Nobel Laureate '77
Dept. of Physics, Princeton
Strict reductionism, even Laplacian determinism, seems to be
alive and well in the minds of many of the leaders of physics. I will
discuss how the phenomenon of emergence causes the real world to
structure itself in ways which are in principle unforeseeable from the
fundamental laws on which physicists expend so much money and effort.
The real world is the product of complexity and chaos, not of mathematical
elegance; yet science nonetheless remains a unified, multiply
interconnected whole.
For more information about Philip W. Anderson, visit his
website.
Additional resources for this talk: video,
slides.
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