The Ockham Lecture - The Merton College Physics Lecture
Oxford University
5 episodes
7 months ago
A lecture given by Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College. With over 85 billion neurons making approximately 1.5x1014 connections (synapses) and a similar quantity of non-neuronal cells all within the adult human brain, it's a feat of brilliance and beauty that our perceptions and creative thinking arise from their interplay. Our knowledge of how this occurs has grown significantly in the past few decades, and physicists have been at the forefront of this wave in understanding. In this talk, Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College walks you through some of the landmark discoveries and their application to the brain, highlighting Oxford’s major role in developing the modern field of neuroscience. Finally, she gives a brief overview of her own work using advanced neuroimaging to understand pain perception, pain relief and anaesthesia-induced altered states of consciousness.
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A lecture given by Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College. With over 85 billion neurons making approximately 1.5x1014 connections (synapses) and a similar quantity of non-neuronal cells all within the adult human brain, it's a feat of brilliance and beauty that our perceptions and creative thinking arise from their interplay. Our knowledge of how this occurs has grown significantly in the past few decades, and physicists have been at the forefront of this wave in understanding. In this talk, Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College walks you through some of the landmark discoveries and their application to the brain, highlighting Oxford’s major role in developing the modern field of neuroscience. Finally, she gives a brief overview of her own work using advanced neuroimaging to understand pain perception, pain relief and anaesthesia-induced altered states of consciousness.
The 1st Ockham Debate: The Problem of Quantum Measurement
The Ockham Lecture - The Merton College Physics Lecture
1 hour 8 minutes
12 years ago
The 1st Ockham Debate: The Problem of Quantum Measurement
According to the 'standard' quantum theory, states evolve with certainty between measurements, but 'collapse' randomly when we measure them. But what is measurement? And why does it (appear to) enjoy a privileged position in the theory? The measurement problem has been one of the hottest topics in physics ever since quantum theory was proposed and, despite much progress, remains so today. The 1st Ockham Debate (The 12th meeting in the Ockham Lecture series) for the first time offered the different perspectives of not one but two expert speakers: Simon Saunders, Professor of the Philosophy of Physics and Fellow of Linacre College, a leading proponent of the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics, which argues that the Universe we see it is emergent, and constantly subject to 'splitting' including during measurements; and James Binney, Professor of Physics and Fellow of Merton College, who advocates an alternative programme, suggesting that we should gain insight into measurement by better understanding the dynamics of the system's interactions with the measuring apparatus. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
The Ockham Lecture - The Merton College Physics Lecture
A lecture given by Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College. With over 85 billion neurons making approximately 1.5x1014 connections (synapses) and a similar quantity of non-neuronal cells all within the adult human brain, it's a feat of brilliance and beauty that our perceptions and creative thinking arise from their interplay. Our knowledge of how this occurs has grown significantly in the past few decades, and physicists have been at the forefront of this wave in understanding. In this talk, Professor Irene Tracey, Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Warden-elect of Merton College walks you through some of the landmark discoveries and their application to the brain, highlighting Oxford’s major role in developing the modern field of neuroscience. Finally, she gives a brief overview of her own work using advanced neuroimaging to understand pain perception, pain relief and anaesthesia-induced altered states of consciousness.
