Hello! I’m a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham, and I am thinking about the role that entropy plays from black holes to the direction of time. I am a research associate on Al Wilson’s ERC-funded project FraMEPhys, and I am also an External Member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy.
Much of my research has focussed on the philosophical tangles surrounding thermal physics: the reductive relationship between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, the nature of time-asymmetry and in what sense thermodynamics is objective.
I did my PhD at the University of Cambridge and my thesis, in part, considered how functionalism can help facilitate reductions. I am now thinking about the relationships between two types of reduction (roughly, ‘old theory to new theory’ reduction and ‘macro to micro’ reduction). Should we understand Newtonian mechanics as an old theory or a higher-level theory? If we think of it as higher-level theory, what does that mean for the status of e.g. Galilean spacetime?
I have also spent lots of time thinking about how a particular screening-off condition (‘conditional irrelevance’) can explain the autonomy of the special science, and form the backbone of an account of (weak) emergence. I am also interested in the philosophy of social sciences, social ontology and the philosophy of medicine.
Upcoming talks
April
- ‘The limits of the thermodynamic limit’ in Milan: https://ilmpsnetwork.wordpress.com/ilmps-conference-2022/
- ‘Functionalism fit for physics’ in Bristol.
May
- ‘Crises of identity in black hole thermodynamics’ in Harvard at the BHI, and at the Glasgow Philosophy Department seminar.
- ‘Is thermodynamics anthropocentric?’ at the New Directions conference in Viterbo.
June
- A talk on ‘The demons of thermodynamics’ and panel on ‘The nature of reality’ at How the Light Gets In festival, https://howthelightgetsin.org/
- Physics Today Webinar on ‘The demons haunting thermodynamics’
Katie Robertson 