Topical Seminar: "Emergence vs. Reductionism"

miércoles 10 jun. 2026 12:00 → 14:00 Europe/Madrid

4-4-4426 - Seminari Física Teòrica (Campus Burjassot)

Emergence in physics appears when going from bottom up in the description of a phenomenon and is related to the image of collective behavior. On the other side, Reductionism (in the stronger sense) implies the idea that every physical phenomenon can be explained starting from the fundamental laws that govern its minimum components. Starting from the beginning of the dispute in 1972, when P.W. Anderson published in Science the paper “More is different”, the structural and formal emergence are introduced. Examples as superconductivity and critical phenomena are described. We end by presenting plausible arguments showing that gauge symmetries may be emergent. The main point of the seminar is to advocate in favor of reductionism and emergence being complementary and complimentary and to avoid the “vs”.