Notes on the margin to the second law of thermodynamics

Speaker:
Francesco Buscemi, Nagoya University, Japan

Abstract:
In the past few years I have had the opportunity to look at the second law of thermodynamics from various angles (feedback control protocols, fluctuation relations, mathematical statistics, information theory, expected utility theory -- all with a variable amount of quantum theory), but the main puzzle I am most interested in is: why is the second law "special" among the laws of physics? In this talk I will recall some ideas about this problem and offer a possible answer.

Biography:
Francesco Buscemi received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Pavia, Italy, in 2006. After postdoctoral positions at the ERATO-SORST Quantum Computation and Information Project (Tokyo, Japan) and the Statistical Laboratory of the University of Cambridge (UK), he joined Nagoya University in 2009, where he is a full professor in the Department of Mathematical Informatics. In 2018, he was awarded the Birkhoff-von Neumann Prize by the International Quantum Structures Association for "solving some long-standing open problems in the foundations of quantum physics, using ideas from mathematical statistics and information theory".

Host: Prof. Stefan Wolf