Physicist, father, fallibilist, optimist · Postdoc @etsmtl · Fellow @ConjectureInst.
Montréal, Canada.
Joined October 2020
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Taking Children Seriously rightly holds that raising children without coercion is possible and desirable. I argue that fixating on “You shall not coerce” can be corrosive. Better to seek fun as a family, solve problems together, and care—with noncoercion as a by-product.
Beyond Avoiding Coercion
~Conjecture Institute Fellow @CABedardPhysics
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
00:48 What is Taking Children Seriously?
01:54 Between neglect and control
03:01 Helping a child explore safely
04:14 When avoiding coercion becomes self-condemnation
08:07 Good parenting goes beyond avoiding coercion
09:09 Have fun and solve problems as a family
11:32 Children choosing to contribute
12:26 Q&A: responsibility and helping others
14:57 Q&A: where is the boundary of coercion?
18:31 Q&A: resources and solving family problems
Charles Alexandre Bédard retweeted
Popper's epistemology is a narrow sunlit upland between two dark abysses: on one side, denials that objective knowledge exists; on the other, claims to possess certainty, and hence authority.
These opposite errors meet at the bottom, in 'critical theory'.
Local Quantum Mechanics, brought together by Alyssa Ney, is now out from OUP. I contributed a chapter on the inequivalence of the Schrödinger and Heisenberg pictures—and I’m very glad to see it appear alongside the work of so many interesting thinkers.
academic.oup.com/book/63283
At the opening ceremony of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, after beautifully defending freedom of inquiry, Heidelberg University rector Frauke Melchior said that science needs spaces where the unexpected is possible.
I’m sure the Forum is such a space.
And so is the internet.
From Quanta to Qualia will bring together experts in quantum physics, computer science, and the philosophy of mind. In-person event. @etsmtl @FQXi.
📅 Tuesday, August 11, from 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
📍 ÉTS Montréal, Room E-2033
🔗 Registration and details: etsmtl.ca/en/events/quanta-t…
Des quanta aux qualia réunira des spécialistes de la physique quantique, de l’informatique, de la philosophie de l’esprit. @etsmtl @FQXi.
📅 Mardi 11 août, de 12 h 30 à 20 h
📍 ÉTS Montréal, local E-2033
🔗 Inscription et détails : etsmtl.ca/evenement/quanta-q…
Charles Alexandre Bédard retweeted
Excerpt from Bold Conjectures, Volume II: Essays Across Physics (forthcoming)
It is common to say that Everett’s conjecture was “many worlds” that he replaced the collapse rule with a rule that multiplies the universes.
But the central act was not to postulate additional worlds.
It was to take the Schrödinger equation to be universal—to treat unitary evolution as applying without exception, including to apparatus and observers.
Everett’s proposal, therefore, belongs to the same family as Newton’s universality: the insistence that the dynamical law does not come with an escape hatch.
The multiplicity of worlds is not an added ingredient.
It is what unitary evolution entails once one stops quarantining observers outside the dynamics.
~Conjecture Institute Fellow @CABedardPhysics
Charles Alexandre Bédard retweeted
Join us tomorrow, 6/17, for our online conference: Advances in Physics!
Registration link below👇
What does it mean to take our best theories in physics seriously?
What do they tell us about what the world is really like?
This conference gathers researchers pursuing these questions in quantum gravity, foundations of quantum mechanics, and constructor theory.
Hear from physicists such as @Sam_kuyp, Simon Saunders, @maria__violaris, Vlatko Vedral, @CABedardPhysics, Chiara Marletto, Kicheon Kang, Alexander R.H. Smith, Aditya Iyer, and others.
On June 17, I’ll discuss Bell’s theorem and how the Heisenberg picture of unitary quantum theory provides a fully local account of Bell inequality violations.
Register here : conjectureinstitute.org/even…
Our Next Conference: Advances in Physics
When: June 17th
Where: Zoom (registration link below)
Summary of Conjecture Institute Fellow @CABedardPhysics' talk
Explaining Bell Locally
In the century-long history of quantum theory, Bell’s theorem stands out among the most thought-provoking results of its foundations.
It reveals a conflict between quantum theory’s predictions and those allowed by so-called local hidden variable theories.
Experimental vindications of the quantum predictions were of the Nobel Prize merit and contributed to the prevalent conclusion that nature is non-local.
In stark contrast with this orthodoxy, I show that the Heisenberg picture of unitary quantum theory, as developed by Deutsch & Hayden, depicts an entirely local account.
The talk is based on doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2025.05….
Charles Alexandre Bédard retweeted
Some essays in our upcoming book 📚⚛️
Bold Conjectures, Volume II: Essays Across Physics
Why We Can’t Understand Probability without Many-Worlds Quantum Theory (David Wallace)
Gravity Without Absolutes (Julian Barbour)
Quantum Physics and General Relativity as Superinformation (Chiara Marletto & Vlatko Vedral)
The Fate of Spacetime: What Many Worlds Means for Gravity (@Sam_kuyp)
Another Triumph of Locality: Colliding Histories Skew Handshakes (@CABedardPhysics)
Controversial Coffee: Is Entropy Subjective? (@maria__violaris)
Can Quantum Mechanics under the Copenhagen Interpretation Be Experimentally Tested?(@maria__violaris)
Towards the First Tests of the Nature of Gravity (Antonia Weber)
Photons: A Quantum Witness to Non-Classicality in Biology (@GiusDiPietra)
Bell's theorem is widely interpreted as the death knell for local reality. Here, arxiv.org/abs/2604.05455, I present the theorem in accessible terms, examine the three main strategies that seek to preserve hidden variables, and argue that they share a common defect:
the attempt to explain the quantum from the classical rather than the other way around. In unitary quantum mechanics, classicality itself is given a quantum account, and, when the Bell scenario is formulated in the Heisenberg picture, a strictly local explanation emerges.
This chapter serves as a non-technical front-end to 'Explaining Bell Locally' (Proc. R. Soc. A).
Forthcoming in Bold Conjectures Vol. II.
Thrilled to be a part of this. Thanks to @ConjectureInst, particularly @ChipkinLogan, for putting this compendium together.
Charles Alexandre Bédard retweeted
"To feed innovation, you need a pipeline. The pipeline starts with fundamental research."
- Gilles Brassard (Turing award winner) when asked about the supposed "uselessness" of fundamental research
@CABedardPhysics @JacobBiamonte @LucienHardyQT @etsmtl
Heartfelt congratulations to Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett on this well-deserved recognition.
Working with Gilles changed my life. He showed me that learning begins in curiosity: in reconnecting with that childlike drive to follow what genuinely fascinates us.
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have been named the winners of the A.M. Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computing, for their work establishing the foundations of quantum information theory. The award comes with a $1 million prize. quantamagazine.org/quantum-c…
