最近KITPC在开宇宙学会议，还有一堆文字要写，真的没有时间认真更新了。

所以，这次随便提一下新闻应付下吧。

最近，法国量子物理学家兼哲学家Bernard d’Espagnat获得09年度Templeton奖，获奖的理由是 for his “studies into the concept of reality”. 这个评语看上去很暧昧，我查了一下英文wiki，信息也很有限，只给了一个简单的简历。另一个介绍Bernard d’Espagnat 的网页也很简单，“歌词大意”是，d’Espagnat研究了量子世界（即我们观测到的世界）和“实在”的关系，发现我们看到的并非实在，而是蒙了一层面纱的实在，物理学本身只看到实在的一面，这给人文分支理解实在提供了很大的空间。什么样的人文分支呢？哲学、宗教，甚至文学。

我对Bernard d’Espagnat 同学没有什么了解，干脆抄一段《New Scientist》介绍文字：

This year it goes to French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d’Espagnat for his “studies into the concept of reality”. D’Espagnat, 87, is a professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, and is known for his work on quantum mechanics. The award will be presented to him by the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace on 5 May.

D’Espagnat boasts an impressive scientific pedigree, having worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. De Broglie was his thesis advisor; he served as a research assistant to Fermi; and he worked at CERN when it was still in Copenhagen under the direction of Bohr. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin, at the invitation of the legendary physicist John Wheeler. But what has he done that’s worth £1 million?

The thrust of d’Espagnat’s work was on experimental tests of Bell’s theorem. The theorem states that either quantum mechanics is a complete description of the world or that if there is some reality beneath quantum mechanics, it must be nonlocal – that is, things can influence one another instantaneously regardless of how much space stretches between them, violating Einstein’s insistence that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

But what d’Espagnat was really interested in was what all of this meant for discerning the true nature of ultimate reality. Unlike most of his contemporaries, d’Espagnat was one of the brave ones unafraid to tackle the thorny and profound philosophical questions posed by quantum physics.

Templeton基金会对调解科学与宗教有兴趣，但d’Espangnat获奖并不能说明他支持任何宗教。《Reuters》采访他之后说：

In an interview on Friday, d’Espagnat told Reuters he was brought up a Roman Catholic but did not practice any religion and considered himself a spiritualist.

Some baffling discoveries of quantum physics led him to believe all creation has a wholeness and interrelatedness that many scientists miss by trying to break problems down into their component parts rather than understand them in larger contexts.

One of these is entanglement, the way that paired subatomic particles remain linked even if they move far apart, so that experimenting with one automatically effects the other without any apparent communication between them.

This view clashes with the materialist outlook widespread among scientists.

“Materialists consider that we are explained entirely by combinations of small uninteresting things like atoms or quarks,” said d’Espagnat, whose latest book in English — “On Physics and Philosophy” — was published in 2006.

“I believe we ultimately come from a superior entity to which awe and respect is due and which we shouldn’t try to approach by trying to conceptualize too much,” he said. “It’s more a question of feeling.”

Although they cannot be tested, the intuitions people have when they are moved by great art or by spiritual beliefs help them grasp a bit more of ultimate reality, d’Espagnat said.

“When they hear very good music, people who like classical music have the impression they get at some reality that way. Why not?” he asked.

好的，这就算剪剪贴贴完成了本次更新，信息比我自己写也少不了多少。

更新完博客，我开始听Tipler的报告了，又一个物理哲学家。