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Hi Everyone, We're still waiting to hear from everyone on the run-off vote for our new weekly meeting time, so I can't announce a date/time yet. However, we do have an interesting paper to be discussed at the meeting. The paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.0151, calls into question the usually unspoken assumption that natural processes can always be understood in terms of the interations of their sub-components: > More Really is Different > Authors: Mile Gu, Christian Weedbrook, Alvaro Perales, Michael A. Nielsen > (Submitted on 31 Aug 2008) > > Abstract: In 1972, P.W.Anderson suggested that `More is Different', > meaning that complex physical systems may exhibit behavior that cannot be > understood only in terms of the laws governing their microscopic > constituents. We strengthen this claim by proving that many macroscopic > observable properties of a simple class of physical systems (the infinite > periodic Ising lattice) cannot in general be derived from a microscopic > description. This provides evidence that emergent behavior occurs in such > systems, and indicates that even if a `theory of everything' governing all > microscopic interactions were discovered, the understanding of macroscopic > order is likely to require additional insights. Should make for an interesting discussion! Thanks, --Ray