Ian Durham

Professor
Department of Physics
Saint Anselm College
Manchester, NH USA
idurham at anselm dot edu

I am a quantum physicist who studies the deep questions about how the world works. Lately I have been focused on areas surrounding the intersection of quantum physics, consciousness, and AI. I also do a lot of work on the nature of time and, as such, I have a strong interest in relativistic quantum information which is the intersection of quantum physics, relativity, and information theory. While I am primarily a theorist, I do have a quantum optics lab where I run experiments with single photons (including tests of the CHSH inequality and Hardy’s local realism model), mostly for teaching purposes. I am also very interested in the history and philosophy of physics and mathematics. I have dabbled in cosmology, astronomy, category theory, logic, and even geology.

I served as Chair of the Department of Physics twice, most recently for a stint of ten years. I have also served as Acting Chair of the Department of Mathematics. I am a member of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) and have won eight FQXi essay awards. I am the now-retired founding editor of The Quantum Times and former Secretary-Treasurer of the American Physical Society’s Division of Quantum Information.

For more than a decade I blogged at this site. While I have not entirely given up on that (and the full archive of posts is still there), the site’s new look represents the fact that I have far too many things going on in my life.

Publications

Most of my publications end up on the arXiv at some point or another, though some have appeared in books and are not on the arXiv. I do my best to update each entry with appropriate DOI information when it is available. You can also check my Google scholar page.