Quantum Moxie

Professor and Chair
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. I am particularly interested in relativistic quantum information which is the intersection of quantum physics, relativity, and information theory. In addition, I have recently started working on formal models of consciousness and free will. 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 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. In a former life I was an engineer. In my spare time, I work with start-up companies. In a parallel universe I am very involved in theatre, write poetry, sing, play harmonica, build canoes, love to fly fish, and read incessantly.

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. I do my best to update each entry with appropriate DOI information when it is available. Here’s a ready-made link to all my entries on the arXiv or click on the entry in the menu above.