A Primer on Relativity for Quantum Information Scientists - David Hobill

The theories of quantum mechanics and relativity are two fundamental theories of physics that have had a most profound influence about how we view the world around us. Since relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime and quantum mechanics is a theory of the structure of matter, one would expect that there should be an overall theory uniting the two. However the two theories have coexisted for nearly a century in an uneasy relationship. This seminar will introduce some of the essential ideas of relativity theory and will then go on to discuss some of the issues concerning the need to understand quantum information processes from a relativistic point of view.