Dr. Paula Reichert

Personal information

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Metaphysics and an academic advisor at the Institute of Mathematics at LMU.

I studied physics, mathematics, and philosophy and earned my Ph.D. in 2018 with a dissertation on a topic in the field of statistical analysis of gravitational systems. This was followed by several years as a postdoc in both philosophy and mathematics before I accepted a position as an academic advisor at the LMU Department of Mathematics in 2023. Since 2025, I have also been working toward my habilitation at the Chair of Metaphysics with research focused on the topic “Metaphysics in Modern Physics.”

Research interests

Space and Time in Relational Theories of Gravitation (Shape Dynamics), Justification of the Direction of Time, Entropy and Gravitation, Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, Foundations of Statistical Physics, Ancient Mathematics

Selected publications

Reichert, P. (2023): “The Ergodic Hypothesis: A Typicality Statement“, in: Physics and the Nature of Reality, edited by A. Bassi, R. Tumulka, Heidelberg: Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45434-9_20

Reichert, P. (2023): “Essentially Ergodic Behaviour“, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74(1), https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axaa007 (this paper received an honourable mention of the 2023 BJPS Popper Prize)

Lazarovici, D. and Reichert, P. (2022): “The Point of Primitive Ontology“, Foundations of Physics 52(120), Springer Nature Switzerland, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-022-00639-w

Reichert, P. (2021): “Investigating Total Collisions of the Newtonian N-Body Problem on Shape Space“, Foundations of Physics 51(32), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-021-00428-x

Lazarovici, D. and Reichert, P. (2020): “Arrow(s) of Time Without a Past Hypothesis“, in V. Allori (ed.): Statistical Mechanics and Scientific Explanation. Determinism, Indeterminism, and Laws of Nature, Singapur: World Scientific, ch. 10, pp. 343–386, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811211720_0010

Lazarovici, D. and Reichert, P. (2015): “Typicality, Irreversibility and the Status of Macroscopic Laws“, Erkenntnis 80(4), pp. 689–716, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9668-z