Paper detail

The paradox of infinitesimal granularity: Chaos and the reversibility of time in Newton's theory of gravity

The fundamental laws of physics are time-symmetric, but our macroscopic experience contradicts this. The time reversibility paradox is partly a consequence of the unpredictability of Newton's equations of motion. We measure the dependence of the fraction of irreversible, gravitational N-body systems on numerical precision and find that it scales as a power law. The stochastic wave packet reduction postulate then introduces fundamental uncertainties in the Cartesian phase space coordinates that propagate through classical three-body dynamics to macroscopic scales within the triple's lifetime. The spontaneous collapse of the wave function then drives the global chaotic behavior of the Universe through the superposition of triple systems (and probably multi-body systems). The paradox of infinitesimal granularity then arises from the superposition principle, which states that any multi-body system is composed of an ensemble of three-body problems.