More or Less Tackling The Three-Body Problem
Apr 13, 2024
Astrophysics expert Dr. Anna Lisa Varri from the University of Edinburgh delves into the complexities of predicting celestial orbits and the Three Body Problem in physics, contrasting real-world systems like our solar system with fictional universes, highlighting the challenges of long-term predictability and non-hierarchical systems.
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Two-Body Dynamics Are Solvable
- The two-body problem (like Earth and Moon) has exact analytical solutions derived centuries ago.
- These solutions let us compute orbits precisely with pen and paper for long timescales.
Three-Body Lacks A General Formula
- The general three-body problem has no closed-form solution and becomes analytically intractable in full generality.
- Only special restricted cases allow pen-and-paper solutions; most require numerical methods.
Chaos Grows Over Time
- Short-term positions and velocities of multiple bodies can be computed reliably with good algorithms and computers.
- Long-term predictions break down because small differences grow exponentially and produce very different outcomes.