Hebrew University of Jerusalem | via AlphaGalileo | 2019 Dec 18
It’s been nearly 350 years since Sir Isaac Newton outlined the laws of motion, claiming “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” These laws laid the foundation to understand our solar system and, more broadly, to understand the relationship between a body of mass and the forces that act upon it. However, Newton’s groundbreaking work also created a pickle that has baffled scientists for centuries: The Three-Body Problem.
After using the laws of motion to describe how planet Earth orbits the sun, Newton assumed that these laws would help us calculate what would happen if a third celestial body, such as the moon, were added to the mix. However, in reality, three-body equations became much more difficult to solve.
When two (or three bodies of different sizes and distances) orbit a center point, it’s easy to calculate their movements using Newton'slaws of motion. However, if all three objects are of a comparable size and distance from the center point, a power struggle develops and the whole system is thrown into chaos. When chaos happens, it becomes impossible to track the bodies’ movements using regular math. Enter the three-body problem.
Now, an international team, led by astrophysicist Dr. Nicholas Stone at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Racah Institute of Physics, has taken a big step forward in solving this conundrum. ...
A Statistical Solution to the Chaotic, Non-Hierarchical Three-Body Problem ~ Nicholas C. Stone, Nathan W.C. Leigh
- Nature 576(7787):406 (19 Dec 2019) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1833-8
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1909.05272 > 11 Sep 2019