Three body orbit

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/physicists-discover-a-whopping.html

Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this "three-body problem" was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It's quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems.

Pretty cool stuff

Cool shit. I happened upon these same discoveries when I was seven years old, too bad the researches didn't have this toy as children -



I went on through adolescence to find 32 total possibilities for the 3 body problem, see for yourself -



Well, you get the idea

fb360 said:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/physicists-discover-a-whopping.html

Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this "three-body problem" was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It's quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems.

Pretty cool stuff

Click to expand...

I was taught "there is no analytic solution". I gathered from the article that this still holds. Does this mean that htose solution families are not universal but constrained? Are they analytic within their bounds, i.e. free from chaotic effects? cn

cannabineer said:

I was taught "there is no analytic solution". I gathered from the article that this still holds. Does this mean that htose solution families are not universal but constrained? Are they analytic within their bounds, i.e. free from chaotic effects? cn

Click to expand...

Yeah there are only specific solutions, and only involving those 3 bodies, no more. If you click on any of the solutions, you will notice that each has an infinite amount of total possibilities, as well as the universe which these orbits live in is minimal and containing only free space. Any unexpected event will cause a deviation, most likely destroying the orbit completely, especially being 3 body.

http://suki.ipb.ac.rs/3body/
This is the link to the 17 solutions.