Why is the 3 body problem, a problem?

878 viewsOtherPlanetary Science

I was in physics and had a brief conversation on chaos theory and we started talking about space and he briefly mentioned about the 3 body problem.

Thing is, everything interacts with other things for a reason right? I understand it’s complicated, but if you know all the necessary data, why can’t we do it?

In: Planetary Science

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The issue with chaotic systems such as the 3 body problem or the double-pendulum is that you can never know the ‘necessary data’ to a sufficient degree of precision that the behavior is predictable long term. Eventually the tiniest uncertainties in your initial measurements of position and velocity will eventually lead to completely different results.

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