Why is the 3 body problem, a problem?

882 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

We can do it if we know all the date. The issue is that we dont know all the date because minor changes will have a huge effect over time with 3 bodies. With two bodies even with imperfect data, your results will be fine. Or even in a 3 body, one can be not that impactful so it doesnt really matter. For instsnce the earth sun and moon act the same way. But the moon is small and the effect it has on the other 2 bodies is very minimal, making it a non issue to calculate.

You are viewing 1 out of 15 answers, click here to view all answers.