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
We can do it. We can calculate as precisely as we want. There is just no closed form solution (e.g. a formula) to do it. If you want to know what happens at time t, you can’t plug in t and get the answer. You need to iteratively do the calculation.
It isn’t a math problem, it’s a physics problem. Because you cannot know all the necessary data. It’s impossible.
It’s a problem, because it is worthy of study. There is a sort of contradiction here. All you need to understand is the laws of gravitation, but somehow it’s very difficult.
In other words, you start writing the equations out and at some point it gets unimaginably complicated.
When you have two bodies there are lots of simplifying assumptions.
Usually, one is orbiting the other, so the distance is fixed.
Their masses are the same.
Tidal forces change periodically.
It is safe to assume nothing else interacts with them.
You can see with 3 body problem, those assumptions are broken. So it’s much more complicated.
Scientists cracked gravity using math calculations for very careful observations of celestial events. It was predictable, so we figured it out.
3 body problem has many variables changing often.
In short, it’s almost impossible to solve without a computer. So historically speaking and philosophically, the three body problem was nearly impossible and It was a marvel that you can solve 2 bodies, but not 3 bodies.
See, that’s exactly the problem… we don’t know all the necessary data. In fact we can’t possibility know all the necessary data. Think a 1Kg packet of sugar. If you weight it on your bathroom scale it will say 1Kg. If you weigh it on your kitchen scale maybe it will say 1001g, but let’s say it says 1000g. If you weigh it on a lab scale maybe it will say 1000.001g, but let’s say it says 1000.000g. If you weigh it in an even more precise lab scale, maybe it says 1000.00000000000001g and it goes on forever. You can’t possibly know with 100% accuracy, and because of how sensitive to minuscule differences in the inputs the 3body problem is, it becomes impossible to predict the outcome.
It isn’t an unsolved problem at all anymore (if that’s what you mean) and hasn’t been for a while. Three body problems have been solved and there are continuously increasing number of three body systems being found all the time with computer models.
They were solved a long time ago with calculus.
The issue is that most “problems” result in one body being ejected from the system. I highly recommend watching YouTube videos for these demonstrated. The calculus is way above ELI5 but the visuals you will think make perfect sense.
It is called a problem in the sense that there are an infinite number of ways you can introduce three bodies in motion with large enough mass to start rotating about one another. There is always a solution.
In the context of the show, they were wondering how long life could sustain in a three body system. That could be solved too
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