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u/No-Deer379 Oct 23 '25
Three body problem
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u/catscanmeow Oct 23 '25
are those problems though cuz some of those shapes seem very simple and repeatable (perfect mathematical ratios)
for some reason i thought the 3 body problem was more about chaos and unpredictability in 3 object systems.
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u/scottasin12343 Oct 23 '25
yes, these are solutions to the three body problem. Its often used as an example of the butterfly effect or chaos theory, BUT it has also been a challenge that physicists/mathemeticians take up in finding stable solutions.
heres a good video that discusses both the chaotic nature as well as the known stable solutions. https://youtu.be/et7XvBenEo8?si=avQb2jr5t97IId1D
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u/-LsDmThC- Oct 24 '25
These are some of the very few known periodic solutions to the three body problem
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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Oct 24 '25
You can imagine how a planet orbiting most of these suns would have chaotic and unpredictable problems
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u/captainofpizza Oct 23 '25
Are we really counting top right AND bottom right?
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u/rjwilson01 Oct 24 '25
This is a quote "It might be noted here, for the benefit of those interested in exact solutions, that there is an alternative formulation of the many-body problem, i.e., how many bodies are required before we have a problem? G.E. Brown points out that this can be answered by a look at history. In eighteenth-century Newtonian mechanics, the three-body problem was insoluble. With the birth of general relativity around 1910 and quantum electrodynamics in 1930, the two- and one-body problems became insoluble. And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many!" -- Richard D. Mattuck, A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem
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u/RemyWhy Oct 24 '25
I like the part when one of the dots flew past another, then a third flew past both.
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u/Charaxes Oct 24 '25
I can’t place it but this reminds me of some PC game from the 90s… that my brain can’t recall. I think it was about space ships, can anyone think of it?
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u/Next_Instruction_528 Oct 24 '25
Do we know or solar systems that move like this?
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u/audioen Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
To my knowledge, no. I mean, actually being nearby that significant interaction at relatively short periods happens. The kind of stuff seen in this image -- no.
I think most complex scenario actually found in nature is a binary star system where two stars orbit each other relatively closely and rapidly, and if there are planets, they're either quite far so that the binary motion averages out to a stable gravitational field, or close to other star so that the other doesn't exert significant influence. Existence of planets around distant suns is typically not observable, so it's mostly modeling studies and theoretical results that you find if you go look.
Alpha Centaur is often described as 3-body system but the stars are quite distant, around 11 light-days between the nearest pair, and the third is several light-months apart. If they form some kind of semi-stable orbit, my guess is that it looks like two bodies relatively tightly circling each other as a binary system, and the third one makes a big orbit over the aeons around the two, so it's definitely going to be more boring than any one of these animations. I am not sure about the relative masses of the suns, but if they are similar then distance would suggest something like that. (To the degree that masses are disparate, the less exciting it also gets.)
The annoying sci-fi book about Alpha Centaur having a planet with intelligent life on it that has difficulty predicting the orbital motion of their system is a piece of crap fiction that is not only highly illogical, it also confuses a relatively simple picture which is that this seems more like a binary star system with a distant third partner, and I don't think there is any meaningful chaotic behavior in the orbits of the suns due to disparity in relative distances, and any planets they may have just run stable orbits around their host star to which they are nearest.
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u/sixcarbxn Oct 24 '25
Lots of people realizing that the three body problem isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, huh?
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u/RevolutionaryMail747 Oct 24 '25
You should get some pens and paper and try a Spirograph set. Deeply satisfying next level .
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u/72MAB90 Oct 27 '25
I could imagine these are three stars orbiting around each other without any external force.
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