3 ms·

In this simulation the bodies also collide together. Luckily that never happened in the book.

by Gys 3y ago

maelito 3y ago
Should a collision conduct to a simulation of a 4 body problem ?
achristmascarl 3y ago
that might just be because of my low resolution gif ;)
SamBam 3y ago
I was wondering about this too, but I think they're not colliding. I think they're pulling towards each other and getting tightly pulled around each other so they end up slingshotting and flying back the way they came, in a way that looks like a bounce. You can see this in the very beginning of the simulation, with the blue and green dot. Can anyone say if this is actually accurate? It seems like an unintuitive motion to me, but I'm often surprised by how these things work.
- achristmascarl 3y ago
  i believe you're correct, other (higher resolution) visualizations of periodic orbits show that "wrapping" behavior more clearly. example from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#/media/File:5_4_800_36_downscaled.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#/media/File...
CWuestefeld 3y ago
The book is mis-named. Their system was not 3 bodies, but 4 (3 stars, plus a planet). And the system is so chaotic that even that little planet will make a huge difference over time. And even beyond that, the bodies themselves were transformed, having the ability to tear atmosphere away from each other.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  Chaotic N-body behavior appears when the bodies have similar mass. In that scenario, every solution is either chaotic or unstable. The solar system is strictly speaking a 20+ body system. That said, the behavior of the solar system is fairly predictable because the the sun has almost all of the mass, and jupiter has almost all of what remains, everything else is a small correction term. We can to a good approximation calculate the other satellites' orbits around either the sun or the center of mass of the sun-jupiter system.
woooooo 3y ago
Luckily??! Could have saved everyone a lot of trouble and kept them in the proper number of dimensions.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  Arguably this was all Mao Zedong's fault.

In this simulation the bodies also collide together. Luckily that never happened in the book.

by Gys 3y ago

In this simulation the bodies also collide together. Luckily that never happened in the book.

maelito 3y ago

Should a collision conduct to a simulation of a 4 body problem ?

achristmascarl 3y ago

that might just be because of my low resolution gif ;)

SamBam 3y ago

I was wondering about this too, but I think they're not colliding. I think they're pulling towards each other and getting tightly pulled around each other so they end up slingshotting and flying back the way they came, in a way that looks like a bounce. You can see this in the very beginning of the simulation, with the blue and green dot. Can anyone say if this is actually accurate? It seems like an unintuitive motion to me, but I'm often surprised by how these things work.

achristmascarl 3y ago
i believe you're correct, other (higher resolution) visualizations of periodic orbits show that "wrapping" behavior more clearly. example from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#/media/File:5_4_800_36_downscaled.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#/media/File...

CWuestefeld 3y ago

The book is mis-named. Their system was not 3 bodies, but 4 (3 stars, plus a planet). And the system is so chaotic that even that little planet will make a huge difference over time. And even beyond that, the bodies themselves were transformed, having the ability to tear atmosphere away from each other.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
Chaotic N-body behavior appears when the bodies have similar mass. In that scenario, every solution is either chaotic or unstable. The solar system is strictly speaking a 20+ body system. That said, the behavior of the solar system is fairly predictable because the the sun has almost all of the mass, and jupiter has almost all of what remains, everything else is a small correction term. We can to a good approximation calculate the other satellites' orbits around either the sun or the center of mass of the sun-jupiter system.

woooooo 3y ago

Luckily??! Could have saved everyone a lot of trouble and kept them in the proper number of dimensions.

aaronbrethorst 3y ago
Arguably this was all Mao Zedong's fault.