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I find it mesmerizing how predictable orbital mechanics are. We can tell where celestial body will be years ahead with meter accuracy.
by ivanjermakov 7mo ago
I find it mesmerizing how predictable orbital mechanics are. We can tell where celestial body will be years ahead with meter accuracy.
- alex43578 7mo agoI think that’s what makes the 3 body problem unintuitive, given how we can predict 2 easily.
- littlestymaar 7mo agoThere's no “two body problem” here, the solar system is an n-body problem. And the “three-body problem” is overblown in pop culture: even n-body problems are fairly predictable in the short-ish term, it's just that you cannot predict things over a long period because measurement imprecisions have a snowball effect, but it's not particularly unintuitive (I'd say it's more intuitive than the idea that we could predict things with perfect precision over billions of years).
- mkbosmans 7mo agoWell, the article says that the effect of the impact was much larger than the scientists expected. That doesn't really give a lot of confidence in how good we are at predicting these things.