The subject of this month's feature column from the American Mathematical Society Online is the solution to the "Three Body Problem" of Newtonian mechanics. The problem deals with three orbiting bodies of equal mass and the paths that they will take relative to one another. Solutions have been proposed by many, including Euler, Lagrange, and G.W. Hill. The article notes that solutions are sometimes called "choreographies." The well-written explanatory text discusses the figure-eight orbit, the triangle construction, other choreographies with >3 bodies, and the search for exotic orbits. It includes user-driven Java applets as demonstrations. This site should be interesting to mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike.
Comments