Theories in Physics: The Three Body Problem Part 3

Being “chaotic” in physics has a very different definition than the one your parents probably use to describe your younger siblings. It essentially means that the system that is being described is extremely delicate, that a singular discrepancy could cause the outcome of a problem to go from red to zebra.

The idea that many of the orbits taken by rockets taken today pertain to some extent to the N-Body Problem, may seem confusing and concerning to you, but in reality scientists have created a method to combat the issue for small discrepancies which include computer simulations and measuring the gravitational field of certain bodies

Computer simulations are usually used by space agencies like NASA and the ESA to plan the orbit of certain spacecrafts and satellites of different bodies. The parameters of these simulations can be altered to take into account different properties of the bodies in question and were extremely useful in the Voyager missions that went on to orbit all of the planets in the outer edge of our solar system.

Scientists measure the gravitational field of certain bodies to determine whether they pose a significant enough change within the outcome of position of the other bodies to even consider within the problem. The largest parameter of this type of measurement is time since changes within systems usually occur over large periods of time that are often pose no change to the calculation done.

When the change caused by a third body is deemed insignificant then scientists can calculate the effects of position within a two-body system, using a method called the Restricted N-Body Problem. In regards to whether our world is stable or not from Part 1 of the series it is safe to assume that it is at least for the next hundreds of millions of years.