Published in Science, 8 Mar 2013
It’s the sort of abstract puzzle that keeps a scientist awake at night: Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this “three-body problem” was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It’s quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems.
The trove of new solutions has researchers jazzed. “I love these things,” says Robert Vanderbei a mathematician at Princeton University who was not involved in the work. He says he, in fact, spent all night thinking about the work. […]
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