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Concept

Three-body problem

The image depicts a conceptual representation of the three-body problem, showing three celestial bodies orbiting around each other in complex, non-elliptical paths, symbolizing the chaotic nature of their gravitational interactions.

The question, posed by Newton, of how three masses move under mutual gravity. The two-body problem has clean elliptical solutions; the three-body problem does not. In 1890 Poincaré showed that the general case contains orbits whose long-term behaviour cannot be written in closed form and depends sensitively on initial conditions. The discovery cost King Oscar II of Sweden a prize medal and rewrote celestial mechanics.

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