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A probabilistic solution to the three-body problem

Scientists find an effective solution for the centuries-old famous three-body problem in physics, all related to a drunkard’s walk Journal link: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031020 The three-body problem is one of the oldest problems in physics: it concerns the motions of systems of three bodies, like the Sun, Earth and the Moon – how their orbits change and evolve due to their mutual gravity. The three-body problem has been a focus of scientific inquiry ever since Newton.

In the past, physicists including Newton himself – have tried to solve this so-called three-body problem; in 1889, King Oscar II of Sweden even offered a prize, in commemoration of his 60th birthday, to anybody who could provide a general solution. He ruined any hope for a full solution by proving that such interactions are chaotic, in the sense that the final outcome is essentially random; in fact, his finding opened a new scientific field of research, termed chaos theory. In a paper published recently in Physical Review X, Ph.D. student Yonadav Barry Ginat and Professor Hagai Perets of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology used this randomness to provide a statistical solution to the entire two-phase process.

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