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Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

phys.technion.ac.il

121–130 of 264 posts

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I see. I see people, many of whom are not experts in math or physics, discussing the topic. There are many smart questions, and there are also some which are less so. Your comment insinuates, but does not state, that this is wrong somehow. If that was your true intention then you are both smug and wrong. Science is not something you should put in a glass case, only to be handled by ordained priests in…

> Asking questions and providing answers to ones best abilities dude, they're not trying to do that there they're just trying to one up each other. Just like you're trying to do with this comment. It's the hn ape brain mind.

True! And that is why I wrote “If that was your true intention…” Thank you for quoting it!

——-

Looks like you completely changed your comment. Not cool. I’m going to leave mine as it is. This is no way to behave in a discussion. Have a good day.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Asking questions and providing answers to ones best abilities dude, they're not trying to do that there they're just trying to one up each other. Just like you're trying to do with this comment. It's the hn ape brain mind.

True! And that is why I wrote “If that was your true intention…” Thank you for quoting it! ——- Looks like you completely changed your comment. Not cool. I’m going to leave mine as it is. This is no way to behave in a discussion. Have a good day.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#123
post #19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be deterministic. But they are unpredictable. Minuscule fluctuations (coming from influence of some much smaller bodies, that are not in the model, or approximations in calculations) can lead to dramatic differences in the outcome. So theoretically speaking, they are deterministic, but practically they are unpredictable.

Huh? If this is the case, wouldn’t a 2 body problem also be practically impossible to calculate? I mean, you can certainly still predict to a certain (probably high) level of accuracy, but ultimately that motion is also influenced by factors outside your model.

In principle - yes. Except that we can change our frame of reference, and treat the two body problem as a pseudo one body problem (the lab frame becomes the center of mass of one of the bodies). One cannot do this for the three body problem, which gives us at best a pseudo two body problem.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#124
post #111

This may be a Rant, or an unpopular opinion. Life is strange. As if God is reminding me something. It was only yesterday Overthinking [1] was submitted on HN. A little over 10 years ago many of my friends and colleagues told me to stop overthinking about things. It was causing me some stress and depression because when you start doing analysis many level deep the only conclusion is any small variance will simply caus…

I agree. I’m writing a book about why people play MMORPGs, and you just got at the heart of (part of one of my) theses.

That's actually pretty interesting.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#125
post #111

This may be a Rant, or an unpopular opinion. Life is strange. As if God is reminding me something. It was only yesterday Overthinking [1] was submitted on HN. A little over 10 years ago many of my friends and colleagues told me to stop overthinking about things. It was causing me some stress and depression because when you start doing analysis many level deep the only conclusion is any small variance will simply caus…

> Americanism ( which also spreads to non-Americans working inside American companies ) views on the world suggest if you work hard you will get it.

America is a big place. I'm seventh generation American, with a patriotic family.

I wasn't raised to believe that if you work hard you WILL get it. No, it's that if you DON'T work hard, you WON'T get it.

You see, success is hard work + luck. You can have luck without hard work, but you have to have a lot more of it to get rich and you still might squander it if you didn't earn it because you won't know what to do with it if you get it by pure chance

You can have hard work without luck, too, like most of the folks in flyover country have. They know they aren't getting rich, they're just trying to get by.

But you can't have real success without both hard work and luck. You might win the lottery with just luck, but you won't wind up running a successful enterprise.

I don't know who is learning from their parents that if you work hard you'll get rich. Mine taught me that if I work hard and have a little luck, I'll get by. A little more luck and I'll be successful. A little less, and I might need to rely on my family or community. That's what they're for.

There's this characiture of American culture and the idea of our meritocracy that I see represented here and in media and it doesn't ring true to me -- I would be interested to know if the people who think luck is the only necessary component for success are Coastal or Flyover, and how much luck they've had

I know for myself, I've needed both work and luck. Without the work, I never would've been in a position to take the opportunities offered by luck.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#126

When they say motions of three bodies are random and unpredictable, I assume they mean not able to be modeled with a closed form equation? Seems like the motions would still be entirely deterministic — could still predict the locations of the bodies computationally, given your computer computes faster than reality (at least for a reality with only 3 bodies), no?

As I understand it, "random and unpredictable" means impossible to measure the initial state in sufficient precision and/or computationally impossible to calculate in a reasonable amount of time.

The actual underlying math is deterministic.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#127
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I’m writing a book about why people play MMORPGs, and you just got at the heart of (part of one of my) theses.

Is there an email list where I can subscribe for information about this book/pre-order?

Not yet, but I'll start thinking about it. I've never talked to anyone about it other than close friends, I probably should share more as progress continues.

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#128
post #111

This may be a Rant, or an unpopular opinion. Life is strange. As if God is reminding me something. It was only yesterday Overthinking [1] was submitted on HN. A little over 10 years ago many of my friends and colleagues told me to stop overthinking about things. It was causing me some stress and depression because when you start doing analysis many level deep the only conclusion is any small variance will simply caus…

I think you’d like Ted Chiang’s short story “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”

Touches on these themes and really made me think about the overlap of chaos and (“macro”?)determinism.

https://onezero.medium.com/anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freed...

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#129
post #106

Fun to watch HN trying to solve the three-body problem in the comment thread.

People shouldn't be allowed to ask questions or make uneducated guesses to explore and understand the problem and satisfy their curiosity. We should ask you for permission first.

You think that's there? There's no desire to control. It's fun to watch. Funny though that you projected your stuff onto it...

Re: Scientists find an effective solution for the three-body problem

#130
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they walk and wander around ;) https://jorgenveisdal.medium.com/the-mathematical-nomad-paul... https://medium.com/@vovakuzmenkov/poincares-creativity-8e31d...

I am sure that there is at least one mathematician who likes to sit in libraries. But in general there is nothing for a mathematician to do in a library. It is not like you need access to large number of hard to get books. And if you need access to a book, you probably need a lot of time with that book. That is if you even need books at all. Even when I studied theoretical math I wouldn't use books at all. Problems t…

I had one famous professor, Gian-Carlo Rota, whose office was covered in stacks of books and journals; I believe that he was an editor of an AMS publication at the time. The next year I had a professor for a class in non-commutative ring theory (I sadly can't remember his name off the top of my head; I do remember that he was a pleasant and brilliant person.), his office was like a monk's room. There was a desk upon which rested a single sheet of paper with a yellow wooden pencil.
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