Solving the Three Body Problem

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE↓ More info below ↓Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetimeSign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!https://tinyurl.com/yx9cusk5Check out the Space Time Merch Storehttps://pbsspacetime.com/The three body problem is famous for being impossible to solve. But actually it's been solved many times, and in ingenious ways. Some of those solutions are incredibly useful, and some are incredibly bizarre.Hosted by Matt O'DowdWritten by Matt O'DowdGraphics by Leonardo Scholzer & Adriano LealPost Production: Yago Ballarini, Max Willians, Pedro OsinskiDirected by: Andrew KornhaberExecutive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew KornhaberEnd Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRl6-nb4iOnsij-vnpAjp0QPhysics - and arguably all of science changed forever in 1687 when Isaac Newton published his Principia. Within it were equations of motion and gravity that transformed our erratic-seeming cosmos into a perfectly tuned machine of clockwork predictability. Given the current positions and velocities of the bodies of the solar system, Newton’s equations could be used in principle be used to calculate their locations at any distant time, future or past. I say “in principle” because the reality isn’t so simple. Despite the beauty of Newton’s equations, they lead to a simple solution for planetary motion in only one case - when two and only two bodies orbit each other sans any other gravitational influence in the universe. Add just one more body and in most cases all motion becomes fundamentally chaotic - there exists no simple solution. This is the three-body problem, and we’ve been trying to solve it for over 300 years.Special Thanks to Our Patreon Supporters:Big Bang Supporters: Alexander TamasDavid BarnholdtDavid NicklasFabrice EapJohn SJuan BenetMorgan HoughQuasar Supporters:Christina OegrenMark HeisingVinnie FalcoHypernovaChuck ZegarDanton SpiveyDonal BotkinEdmund FokschanerHank SJohn HofmannJohn PollockJohn R. SlavikJordan YoungJoseph SalomoneJulian TyackeJustin AshMathewMatthew O'ConnorSyed AnsarTimothy McCullochHypernova Supporters: A GAdrian HatchAdrien MolyneuxAlecZeroAndreas NautschAngela PriggeBradley JenkinsBrandon labonteCraig StonahaDan WarrenDaniel LyonsDavid BethalaDFaulkEric KieblerFrederic SimonGeoffrey ShortGraydon GossGreg SmithJohn FunaiJohn GriffithJohn RobinsonJonathan NesfederJosh ThomasKevin LeeKevin WarneKyle HoferMalte UblMichael ConroyNick VirtueNick WrightPatrick SuttonPaul RoseRandall SylviaRobert IlardiScott GossettSean WarniahaSipke SchoorstraSteve BradshawTatiana VorovchenkoTim StephaniTonyfaceTybie FitzhughYurii Konovaliuk