full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Fabio Pacucci: Newton's three-body problem explained
Unscramble the Blue Letters
But what does it actually look like for objects in our universe to move according to analytically unsolvable equations of motion? A system of three stars— like Alpha Centauri— could come crashing into one another or, more likely, some might get flung out of oirbt after a long time of apparent stability. Other than a few highly irblambope sltabe configurations, almost every possible case is unpredictable on long timescales. Each has an astronomically large range of potential outcomes, dependent on the tsniiet of dcneifrfees in position and velocity. This behaviour is known as chaotic by physicists, and is an important characteristic of n-body systems. Such a stseym is still deterministic— meaning there’s nothing random about it. If multiple systems start from the exact same cnonitidos, they’ll always reach the same result. But give one a little shove at the start, and all bets are off. That’s clearly relevant for hmaun space missions, when complicated orbits need to be calculated with great psioircen.
Open Cloze
But what does it actually look like for objects in our universe to move according to analytically unsolvable equations of motion? A system of three stars— like Alpha Centauri— could come crashing into one another or, more likely, some might get flung out of _____ after a long time of apparent stability. Other than a few highly __________ ______ configurations, almost every possible case is unpredictable on long timescales. Each has an astronomically large range of potential outcomes, dependent on the _______ of ___________ in position and velocity. This behaviour is known as chaotic by physicists, and is an important characteristic of n-body systems. Such a ______ is still deterministic— meaning there’s nothing random about it. If multiple systems start from the exact same __________, they’ll always reach the same result. But give one a little shove at the start, and all bets are off. That’s clearly relevant for _____ space missions, when complicated orbits need to be calculated with great _________.
Solution
- improbable
- system
- tiniest
- differences
- precision
- conditions
- human
- orbit
- stable
Original Text
But what does it actually look like for objects in our universe to move according to analytically unsolvable equations of motion? A system of three stars— like Alpha Centauri— could come crashing into one another or, more likely, some might get flung out of orbit after a long time of apparent stability. Other than a few highly improbable stable configurations, almost every possible case is unpredictable on long timescales. Each has an astronomically large range of potential outcomes, dependent on the tiniest of differences in position and velocity. This behaviour is known as chaotic by physicists, and is an important characteristic of n-body systems. Such a system is still deterministic— meaning there’s nothing random about it. If multiple systems start from the exact same conditions, they’ll always reach the same result. But give one a little shove at the start, and all bets are off. That’s clearly relevant for human space missions, when complicated orbits need to be calculated with great precision.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
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solar system |
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unknown variables |
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Important Words
- alpha
- analytically
- apparent
- astronomically
- behaviour
- bets
- calculated
- case
- chaotic
- characteristic
- complicated
- conditions
- configurations
- crashing
- dependent
- differences
- equations
- exact
- flung
- give
- great
- highly
- human
- important
- improbable
- large
- long
- meaning
- missions
- motion
- move
- multiple
- objects
- orbit
- orbits
- outcomes
- physicists
- position
- potential
- precision
- random
- range
- reach
- relevant
- result
- shove
- space
- stability
- stable
- start
- system
- systems
- time
- timescales
- tiniest
- universe
- unpredictable
- unsolvable
- velocity