Three-body problem needs real, and not artificial solution | Science & Technology - Down To Earth Magazine

The equation that has confounded mathematicians for over 300 years needs an elegant and beautiful solution, not something where the end is there without the means, according to Deepan Joshi, Associate Editor, Down To Earth.  

A diagram of the three-body problem.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The New Scientist in an article published on October 29 said that the infamous three-body problem first posed by Issac Newton might be getting closer to a solution thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). The story noted that ‘the three-body problem—the question of how three objects orbit one another under their gravity—has baffled physicists and mathematicians for more than 300 years.’ The implication was that a neural network could find solutions remarkably quickly.

Reading the story shows some contradictions which are further compounded by the fact that AI has made progress, but the equation is still not solved. The headline of the story clearly says, “AI could solve baffling three-body problem that stumped Issac Newton.”...

The three-body problem was studied in his time by the last great polymath Sir Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912). The French Poincare was an astronomer, a physicist, a mathematician, a philosopher and a philosopher of science all in one. Some of Poincare’s ideas took almost a century to be appreciated; he was so far ahead of his time...

The Black Swan:
The Impact of the Highly Improbable

As Nassim Taleb discussed in his book ‘The Black Swan’: “Our world, unfortunately, is far more complicated than the three-body problem; it contains far more than three objects. We are dealing with what is now called a dynamical system—and the world is a little too much of a dynamical system.”
Read more... 

Source: Down To Earth Magazine