Seizoensaanbieding Poincare and the Three Body Problem – June Barrow-Green

The idea of chaos figures prominently in mathematics today. It arose in the work of one of the greatest mathematicians of the late 19th century, Henri Poincare, on a problem in celestial mechanics: the three body problem. This ancient problem – to describe the paths of three bodies in mutual gravitational interaction – is one of those which is simple to pose but impossible to solve precisely. Poincare’s famous memoir on the three body problem arose from his entry in the competition celebrating the 60th birt…