This is a simple deterministic system of 3 bodies attracted to one another by gravity - yet it moves in highly complex and unpredictable ways.
Poincaré's study of this famous 'three-body problem' was the beginning of chaos theory.
Here I show some paths traced out by this system in 2D and 3D. Although its overall behaviour is chaotic it shows tantalising glimpses of order and regularity.
At the end I show how the paths of the whole system are changed by moving one body's starting position by a tiny amount. (Extremely sensitive dependence on initial conditions - a defining feature of chaos)
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