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With its grand debut, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem has incited big waves of curiosity and wonder among the audience and science enthusiasts by drawing attention to the eponymous problem. As seen in the series, the characters are offered to solve the issue through an advanced virtual reality game where they are transcended to play and come up with the most suitable solution for the problem.
However, like many other players, each time Jin and Jack tried to find the perfect solution, they ended up with nothing but loss in their hands. Regardless, in the end, they ultimately won the game after successfully moving up each level, but still, the solution remained unresolved.
Even for the advanced species like the trisolarians in the 3 Body Problem, it was too difficult to predict a Stable Era and survive the Chaotic Era, which is why they gave up and decided to occupy Earth instead.
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But is there a solution to the 3 Body Problem? Follow along with the article to learn whether a 3 Body Problem is solvable.
The 3 Body Problem remains elusive to date
Baffling the minds of some of the most brilliant minds that Earth has ever produced throughout centuries, the three-body problem remains elusive to date. The first and foremost reason behind it is the mathematical challenge of predicting the motion of three celestial bodies under the influence of their mutual gravitational attraction.
While it may seem a simple problem, analytically, there are no closed-form solutions to express the velocities and positions of these three celestial bodies as simple yet solvable equations. Given the gravitational force between each body leads to highly nonlinear differential equations, they can’t be solved via standard mathematical techniques.
The challenges made researchers profoundly rely on numerical simulations and computational methods to approximate the motion of the bodies over time. Although this has provided valuable insights into complex gravitational interactions, there is still no solution to a three-body problem.
A tristar system exhibits chaotic behavior, which means that small changes in the initial conditions lead to drastically different outcomes. In a nutshell, if three stars are rotating around each other, the other two’s gravitational force influences each other, and it becomes hard to predict the positioning of each star.
Each star’s movement affects the other, making their path tricky to predict, which is why one can’t just write down a simple formula to solve it. Even computers can only simulate and approximate the patterns and model the motion of the bodies over time to provide better insight. However, due to the problem’s complexity, even a computer can’t solve a three-body problem.
In one way, Earth is also in a three-body system involving the Sun and the Moon. However, when scientists refer to the “three-body problem,” they specifically mean mathematical challenges for predicting the motion of three celestial bodies solely under their mutual gravitational attraction, like the ones shown in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.
Given the gravitational influence of the Sun is stronger than that of Earth and the Moon, it is universally treated as a two-body system. In contrast to a three-body problem, a two-body star system’s dynamics are easier to understand and predictable, following Kepler’s law that encompasses the Law of Ellipses and the Law of Equal Areas.
The 3 Body Problem has been a topic of study for centuries
Much to fans’ wonder, who have caught up to Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, the eponymous issue is not something that has been introduced recently. The three-body problem has been a topic for centuries. However, it got its proper exposure after Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundation for gravitational mechanics to understand the interactions between two and more celestial bodies.
However, Newton never specifically addressed the three-body problem in detail. In his seminal work, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), referred to simply as Principia, published in 1687, Newton developed Laws of Motion and Laws of Universal Gravitation.
Newton’s laws indeed provided a framework for understanding the motions of two bodies under the influence of gravitation. However, they also raised confounding questions regarding the behavior of systems involving three or more bodies. Hence, awareness of the n-body problem rose in the early 17th century.
In his book, Newton implied that the n-body problem can’t be solved because of those gravitational forces. Here’s what Newton said in Principia, paragraph 21:
"And hence it is that the attractive force is found in both bodies. The Sun attracts Jupiter and the other planets, Jupiter attracts its satellites and similarly the satellites act on one another. And although the actions of each of a pair of planets on the other can be distinguished from each other and can be considered as two actions by which each attracts the other, yet inasmuch as they are between the same, two bodies they are not two but a simple operation between two termini."
He further shed light on the single force:
"Two bodies can be drawn to each other by the contraction of rope between them. The cause of the action is twofold, namely the disposition of each of the two bodies; the action is likewise twofold, insofar as it is upon two bodies; but insofar as it is between two bodies it is single and one ..."
In summize, Newton meant that even though it may seem like each star is pulling the other star separately, the pull on its own can be seen as one combined action. So, in a three-body system where there are many pulls happening, each one between two celestial bodies is like one big pull, a unified action.
Even centuries after Newton's time, the mathematical complexities and conundrums continued to keep scientists puzzled yet intrigued. Despite numerous efforts of acclaimed physicists and mathematicians like Pierre-Simon Laplace, Henri Poincare, and Joseph-Louis Lagrange, a solution to the three-body problem remained an unapproachable destination.
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem offers the ultimate solution
In Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, Jin and Jack successfully managed to level up in San Ti’s virtual reality game that ultimately showcased there was no solution to the three-body problem. Both Jack and Jin agreed that given there was no solution to the problem, they unanimously accepted that the only viable option for their civilization was to find a new planet
Given Earth’s favorable position within the habitable or the Goldilocks Zone, they agreed that their best bet for survival was this planet. After discovering that Human beings lie, a concept they couldn’t comprehend, it became difficult for them to think if they could survive amidst them for long.
This is also a universal and only present answer to a three-body problem, which is that civilization can only sustain life by finding a planet like Earth in a habitable solar system like the Milky Way.
Stay tuned for more news and updates on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem as 2024 progresses.
