N-Body Problem Simulation with 4 Free Masses | Gravity | Physics Simulations

A simulation of the n-body problem with four free masses. Each mass moves under the gravity of the other three. The masses start with equal distances from each other, and the same speed, moving along a tangent to the circle formed by the positions of the four masses.

- Newtonian Gravity
- all masses equal
- chaos / chaotic motion
- velocities and positions calculated using Runge-Kutta methods
- 25fps, 30s

#Physics #PhysicsSimulations #ThreeBodyProblem #Gravity #NewtonianGravity

[jasontiscione]

You should include a swarm of zero-mass objects in the simulation to show how the shape of the field changes with time.

[regulate.artificer_g.mdctlsk]

Hey! This could be a stable orbi-
0:12
oh. Never mind, that purple one just ruined everything!

[Minihood]

The three body problem with four bodies.

I love physics.

[spitalhelles]

R.I.P. lifeforms living on the purple and yellow planet

[pedrofellipe]

Purple and green went on to form a family together meanwhile red felt bad about leaving blue alone and rushed back. Will blue accept reds feelings? Join us tomorrow for the conclusion of "Four-body three body"

[kuwertzel]

No matter how precise computers can be, the decimal limitations become visible at some point :)

[dreadlindwyrm]

Well, I think you formed a binary pair heading down and right from that.

That's good, right?

[rikimitchell]

What a perfect place to right a wrong.... under the constraints stated above the interactions shown represent 1 of several million possible outcomes as is well known but if one resets the constraints replaces mass with charge and gravity with electrostatic attraction and introduce further constraints such as U0 and E0 of the intervening medium I wonder how it would play out ...

[yt]

My best friend can't get along with my other friend who considers me as his best friend. This is the Three-Buddy problem.

[engelbertus]

this is in a 2D plane, would love to see a simulation in a 3D representation - do the body’s still exhibit their chaotic pathways in a 2D plane or are there gravitational effects exerted in 3 dimensions and how would these be accounted for/exposed within the already complex equations?

[WhiteDragon]

Huh, must be floating point error accumulation, otherwise the behaviour would remain having 4 point radial symmetry indefinitely.

[jesuscobos]

Is that transition to chaotic motion caused exclusively because truncation errors in the differential equations solver?

[divjotsinghmanchanda]

Red went like:
Not my space,
Ahh let's give it an another try.
Nope, definitely never again

[deusexaethera]

So, question: If these orbiting bodies were all perfectly identical and orbiting in perfectly symmetrical and evenly spaced orbits at the beginning, as they appeared to be, what caused the initial disruption to the system?

[malksc]

This is like the physics version of the "SNEK STAHP!" meme. Everything looks tidy and under control and then it all goes to hell really fast.

[robcat]

An interesting addition to these trails would be a plot of the center of mass of the whole system, which I presume is not stationary.

[cataraxis]

the trisolarans should be bloody grateful

[aurorazoe]

Should have been ten minutes long just to show the chaos.

But, I acknowledge that could take a lot of computing power.

[ClavisRa]

Query: why aren't there any actual collisions in these simulations? I feel like we see a rather regular universe of galaxies and solar systems that is almost reduced to two-body problems because once you add another body you quickly get collisions.

[MaryAnnNytowl]

I wish I could see them in at least a bit of an angle to see the 3rd dimension involved, though. It's disappointing that it's never seen - just like the central gravity well object is never indicated, either.