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From: kwan@io.ics.uci.edu (Andrew Kwan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Seeing the future
Message-ID: <987@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 88 21:32:59 GMT
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Reply-To: Andrew Kwan 
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Organization: University of California, Irvine - Dept of ICS
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In article  jeff@lorrie.atmos.washington.edu (Jeff L. Bowden) writes:
>What is the n-body problem?

     An example of the n-body problem would be the prediction of the
movements of the planets in the solar system.  There are several
bodies, each of which interacts with all others by gravitational
force.  To simulate such a system, one might choose a time step, start
with the initial position and velocity of each body, calculate the net
force on each body, then the change in acceleration and velocity on
each body, to finally get a change in position of each body during the
time step.  Then you would do this all over again.  The n-body problem
is a "classic" problem in classical mechanics.