Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tank!mimsy!dftsrv!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!paris.ics.uci.edu!io.ics.uci.edu!kwan 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 References: <1984@eos.UUCP> <28200245@mcdurb>Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu Reply-To: Andrew Kwan Distribution: comp Organization: University of California, Irvine - Dept of ICS Lines: 12 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.