Three body chaos visualization applet revived
Alec Jacobson
October 12, 2009
Googlepages has officially migrated to Googlesites. For me this means that my old website on Googlepages has been "migrated". Migration apparently included only html files and perhaps PDFs. So I've been trying to revive my old java applets. Here's the first to be brought back from the dead.
In a gravitational system with three or more bodies tracking position over time becomes chaotic. Slight perturbations (i.e. miscalculations) in the start position can greatly affect the calculated positions later as time goes by. This java applet that shows the 10 possible paths of a satellite travelling between two suns. All 10 paths start at the same position (with slight perturbations).
I've only changed a few minor things from the original 2006 train-wreck java source, so have a look only if you dare.