Threesome

by Jeff

Image meta text: I wanted us to try finding an approximate numeric solution, but noooo.

For the three body problem, it is a math and astronomy problem about the gravity interaction between 3 different "bodies".  Scholarpedia has this about the problem. "The [three body] problem is to determine the possible motions of three point masses m_1, m_2, and m_3, which attract each other according to Newton's law of inverse squares.  ... While the two-body problem is integrable and its solutions completely understood, solutions of the three-body problem may be of an arbitrary complexity and are very far from being completely understood."

And obviously, with a threesome, there is literally three bodies.  The comic is making a pun on that.