15 Mar
2013
15 Mar
'13
10:42 p.m.
Does the approximate figure-8 behave like the original one (up to homeomorphism of a neighborhood of its orbit in phase space)? If so, can it be that it belongs to some kind of hyperbolic set with at least local structural stability? --Dan On 2013-03-15, at 5:41 PM, Cris Moore wrote:
If you change the masses, initial positions, and momenta slightly, you still get an approximate figure-8, sometimes with an overall precession. We think this can last forever, although I think we only know that to first order. A larger perturbation causes this precession to become more irregular, until a large enough perturbation makes the whole thing fall apart.