22Jul/092
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.
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December 15th, 2010
I think the image meta text is referring to the sterotype that theoretical physicists & mathematicians insist on exact solutions, and think that finding an approximate solution is unworthy or cheating.
By the way, I discovered this site a few days ago – it’s terrific! There are many xkcd cartoons I understand fully, but many others where I miss little things, and a few where I just don’t get the deep references, and this site helps with those!
May 15th, 2011
I find it awkward when people connect intellectual arguments to sex