[MD] Speed of Lighting, Roar of thunder...

[Krimel]

> [Krimel]
> Poincare's three body problem is another example. You can determine the
> position of either of a pair of orbiting objects like the moon orbiting
the
> earth with a high degree of precision but add a third body to the system
and
> prediction breaks down. 

[Craig]
The moon orbits the earth & Apollo orbits the moon.  So you can determine
the position of the moon & the earth relative to each other & the moon &
Apollo relative to each other. So in what sense can't you determine the
position of the earth & Apollo relative to each other?

[Krimel]
Obviously things like mass and relative distance are important. This is
pretty easy to research if you are interested. I don't do Math but here's a
Wiki on the n-body problem: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem

There is one on the three body problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

Here is one on Poincare that touch on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9

This quote from it goes straight to the matter at hand:

"In his research on the three-body problem, Poincaré became the first person
to discover a chaotic deterministic system which laid the foundations of
modern chaos theory."

Another example I like is pool. Billiard became something like the standard
metaphor of Newtonian mechanics; a game whose outcomes and relations were
perfectly describable in mathematical terms. Except it isn't. Mathematics
can be used to describe and predict the outcomes of certain aspects of the
game of pool but it cannot be all that helpful in predicting who will win a
game of pool. It does what math does. It describes outcomes in a perfect
world of Platonic ideals which no rough edges.

The actual outcome of a game may be determine by things like volume of
alcohol consumed, volume of the jukebox, the beauty of the cutie eyeing the
players, a sudden itch during a crucial shot. In fact the number of factors
that influence the outcome of any particular game are infinite. Completely
deterministic at every level but impossible to predict.