Hello Folks,

I'm aware that Dr. Michael Minovitch provided a numerical solution to the 3-body problem of celestial mechanics in 1961, but was he the first? If not him, then who?

And, of course: do you have sources for your answer?

Thought I'd toss this one out. Thanks,
Jay Gallentine

Lagrange solved the restricted three-body problem analytically in 1772.

The first numerical solutions predate the invention of the computer and go back to Vannevar Bush and the differential analyzer during WWII. I imagine that von Neumann's group did some work on this in the early fifties; the earliest reference I found was from 1958. It's a pretty obvious thing to do when you have a computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/lect...c_xscript.shtml
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-165X...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5