MikeWise1618 t1_iycuab7 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 1:29 PM

Intuitively very little. And we can simulate that for a bit.

But theoretically we have a problem. Our math and physics can't even prove the configuration we have is stable even though the evidence very strongly indicates that it is - seeing that we can tell that there have probably been no major changes in things for billions of years despite constant perturbation coming from comets and other things probing the system.

So the answer is probably not but we can't be sure, theory doesn't help much and simulation suffers from exponential growth of measurement error in the initial state.

ExtonGuy t1_iyd4wsb wrote on November 30, 2022 at 2:55 PM

We’re 100% sure that the orbits are stable for millions of years. A few dinky comets aren’t going to upset that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_of_the_Solar_System

Bensemus t1_iydrkin wrote on November 30, 2022 at 5:26 PM

They are saying our simulations can't prove what we can see. We can see that our solar system has been stable for billions of years but our simulations aren't accurate enough to show that.

MikeWise1618 t1_iyeykr6 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 10:02 PM

And our math is not powerful enough to prove stability in the same sense rhat we use for human designed systems.

MikeWise1618 t1_iyf5a1o wrote on November 30, 2022 at 10:50 PM

That's not what I see there. It leads with the statement that numerical simulation is invalid after a few 10s of millions of years.

It then points out that n-body problems can only be handled that way.

It goes on with investigations of known resonances and puts limits on their behavior.

I don't see 100 percent anywhere.