Three-body problem simulation

Is the three-body problem chaotic — and is the famous figure-8 choreography a stable exception?

▶ Run the simulationSee the measured result

Units: dimensionless time (G = m = 1, standard figure-8 normalization)

How the lab tests it

Evolve three equal masses under mutual gravity (symplectic velocity-Verlet) alongside a near-identical Benettin twin started δ₀=1e-8 away; track the phase-space separation, renormalise it, and average its log-growth into the largest Lyapunov exponent λ.

What it looks for

λ > 0 (exponential divergence of nearby trajectories ⇒ deterministic chaos) for a generic triple, vs λ ≈ 0 for the linearly-stable figure-8 choreography