Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by dudeget on Saturday August 13, 2016 @06:03PM
(#12283293)
are there any unsolved problems in classical mechanics?
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Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by antognini on Saturday August 13, 2016 @07:50PM
(#12283631)
Absolutely. A lot of my thesis could be considered classical mechanics (orbital dynamics, specifically). A very old problem that is still open is the question of whether the solar system is stable. (Newton worked on this question 300 years ago.) The state of the art can only reliably integrate orbits for the next few million years. After that, numerical limitations and chaos make it hard to predict exactly what the dynamics in the far future will be. All we can do is make statistical predictions (which we hope are unbiased).
The best predictions are that there is a ~1% chance that two planets will collide before the Sun dies. Here's a nice article:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Stability_of_the_solar_s...
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA on Sunday August 14, 2016 @12:29AM
(#12284267)
Does this count as having testable solutions?
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA on Sunday August 14, 2016 @12:32AM
(#12284273)
I remember being told once that we don't have good simulation techniques for predicting the sounds produced by, for instance, the collision of two solid bodies. Lots of work has been done on modeling the kinematics and the optical appearance, but not on the audio side.
I don't know if this is still true.
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by pavel_lishin on Sunday August 14, 2016 @09:57AM
(#12285571)
Work has been done on this:
3-body problem is still unsolved if collisions are involved
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by dnautics on Saturday August 13, 2016 @07:11PM
(#12283542)
there's still interesting issues of numerical accuracy in the point-mass case: E.G. is there a "good" way to calculate positions to arbitrary precision given starting conditions given in arbitrary precision, and what the relationship is.
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by dnautics on Saturday August 13, 2016 @07:13PM
(#12283544)
I think the granular pile problem is still unsolved: Can you predict the cone angle of a pile of granular material given a small set of initial parameters?
Re:List of unsolved problems in physics
by Avshalom on Saturday August 13, 2016 @06:13PM
(#12283324)
if you want to include fluid mechanics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbulence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_existenc...
I heard somewhere that when we apply all our knowledge to compute the position of the moon, it is a couple of feet off when we measure it, and we don't know why.
I have been trying to find a source for that, but I've failed. Perhaps someone reading this knows? :)