History
Since the discovery of Newton's law of universal gravitation in the 17th century, the stability of the Solar System has preoccupied many mathematicians, starting with Laplace. The stable orbits that arise in a two-body approximation ignore the influence of other bodies. The effect of these added interactions on the stability of the Solar System is very small, but at first it was not known whether they might add up over longer periods to significantly change the orbital parameters and lead to a completely different configuration, or whether some other stabilising effects might maintain the configuration of the orbits of the planets.
It was Laplace who found the first answers explaining the remarkable dance of the Galilean moons (see below). It is fair to say that this general field of study has remained very active since then, with plenty more yet to be understood (e.g., how interactions of moonlets with particles of the rings of giant planets result in maintaining the rings).
Read more about this topic: Orbital Resonance
Famous quotes containing the word history:
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)