A rocket launch. Our nearest stellar neighbor. A Netflix show. All of these things have something in common: They must contend with the "three-body problem." But exactly what is this thorny physics ...

Netflix adapted a popular novel into a complex hard sci-fi series that trusts viewers to engage with its scientific concepts.

This video explains the science behind the three-body problem, exploring why predicting the motion of three interacting bodies is so complex and why it matters in physics and astronomy. State of ...