[Curious Squirrel]

I believe 'accurately' is a major point here. The Saros Cycle is only accurate to a point. If I'm not mistaken, to the day. Not the hour, not the minute, as we had accurately predicted using RE calculations for the recent US eclipse. Can the Saros Cycle also accurately predict the path of totality, from the width of it to the length? Again, from my understanding it doesn't get much more accurate than to within an error of a few dozen miles. Far less accurate than we were given using the RE model. So no, it's nowhere near the mark of 'accurate' when compared to the tool that actually was.

NASA uses the Saros cycle.
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros.html

It uses the same tables that have always been used. They just do it to a few more decimal points these days because we have computers and more accurate clocks. We predict eclipses based on period, not some ball mechanics formula that you have all failed to produce. I mean you keep saying we use RET to predict eclipses. Prove it. Show me this globular formula. There isn't one. In fact, it is so hard to do with balls in space, it actually has a name. The three body problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

As for how accurate, in 1504 Christopher Columbus used the Saros cycle to accurately predict an eclipse. He told natives if they didn't keep giving him and his men food and nice gifts, he'd block out the sun as it would anger God. The natives then observed the sun being blocked out, soiled their grass skirts and loaded his ships with everything he needed. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1504_lunar_eclipse

Columbus used Saros cycle 105. You can see from the table we can ping it to the second! Accuracy is no issue here. Note you get totality info, duration, precise size of shadow, everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Saros_105

I'd say even then it was so accurate, that you could use the tables to predict an eclipse anywhere on earth to within a few minutes. And that's what NASA does ... the exact same way. The way its been done for 3000 years. This isn't RET. Its a clockwork phenomenon, that is as predictable as the sun rising and setting. Below is a page from the almanac Columbus used. Pretty similar looking tables to wikis offerings today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Zacuto#/media/File:AlmanachPerpetuum.jpg

PS: your recent US eclipse was Saros cycle 145. It will next appear in 2035, but only be fully visible from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But in 2053 on September 12, it'll be right over Saudi Arabia.  You guys will get it back (remember it moves 120 degrees west each time because of the 8 hours (one third)) in 2071, but it'll only be a partial for you then unless you wander a bit south to Panama.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Saros_145

PPS: Notice how when you pick something even remotely interesting, you get a proper reply. Something a bit less obvious and done to death than spotlight suns or gravity.

No, NASA talks about the Saros Cycle, and keeps them updated. This has been discussed elsewhere in the forum ad nauseum. The eclipse predictions are based upon the work of Fred Espenak who did not rely upon the Saros Cycles to formulate them. The site you linked to about the 105 cycle even credits his works (as they are requested to do) and as such cannot be shown to otherwise be that accurate. I laid out in detail how we know they are not relying on strictly the Saros Cycle (if they're even using it at all) in this post the last time this came up.

As for Christopher Colombus, did I not just say it was accurate to a day? And to within a few dozen miles? Plenty of opportunity in there for that. You don't need the type of accuracy provided by modern day calculations to use an eclipse in that manner. You just need luck.

[Dr David Thork]

Yeah, no.

NASA uses Saros to predict eclipses.

NASA has mapped every eclipse that will occur for the next 1,000 years

NASA knows this because the space agency keeps a five millennium catalog of all the eclipses (both solar and lunar) that have occurred or will occur since 1999 B.C. to the year A.D. 3000.

They even know the exact time, down to the fraction of a second, that the eclipses will occur. Here are the stats for that 2837 eclipse over Mexico.


NASA is able to make eclipse predictions because it has all of the variables: the orbit of the Earth around the sun, the orbit of the moon around the Earth, and the daily rotation of the Earth.

But these calculations aren't all that simple. For one, the moon's orbit around the Earth is constantly changing (there are actually several ways to measure the length of a lunar month, which complicates matters). Still, it boils down to this: Any given eclipse will repeat on an "eight years, 11 days, eight hours" cycle, or what's known as the Saros cycle. And though the eclipses repeat, they don't repeat in the exact same locations.

"Because the Saros period is not equal to a whole number of days, its biggest drawback is that subsequent eclipses are visible from different parts of the globe," NASA explains.

Nasa keeps the catalogues. It then works forward. It does not observe the current location of sun moon and earth and then do the calculations. It bases them on historic occurrences of the past and uses addition. Can FET do that? Sure. No three-body ball mechanics required. You can't 'debunk' FET just because we can predict an eclipse. We've been doing that for 5 millennia and advancements in clocks is the key to better predictions now than of the past. Not whirly ball magic maths.


And no. Columbus was incredibly accurate to within a few minutes.

Columbus, of course, had a copy of the almanac with him when he was stranded on Jamaica. And he soon discovered from studying its tables that on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 29, 1504, a total lunar eclipse would occur, beginning around the time of moonrise.

His biggest problem was back in 1504 it was hard to accurately gauge your longitude because clocks weren't so great. Moonrise is predicted to the minute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_rewards

The poor c*** was using an hourglass to tell the time.

The Science Of Christopher Columbus

TELLING TIME

The passage of time was noted by a sandglass that had to be turned every half hour. At night, the constellations move 15 degrees every hour, giving a reliable way to calculate the passage of time. The time of day could be determined at least three times a day: sunrise, noon and sunset. Columbus probably had tables that told him the times of sunrise and sunset for each day of the year and would have been able to determine noon by the position of the sun. During the day, the position of the sun relative to the bow, mast and stern of the ships also would give the approximate time.

If astronomers then had atomic clocks and he had a precise location ... he'd have pinged it to the second as we do now.

[Frocious]

Yeah, no.

NASA uses Saros to predict eclipses.

NASA has mapped every eclipse that will occur for the next 1,000 years

NASA knows this because the space agency keeps a five millennium catalog of all the eclipses (both solar and lunar) that have occurred or will occur since 1999 B.C. to the year A.D. 3000.

They even know the exact time, down to the fraction of a second, that the eclipses will occur. Here are the stats for that 2837 eclipse over Mexico.


NASA is able to make eclipse predictions because it has all of the variables: the orbit of the Earth around the sun, the orbit of the moon around the Earth, and the daily rotation of the Earth.

But these calculations aren't all that simple. For one, the moon's orbit around the Earth is constantly changing (there are actually several ways to measure the length of a lunar month, which complicates matters). Still, it boils down to this: Any given eclipse will repeat on an "eight years, 11 days, eight hours" cycle, or what's known as the Saros cycle. And though the eclipses repeat, they don't repeat in the exact same locations.

"Because the Saros period is not equal to a whole number of days, its biggest drawback is that subsequent eclipses are visible from different parts of the globe," NASA explains.

Nasa keeps the catalogues. It then works forward. It does not observe the current location of sun moon and earth and then do the calculations. It bases them on historic occurrences of the past and uses addition. Can FET do that? Sure. No three-body ball mechanics required. You can't 'debunk' FET just because we can predict an eclipse. We've been doing that for 5 millennia and advancements in clocks is the key to better predictions now than of the past. Not whirly ball magic maths.


And no. Columbus was incredibly accurate to within a few minutes.

Columbus, of course, had a copy of the almanac with him when he was stranded on Jamaica. And he soon discovered from studying its tables that on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 29, 1504, a total lunar eclipse would occur, beginning around the time of moonrise.

His biggest problem was back in 1504 it was hard to accurately gauge your longitude because clocks weren't so great. Moonrise is predicted to the minute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_rewards

The poor c*** was using an hourglass to tell the time.

The Science Of Christopher Columbus

TELLING TIME

The passage of time was noted by a sandglass that had to be turned every half hour. At night, the constellations move 15 degrees every hour, giving a reliable way to calculate the passage of time. The time of day could be determined at least three times a day: sunrise, noon and sunset. Columbus probably had tables that told him the times of sunrise and sunset for each day of the year and would have been able to determine noon by the position of the sun. During the day, the position of the sun relative to the bow, mast and stern of the ships also would give the approximate time.

If astronomers then had atomic clocks and he had a precise location ... he'd have pinged it to the second as we do now.

I'm aware of the Saros cycle. I am also aware that it is not nearly as accurate as the improvements we have made. The Saros cycle cannot account for things like elevation changes. It cannot account for the bumpy surface of the moon.

This one may have been linked to already: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.space.com/37128-how-to-predict-eclipse-2017-path.html

And for what it's worth, I was at the edge of totality more than a mile up in elevation. The prediction was completely accurate, including the "diamond ring" effect.

Anyway, solar eclipse predictions are only an example. Let's jump straight to the big boy: Einstein's theory of relativity and gravitational waves.

Can FET claim an accurate prediction for anything in theoretical physics?

Side note: What sort of empirical evidence do you have that Columbus was accurate down to the minute? Weird how selective you guys can be when it comes to empiricism.

[xenotolerance]

No, it can't

Thork has built a strawman out of the falsely-believed-to-be-unsolvable three body problem, such spooky math. Who cares, that's dumb. We've had multiple clarifications of how NASA predicts eclipses, and how they do not use the same techniques as Columbus did, not just because Columbus did not have a computer and a nice clock but because he did not have satellite mapping and lunar rovers.

see also: math, more math, even more math, you get the idea

This illustrates the original topic quite well: Some Flat Earth believers decline to engage in debate when it becomes obviously untenable. You don't spend 10+ years arguing the same shit online without developing a tactical sense of what battles you can and can't win. See PizzaWarrior's twitter. He'll dodge questions and point people to the wiki, and be snide about people assuming things about flat Earth belief. These are wins for a believer.

Thork didn't know this one can't be won. He's not as careful as others who don't get involved unless they're 100% confident they won't lose.

We guests get involved in everything, because we are all 100% confident we won't lose in the end. Sometimes this confidence gets pointed out, a la 'you're not arguing in good faith' or 'you haven't acknowledged the possibility you are wrong.' Well, no shit.

so yeah, don't take it serious, and don't let it get personal

[Dr David Thork]

What on earth are you going on about?

You haven't disproved you can't use Saros to predict eclipses accurately. And you won't be able to. There is a regular pattern to them occurring. If you can add, you can work them out.
NASA admit they keep 5000 years worth of data and use that and I provided a horses mouth quote for you.
At no point have I ever seen NASA say, "we monitored all the places the celestial bodies were in and as that as our datum, simulated movement to predict eclipses" because that never happened. There is no arbitrary datum point. The datums come from the historical archives.

Somehow you think RET won this debate? I showed how to predict eclipses without earth needing to be a ball. I showed NASA using it. I showed Columbus using it. I showed that the assumption that RET had a better answer was false, the three body problem is too complicated to run out 1000 years of predictions.

And if you are still in doubt, here is an article telling you WE STILL HAVEN'T SOLVED THE RET THREE BODY PROBLEM, and that we have 1223 ways of trying, none of them work and we end up just observing and using the ruddy tables to confirm which ones turned out right!

For more than 300 years, mathematicians have puzzled over the three-body problem – the question of how three objects orbit one another according to Newton’s laws. Now, there are 1223 new solutions to the conundrum, more than doubling the current number of possibilities.

No single equation can predict how three bodies will move in relation to one another and whether their orbits will repeat or devolve into chaos. Mathematicians must test each specific scenario to see if the objects will stay bound in orbit or be flung away.

The new solutions were found when researchers at Shanghai Jiaotong University in China tested 16 million different orbits using a supercomputer.

You are a liar. You are lying about the declarations of NASA. I have shown you NASA themselves saying they use table data. I've shown the three body problem still extrapolates into chaos even today and they CAN'T predict eclipses way off in the future with RET. This is a massive RET fail, and you are now resorting to lying to brush it under the carpet.

[Dr David Thork]

From the encyclopedia Britannica.

Three-body problem, in astronomy, the problem of determining the motion of three celestial bodies moving under no influence other than that of their mutual gravitation. No general solution of this problem (or the more general problem involving more than three bodies) is possible.

RET failed. It cannot use its ball-magic-maths to demonstrate accurately the movement of three globular bodies, and have that accurately predict what we actually observe. This isn't just a free pass for FET. It is absolutely damning for RET. Your maths doesn't work! You can't use it. You don't use it. There is no accurate RET maths used instead of periodic tabular info from historical records and extrapolation of that data. You just assumed and you know what happens when you assume?

image removed -junker

[Frocious]

What on earth are you going on about?

You haven't disproved you can't use Saros to predict eclipses accurately. And you won't be able to. There is a regular pattern to them occurring. If you can add, you can work them out.
NASA admit they keep 5000 years worth of data and use that and I provided a horses mouth quote for you.
At no point have I ever seen NASA say, "we monitored all the places the celestial bodies were in and as that as our datum, simulated movement to predict eclipses" because that never happened. There is no arbitrary datum point. The datums come from the historical archives.

Somehow you think RET won this debate? I showed how to predict eclipses without earth needing to be a ball. I showed NASA using it. I showed Columbus using it. I showed that the assumption that RET had a better answer was false, the three body problem is too complicated to run out 1000 years of predictions.

And if you are still in doubt, here is an article telling you WE STILL HAVEN'T SOLVED THE RET THREE BODY PROBLEM, and that we have 1223 ways of trying, none of them work and we end up just observing and using the ruddy tables to confirm which ones turned out right!

For more than 300 years, mathematicians have puzzled over the three-body problem – the question of how three objects orbit one another according to Newton’s laws. Now, there are 1223 new solutions to the conundrum, more than doubling the current number of possibilities.

No single equation can predict how three bodies will move in relation to one another and whether their orbits will repeat or devolve into chaos. Mathematicians must test each specific scenario to see if the objects will stay bound in orbit or be flung away.

The new solutions were found when researchers at Shanghai Jiaotong University in China tested 16 million different orbits using a supercomputer.

You are a liar. You are lying about the declarations of NASA. I have shown you NASA themselves saying they use table data. I've shown the three body problem still extrapolates into chaos even today and they CAN'T predict eclipses way off in the future with RET. This is a massive RET fail, and you are now resorting to lying to brush it under the carpet.

The Saros tables are used. They are not the only things that are used, as they are not accurate enough on their own. They cannot account for factors such as elevation or the shape of the moon.

Those factors actually have a very large impact on where an eclipse's path of totality will lie.

[Curious Squirrel]

So we're to Thork just sticking his fingers in his ears and proclaiming he's correct? Is that what this is? Despite even his own sources saying they're not relying on the Saros Cycle for the eclipse predictions, showing exactly where NASA says it's using things other than the Saros Cycles, and showing the math being used for this specific three-body problem? Love it.

Yes, you are correct there is no general solution to the three-body problem. But not having a general solution does not mean there can't be solutions for specific scenarios. Or that you can't use an approximation to still get exceedingly close.

On Colombus briefly after some reading: This story is all over the place in regards to how accurate it actually is. It appears Colombus might not have even written about it himself. The eclipse no doubt happened, but it's just as possible that he took credit for it after it started or similar, and later accounts fluffed up what he did. For now I'm inclined to leave it as neither a here nor there, as the history of eclipse prediction seems to corroborate that there was no way he was as accurate as you are trying to give him credit for.

[xenotolerance]

So we're to Thork just sticking his fingers in his ears and proclaiming he's correct? Is that what this is?

don't forget naming me liar and putting a picture of a donkey in the thread, that was pretty neat

The math doesn't work, we don't use it, can't use it, etc., then he links to an article about people using it. I think we're done here

[Opeo]

From the encyclopedia Britannica.

Three-body problem, in astronomy, the problem of determining the motion of three celestial bodies moving under no influence other than that of their mutual gravitation. No general solution of this problem (or the more general problem involving more than three bodies) is possible.

RET failed. It cannot use its ball-magic-maths to demonstrate accurately the movement of three globular bodies, and have that accurately predict what we actually observe. This isn't just a free pass for FET. It is absolutely damning for RET. Your maths doesn't work! You can't use it. You don't use it. There is no accurate RET maths used instead of periodic tabular info from historical records and extrapolation of that data. You just assumed and you know what happens when you assume?

There's something particularly apropos about taking a snowclone phrase that was already used to death by people who aren't clever enough to make original jokes, and then posting it in a meme. It's like the creator knew that memes were the lowest common denominator form of communication that are made to be "funny" through recognition and ad nauseum repetition instead of wit, so he cut out the middle man and just slapped on something that had already been repeated about a billion too many times.

Anyway, you're wrong, and your lack of scientific and mathematical literacy is showing. Three-body problems aren't unsolvable, it's not like there's some law of the universe that says "you can model two objects perfectly, but as soon as you add a third the laws of nature break down." The problem is that the interactions aren't possible through standard calculus. The problems are complex enough that you can't write a simple algebraic equation to solve them, but that's a far cry from mainstream mathematics not being equipped to solve them. The first (admittedly pretty inefficient) method of accurately solving three-body problems was devised in 1906 by Karl Sundman, and since then additional methods and supercomputers has made solving those problems trivial today. It's with these advanced models that NASA can get far more accuracy than Saros could ever hope to get.

Last thing, your Columbus example doesn't really work because it's a lunar eclipse rather than a solar one. Solar eclipses are incredibly geographically constrained and last 2 minutes at most, lunar eclipses last hours and are visible to anywhere on Earth that can see the Moon. It's really not impressive, nor that indicative of accuracy, that he predicted there would be an on-going lunar eclipse when the Moon rose that evening.

[Dr David Thork]

Tons of assertions, not a single source. You'll note I give you dozens of referenced quotes and sources. From you ... nothing but hot air and bluster.

Three body is unsolvable - as quoted and referenced above. And it is unsolvable because the answer always descends towards chaos theory. And that means you can be way off in no time. Hence predicting 1000 years from now ... you use the more accurate Saros tables - also referenced.

I'm not the one with my fingers in my ears, here.

The charge was that eclipse prediction is only possible with RET maths. That has been thoroughly debunked. There has been whinging about the accuracy (again without a single source as to saros table tolerances or accuracy, nor any material to show quantifiably how much better unsolvable three body mathematics is - it isn't) and the usual you must be wrong because the earth is round rhetoric. But nothing here to trouble even the most on the fence believer. It only shoves RET further away from being the answer when the model breaks down mathematically.

[Tom Bishop]

The solution to the Three Body Problem would allow us to solve problems in physics and astronomy involving the motion of three or more bodies.

There are people who claim to have solved the Three Body Problem, by creating a model of moving bodies and running iterations showing that they are able to "predict" where the bodies will be in that model, but these numeric solutions do not really provide a method for solving problems analytically. Just because you can throw some balls around in a basic gravity simulator and predict where those balls will be based on that simple model, it does not mean that you have found a solution that will allow us to model the earth, moon and sun system in the real world far into the future.

The later task, creating an analytical solution for predicting the position of bodies in an existing system of which you might not know all properties and attributes, is much more difficult, which is why an analytical solution to the Three Body Problem has remained unsolved in classical physics for over 500 years. There is not a Three Body Problem solution that been applied to the world to predict anything.

Physicists are unable to predict the motion of three bodies in a system, and it is a rather embarassing stain on classical physics. This is why NASA uses the Saros cycle to predict the Lunar Eclipse on their website, which is based on patterns of previous eclipses, rather than any geometric method. No solution exists.

[juner]

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/56295652/dont-assume-or-youll-make-an-ass-out-of-you-and-me.jpg

Don't do that. Removing the embedded image from your post. Warned.

[Curious Squirrel]

Tons of assertions, not a single source. You'll note I give you dozens of referenced quotes and sources. From you ... nothing but hot air and bluster.

Three body is unsolvable - as quoted and referenced above. And it is unsolvable because the answer always descends towards chaos theory. And that means you can be way off in no time. Hence predicting 1000 years from now ... you use the more accurate Saros tables - also referenced.

I'm not the one with my fingers in my ears, here.

The charge was that eclipse prediction is only possible with RET maths. That has been thoroughly debunked. There has been whinging about the accuracy (again without a single source as to saros table tolerances or accuracy, nor any material to show quantifiably how much better unsolvable three body mathematics is - it isn't) and the usual you must be wrong because the earth is round rhetoric. But nothing here to trouble even the most on the fence believer. It only shoves RET further away from being the answer when the model breaks down mathematically.

You've been given multiple sources on some things. Just what are you complaining about now? I even showed you precisely on the NASA website where it says eclipses are predicted using [items that aren't the Saros Cycle]. The ancients predicted lunar eclipses and such quite well (unsurprising when they're visible for half the world), but solar eclipses were not possible to predict properly until more recently. https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11846.html

Solar eclipses only became truly accurate in their predictions centuries after the Saros Cycles were created. https://www.popsci.com/people-have-been-able-to-predict-eclipses-for-really-long-time-heres-how

You were linked earlier to no less than 3 ways we've attacked the three-body problem, so continuing to pretend it's 100% unsolvable is just splitting hairs at this point. I can go digging in the last thread this covered if you like more information on that front too, as I see Tom has forgotten the information presented there as well.

[Dr David Thork]

The ancients predicted lunar eclipses and such quite well (unsurprising when they're visible for half the world), but solar eclipses were not possible to predict properly until more recently.

How more recently? Is 2500 years ago more recently?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_of_Thales

Solar eclipses only became truly accurate in their predictions centuries after the Saros Cycles were created. https://www.popsci.com/people-have-been-able-to-predict-eclipses-for-really-long-time-heres-how

You just blew up your own argument.

You were linked earlier to no less than 3 ways we've attacked the three-body problem, so continuing to pretend it's 100% unsolvable is just splitting hairs at this point. I can go digging in the last thread this covered if you like more information on that front too, as I see Tom has forgotten the information presented there as well.

Sure, RET has attacked the 3-body problem. It hasn't solved it. In other words the round earth model was the hypothesis. It doesn't give the right results when modeled. The model descends into chaos and the results get more and more wild as you go further into the future. That's what chaos theory is. That's not proof the theory works. It is proof that the model actually doesn't work as presented right now. Maybe they should have put earth in the center of the solar system with the sun and moon on top for better results?

[Opeo]

The ancients predicted lunar eclipses and such quite well (unsurprising when they're visible for half the world), but solar eclipses were not possible to predict properly until more recently.

How more recently? Is 2500 years ago more recently?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_of_Thales

Solar eclipses only became truly accurate in their predictions centuries after the Saros Cycles were created. https://www.popsci.com/people-have-been-able-to-predict-eclipses-for-really-long-time-heres-how

You just blew up your own argument.

You were linked earlier to no less than 3 ways we've attacked the three-body problem, so continuing to pretend it's 100% unsolvable is just splitting hairs at this point. I can go digging in the last thread this covered if you like more information on that front too, as I see Tom has forgotten the information presented there as well.

Sure, RET has attacked the 3-body problem. It hasn't solved it. In other words the round earth model was the hypothesis. It doesn't give the right results when modeled. The model descends into chaos and the results get more and more wild as you go further into the future. That's what chaos theory is. That's not proof the theory works. It is proof that the model actually doesn't work as presented right now. Maybe they should have put earth in the center of the solar system with the sun and moon on top for better results?

Here's the disconnect here. You're claiming mainstream science hasn't solved the three-body problem, which is categorically false and has been for over 100 years. Your evidence for this is not being able to predict solar eclipses indefinitely into the future, which is true. The further into the future you go, the less accurate these predictions get. The reason for this though isn't a failure to solve the three-body problem, it's that the Earth, Moon, and Sun only act as a three-body problem in the short term when other influences are negligible. In the long run it gets closer and closer to being an ∞-body problem because you have things like Jupiter's gravity and tidal forces slowing down the moon that have virtually no effect over 1,000 years but are noticeable over tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

However, I don't really see how this is an argument against RET, since in the short-term three-body models are magnitudes more accurate that Saros cycles, and I certainly can't see how this is an argument for the flat Earth hypothesis since it's not like using FE believers have been more accurate in their predictions based on the FE model.

[Curious Squirrel]

The ancients predicted lunar eclipses and such quite well (unsurprising when they're visible for half the world), but solar eclipses were not possible to predict properly until more recently.

How more recently? Is 2500 years ago more recently?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_of_Thales

Solar eclipses only became truly accurate in their predictions centuries after the Saros Cycles were created. https://www.popsci.com/people-have-been-able-to-predict-eclipses-for-really-long-time-heres-how

You just blew up your own argument.

You were linked earlier to no less than 3 ways we've attacked the three-body problem, so continuing to pretend it's 100% unsolvable is just splitting hairs at this point. I can go digging in the last thread this covered if you like more information on that front too, as I see Tom has forgotten the information presented there as well.

Sure, RET has attacked the 3-body problem. It hasn't solved it. In other words the round earth model was the hypothesis. It doesn't give the right results when modeled. The model descends into chaos and the results get more and more wild as you go further into the future. That's what chaos theory is. That's not proof the theory works. It is proof that the model actually doesn't work as presented right now. Maybe they should have put earth in the center of the solar system with the sun and moon on top for better results?

I love that your rebuttal is an event that historians aren't even sure actually happened. Just like the Columbus eclipse story from earlier, which as well wasn't particularly relevant to a discussion of solar eclipses.

If you believe that article in any way invalidates my earlier statement, you haven't understood my argument or statements.

Here's a brief, easy to digest description of 'solving' the three-body problem. https://www.wired.com/2016/06/way-solve-three-body-problem/
Here's a far more in depth discussion on the specifics of the moon-Earth-Sun three-body problem. http://www.afhalifax.ca/bete/DALEMBERTIMAGES/lune/gutzwiller-moon-earth-sin%20rmp.70.589.pdf

[Dr David Thork]

We are at an impasse.

You say the three body problem has been solved, despite every source I have see saying it hasn't been.
You say I can't use Saros tables to accurately predict eclipses, despite my showing you can.

That's kind of the end of the thread, huh? In the end I guess it comes down to what you want to believe.

[Frocious]

We are at an impasse.

You say the three body problem has been solved, despite every source I have see saying it hasn't been.
You say I can't use Saros tables to accurately predict eclipses, despite my showing you can.

That's kind of the end of the thread, huh? In the end I guess it comes down to what you want to believe.

You haven't even tried to debate the accuracy of the Saros tables for elevated positions.

[Curious Squirrel]

We are at an impasse.

You say the three body problem has been solved, despite every source I have see saying it hasn't been.
You say I can't use Saros tables to accurately predict eclipses, despite my showing you can.

That's kind of the end of the thread, huh? In the end I guess it comes down to what you want to believe.

I've linked you sources showing the three body problem being solved, one specifically for the Sun-Earth-moon trio. There is no GENERAL algebraic solution to the problem. THAT'S what is meant by it can't be 'solved' because each three-body set needs it's own unique set of equations.
You've shown one source talking about Saros table, and that source at the bottom, cites the source I pointed out doesn't use the Saros Cycle for it's more accurate predictions. Just because the Saros tables have that information, doesn't mean they were developed using just the Saros cycle.

You seeing what you want in a source is our issue, not the lack of sources saying what I've claimed.