Oscar II's prize competition and the error in Poincaré's memoir on the three body problem.
Abstract
In the autumn of 1890 Henri Poincaré's memoir on the three body problem was published in the journal Acta Mathematica as the winning entry in the international prize competition sponsored by Oscar II, King of Sweden and Norway, to mark his 60th birthday on January 21, 1889. Today, Poincaré's published memoir is renowned for containing the first mathematical description of chaotic behavior in a dynamical system. Correspondence preserved at the Institut Mittag-Leffler reveals that the competition was beleaguered by difficulties throughout. In particular, it has emerged that only weeks before the prize-winning memoir was due to be published, Poincaré discovered an error in his work which forced him to make very substantial changes. Indeed it was only as a result of correcting the error that he discovered the existence of what today are known as homoclinic points. This paper is an account of the troubled history of the competition together with an explanation of the error in Poincaré's memoir.
- Publication:
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Archive for History of Exact Sciences
- Pub Date:
- December 1994
- Bibcode:
- 1994AHES...48..107B
- Keywords:
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- History of Astronomy: Celestial Mechanics;
- History of Astronomy: Three-Body Problem