system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why can't the three-body problem be solved? 

In school teachers always said it was unsolvable and left it at that and I am now doing second year physics in uni and it's again taken as axiomatic that we cannot solve it. What is it about it that presents a problem?
gpt
It isn't a direct answer to your question, that has been answered elsewhere in the thread.

The correct statement is the three body problem can't be solved *analytically*. It is very routine to solve n-body problems numerically with a differential equation solving routine. Although the answer can never be as precise it can be very accurate. All the spectral lines from ions who have lost more than one electron for example is an n body problem and yet we know the spectral lines of Iron XIV etc very accurately.