ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Two-body problem in general relativity

Okay, so imagine you have two toys, let's call them Teddy and Dolly. Teddy and Dolly love to play together and always want to be near each other. But sometimes, Teddy and Dolly move around and it's hard to predict where they will end up. This is kind of like what happens when you have two really heavy objects in space, like two stars, and they are attracted to each other by gravity.

Now, in space, gravity is really strong and it can sometimes cause weird things to happen. In fact, when you have two really heavy objects, like stars, moving around each other in space, it can be really hard to predict where they will end up. This is called the "two-body problem" in physics.

So, let's imagine that Teddy and Dolly are actually two stars in space. The stars move around each other because of gravity – just like how Teddy and Dolly move around each other because they like being close. But there's one important difference – stars are so heavy that they can actually warp space and time around them. This is called "general relativity."

So when you have two stars moving around each other in space, not only do they feel the pull of gravity, but they also warp the space and time around them. And this can make it even harder to predict where they will end up.

Scientists use math to try and figure out how two stars will move in space, even with all the warping of space and time caused by general relativity. But it's still really hard, like trying to guess where Teddy and Dolly will end up if they are moving around really fast.

In general relativity, the two-body problem involves figuring out how two really heavy objects (like stars) will move around each other in space, taking into account the warping of space and time caused by their massive gravitational pull. But it's a really complicated problem, and scientists are still working on figuring it out!