Title Gauge Theory: from Falling Cats back to the Three-body Problem
Abstract: My career has been a journey backward in time, from gauge theory to Newton's classical N-body problem from 1667, with a layover thinking about the falling cat puzzle as reposed by Shapere and Wilczek. I sketch the journey. Along the way I plan to present and sketch proofs of two theorems.
Theorem 1. The optimal re-orientation strategy of a cat, dropped with zero angular momentum, is identical to a trajectory of a ``classical SO(3)-quark'' under the influence of a gauge theory.
Theorem 2. With a single exception, regardless of the masses, all negative energy zero angular momentum solutions to the three-body problem oscillate about collinearity.
Time permitting, I will say something about the ``geodesics that do not satisfy the geodesic equations''.