alt Hacker NewsSorry, but this is a word salad.
Most of the solutions always have non-zero momentum, including in the initial conditions. And https://numericaltank.sjtu.edu.cn/three-body/three-body.htm includes periodic solutions that move in all three dimensions.
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twnettytwo • today at 7:48 PM
Oh sorry, yeah - I wasn't fully awake yet when I wrote it. As a sibling comment mentioned, I was talking about the total momentum. Anyway, it was in response to GP's assertion that GGP may be correct if "we're centered on the CG", which doesn't make sense because the CG can't move.
They presumably meant non-zero total momentum. If the total momentum were non-zero, then the center of mass will be moving in a straight line, and will not return to where it began, and therefore the orbit would not be periodic.