Talk:Characteristic energy

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Energy

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Etymology?

Why the subscript 3?

What are C₁ and C₂? - 71.166.96.62 (talk) 19:40, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this notation came ultimately from Forest Ray Moulton's text An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics (chapter 5, 2nd rev. ed., 1914.) He analyzes the two-body problem and defines constants of the motion c_i, i=1, ..., 4. c₁ is proportional to the total angular momentum of the system, and c₂ fixes the origin of the time axis. Dmoews (talk) 17:47, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]