The Inverse Cube Force Law

Here you see three planets. The blue planet is orbiting the Sun in a realistic way: it’s going around an ellipse.

The other two are moving in and out just like the blue planet, so they all stay on the same circle. But they’re moving around this circle at different rates! The green planet is moving faster than the blue one: it completes 3 orbits each time the blue planet goes around once. The red planet isn’t going around at all: it only moves in and out.

What’s going on here?

In 1687, Isaac...