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two-body problem

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Finding the motion, relative to one another, of two objects, where the position of each affects the motion of the other.
  • noun humorous The difficulty in obtaining employment for two people who wish to reside near one another.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I was far from the first woman to have to choose between career and family. But in our case, there was the added wrinkle that both of us were seeking academic careers in physics, which severely limited our options. This challenge is common enough in the academic world that it has its own nickname borrowed from a well-known problem in physics — the “two-body problem.”

    The Forgotten Half-Life of Women in Physics The MIT Press Reader 2025

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