The Hyperbolic Plane, Three-Body Problems, and Mnëv’s Universality Theorem

We show how to construct the hyperbolic plane with its geodesic flow as the reduction of a three-problem whose potential is proportional to $I/\Delta^2$ where $I$ is the moment of inertia of this triangle whose vertices are the locations of the three bodies and $\Delta$ is its area. The reduction method follows [11]. Reduction by scaling is only possible because the potential is homogeneous of degree $-2$. In trying to extend the assertion of hyperbolicity to the analogous family of planar $N$-body problems with three-body interaction potentials we run into Mnëv’s astounding universality theorem which implies that the extended assertion is doomed to fail.