Lucid Time!

I was lucid though it wasn't fully a dream. I think I was actually halfway awake but sleepy enough to still hold onto a dream-like state. I was only a passive observer and could feel quite clearly my real body laying in bed. I was having that genre of dream with Marcus where we are flying through space talking showing me different anomalies and the like.

I became lucid and I asked him, mostly just for fun, what the solution to the N-body problem was without iterating through it.

He showed some complicated mathematical equations and he explained that it requires "multidimensional recursive mathematics". The basic idea was you use an equation that takes the average of the mass and position of all bodies except one and treat that as a common barycenter, and then calculate the gravitational interaction for those two bodies using the standard 2-body formula. But then you must put the equation inside of itself and do that for all subsequent bodies effectively creating an infinite recursion loop since you need to know the equation's solution before you have solved it in order to solve it correctly. He explains that to the 'Aliens from Arrival' it's a high school math problem because they can perceive time non-linearly and the equation/branch of mathematics to solve it hasn't been discovered by humanity because you need a certain type of advanced quantum computer to do it.

He brings me to a place where there are three planets, a red mars like one, a gray mercury like one and a white icy one all gravitationally interacting with each other. He connects the red and gray one with a HUD line showing their barycenter and shows the solution and a bunch of complicated equations for the white icy planet. Interestingly the HUD is purple and it looks like my dream HUD/overlays not his.

I realized I had asked the question in jest but predictably, Marcus had given me a serious answer, and I tried to remember as much as I could about his explanation because it was interesting, even though in all honestly its probably not useful.

The dream carried on for awhile after that though it turned more into waking and actively guided thoughts and sleepy daydreaming after that.