Linear and Regular Celestial Mechanics

Our presentation of some fundamental domains of celestial mechanics requires no special preliminary knowledge; however, the chosen mathe matical method is new in so far as the pure two-body motion is described by linear differential equations, which even have constant coefficients. In other words an equivalence between the Keplerian motion and a harmonic oscillation is established; this approach to celestial mechanics will be referred to as the linear theory. Besides the possibility of the mutu ...