I wrote my thesis
under Jerry Marsden.
Work on geometric phases and
Berry's phase ,
led me to the falling cat problem which led me
into subRiemannian geometry, then
control theory,
and
finally to the three-body problem . (Think
of the three body problem as an idealized cat
consisting of three point masses. )
Most of my work in the last twenty-odd years is in the classical
N-body problem
and grew out of my early three-body work.
My two most cited papers are the
figure eight paper with
Chenciner
and the coin flips paper with
Diaconis and Holmes.
R.M. , April 2, 2025.
If I had to squeeze myself into one mathematical box, it would be the box of
geometric mechanics