The Few Body Problem

th Coinciding with the 300 anniversary of the publication of Newton's Principia The International Astronomical Union organized the colloquium No. 96 "The Few Body Problem" in Turku, Finland, June 14.-19.1987. It provided an opportunity to review the progress in the very field which caused Newton a headache, as Victor Szebehely reminded the audience in his introductory remarks. It is a measure of the difficulty and complication of the few body problem that even after 300 years so many aspects of the problem are still unsolved. To quote Szebehely again, "Sir Isaac established the rules, Poincare presented the challenges". Many of these challenges are reviewed in the present proceedings. The gravitational few body problem cuts across the borders of established disciplines. The participants of the colloquium came from departments as different as Aerospace Engineering, Astronomy, Theoretical Physics, Physics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Planetology, Geodesy, Celestial Mechanics and Space Science. The few body problem is a problem of practical significance in many fields and the main aim of the colloquium was to bring together people with research interests in this area, many of whom normally attend different conferences.