[math-fun] Donald Saari on Dark Matter

Clark & Meeker sent me Saari's paper. One thing that is ludicrous in his paper is stability. Saari says he will consider a solution of the equations of motion to be "stable" if it keeps the moment of inertia time-invariant. That is like saying that a pencil balanced on its point is "stable" because its potential energy, according to the exact solution, stays constant. Utter hogwash, and Saari sacrifices most of any teeny tiny hope he might have to producing physically relevant results and being taken seriously, with that decision. What is the actual stability status of Saari's "spider web" configurations? You will not find out by reading his paper.