Abstract
A cornerstone result in Newtonian mechanics is Bertrand's Theorem concerning the behavior of the solutions of the classical two-body problem. It states that among all possible gravitational laws there are only two exhibiting the property that all bounded orbits are closed. One of these is Newtonian gravitation, the other being Hookean gravitation. We present a comprehensive proof of Bertrand's Theorem that is accessible to undergraduate students who are familiar with basic notions from advanced calculus and differential equations.
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