Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)

by Liu Cixin

“The three dimensions. In string theory, excepting time, the universe has ten dimensions. But only three are accessible at the macroscopic scale, and those three form our world. All the others are folded up in the quantum realm.” “I think string theory provides an explanation.” “Some think that it is only when two strings encounter each other and some qualities are canceled out that the dimensions are unfolded into the macroscopic, and dimensions above three will never have such chances for encountering each other.… I don’t think much of this explanation. It is not mathematically beautiful. Like I said, this is the universe’s three and three hundred thousand syndrome.”

“The three dimensions. In string theory, excepting time, the universe has ten dimensions. But only three are accessible at the macroscopic scale, and those three form our world. All the others are folded up in the quantum realm.” “I think string theory provides an explanation.” “Some think that it is only when two strings encounter each other and some qualities are canceled out that the dimensions are unfolded into the macroscopic, and dimensions above three will never have such chances for encountering each other.… I don’t think much of this explanation. It is not mathematically beautiful. Like I said, this is the universe’s three and three hundred thousand syndrome.”

People usually resorted to this analogy: Imagine a race of flat beings living inside a two-dimensional picture. No matter how rich or colorful the picture was, the flat people could only see the profile of the world around them. In their eyes, everything consisted of line segments of various lengths. Only when such a two-dimensional being was taken up out of the picture into three-dimensional space and looking down on the world could he see the entirety of the image. This analogy simply expressed in some more detail the indescribability of experiencing four-dimensional space. A person looking back upon the three-dimensional world from four-dimensional space for the first time realized this right away: He had never seen the world while he was in it. If the three-dimensional world were likened to a picture, all he had seen before was just a narrow view from the side: a line. Only from four-dimensional space could he see the picture as a whole. He would describe it this way: Nothing blocked whatever was placed behind it. Even the interiors of sealed spaces were laid open. This seemed a simple change, but when the world was displayed this way, the visual effect was utterly stunning. When all barriers and concealments were stripped away, and everything was exposed, the amount of information entering the viewer’s eyes was hundreds of millions times greater than when he was in three-dimensional space. The brain could not even process so much information right away.

This is my favorite part. I have always thought of being in 4 dimensions as seeing all times of an object from it's birth to its death. Not as seeing all the insides of everything!

This sensation of four-dimensionality impressed itself upon the soul, and gave the observers the experience of seeing the mountain contained in a mustard seed described in Buddhist parables.

This sensation of four-dimensionality impressed itself upon the soul, and gave the observers the experience of seeing the mountain contained in a mustard seed described in Buddhist parables.

do, the Ring sent a second bitmap to the pinnace: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 1, 4, 2, 1, 5, 9. Then a third bitmap: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 16, 6, 10, 10, 4, 7. A fourth: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 19, 5, 1, 15, 4, 8. A fifth: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 7, 2, 16, 4, 1, 14.

do, the Ring sent a second bitmap to the pinnace: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 1, 4, 2, 1, 5, 9. Then a third bitmap: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 16, 6, 10, 10, 4, 7. A fourth: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 19, 5, 1, 15, 4, 8. A fifth: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 7, 2, 16, 4, 1, 14.

Are you going to attack us? I’m a tomb; I’m dead; I won’t attack anyone. There is no dark forest state between spaces of different dimensions. The lower-dimensional space cannot threaten the higher-dimensional space, and the resources of the lower-dimensional space are of no use to the higher-dimensional space. But the dark forest exists everywhere between those sharing the same dimensions. Can you give us any suggestions? Leave this puddle immediately. You are thin pictures. You’re fragile. If you stay in the puddle, you’ll turn into tombs in no time.… Wait, there seem to be fish on your pinnace.

I am still confused about the tomb. What do the rest of you who have read this think this means?

Have we encountered them before? Think about the Earth: It’s been careening through space for several billion years. Is it not possible that it had entered a four-dimensional fragment in the past?”

Does this refer to anything from the very beginning of the book?

Death is the only lighthouse that is always lit. No matter where you sail, ultimately, you must turn toward it. Everything fades in the world, but Death endures.”

This is poetic.