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The Three-Body Problem
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The Three-Body Problem - The Science and the Science Fiction (April 2015)
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One problem I had with the sophons, is, if they can reproduce themselves to an unlimited extent, which is sounds like they can do, given all the other cool things they can do, why couldn't they simply conquer Earth by themselves, without having to wait for the Trisolarian ships to show up.
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Maybe it's just not a priority that they conquer Earth. Presumably the Trisolarian ships have technology that can do that handily, so as long as the Sophons (I spelled it wrong before) prevent the development of advanced technologies, do they really need to do more?
The other problem I have with the Trisolarian's sophon scheme is that I feel it over-emphasizes the role of high-energy physics in scientific and technological progress. Yes, it is important, and yes, crippling all of the Earth's progress in high-energy physics would slow progress down considerably, but I do not believe it would bring progress to a crashing halt. There would have to be a lot more reliance on simulations, and a lot more study of small-scale effects. Also, you could probably learn a fair bit just by observing which experiments that the Trisolarians decided to mess with. But I suspect a high-energy physicist would probably disagree with me here ;)
Mod
But I think the end of the book left us with the idea of what you're saying to some extent, that humans are going to try and survive by continuing to develop the 'lessor' technologies.
I remember a line from somewhere -- "Compared to biological weapons, a nuke's just a big firecracker."
For the most part, the science was beyond my ability to judge its feasibility. Quantum physics is not my cup of tea. But, I don't need the science to be real or even feasible to enjoy the story. What bogged me down a bit, however, were the high level math discussion or descriptions. Although, I must say that I was quite taken by what could happen to protons in different dimensions!
I was lost by the proton stuff. I thought it was quite an interesting concept that the number of dimensions could affect the size in this dimension, and the whole thing made me think fondly (as I often do) of the book Flatland by Edwin A Abbot (which if you haven't read and you love stuff to do with dimensions and geometry, you really really should). But I don't feel he explained it well enough to really drive it home for me, and I agree that how it was used to halt progress seemed a but of a stretch.By the way, another book that this made me think of it terms of using some of the hard science concepts was Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, which I very much suspect anyone who loved this book will also love. It actually incorporates even more crazy science and does it very well, but is perhaps less good on character (or at least, human character -- the aliens are pretty good).
Forward is an actual physicist -- you might expect him to get his science right. The whole thing with the protons for some reason reminded me (now that I think of it) of Stanisław Lem's work, particularly in the mode of The Cyberiad or Tales of Pirx the Pilot. But I can't really say why.
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Peter, it's been awhile since I've read Lem, but I can see the intelligent protons as something that he might have had, especially in the Cyberiad, as you suggested. But with a little adsurdism thrown in for good measure.
Terry wrote: "I was lost by the proton stuff. I thought it was quite an interesting concept that the number of dimensions could affect the size in this dimension, and the whole thing made me think fondly (as I o..."Dragon's Egg and Flatland sound interesting. I've added them to my TBR. Thanks, Terry, for the tip!
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This faster-than-light communication is based on an actual phenomenon in quantum physics, coined as "spooky action at a distance" by Einstein. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/...
I thought someone had referenced the movie Interstellar in one of the discussions but I cannot locate it. I saw the movie this past weekend and the quantum physics in it reminded me of the Third Body. There was discussion of how three dimensions looked different from two dimensions and then the five dimensions that pilot found himself in near the end - adding time and gravity - was wild. The pilot was sending messages from the future to his daughter and himself in the past!
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Whitney wrote: "I made a passing reference to it in message 10, above, after Terry mentioned "Flatland" in regard to multiple dimensional space. I did like the 5 dimensional tesseract in Interstellar. And the robo..."Yes, the robots were very cool. They had great personalilties.
Mod
Yeah they did! I loved how those personalities, along with their programing parameters and the limit of their free agency, all raised implicit questions about artificial intelligences and how humans interact with them - questions that people are inevitably going to have to confront. Another movie out now that really examines those issues is “Ex Machina”, which I thought was brilliant.
I know I’m way off on a tangent, but, hey, I did say this was a geek safe zone.
Whitney wrote: "The Trisolarians mentioned how they will be able to instantly communicate with the Sophons on Earth via matched Sophons on Trisolaris. Looks like this will be a major plot point in the next book in..."Spooky action at a distance doesn't actually let you communicate faster than light. From the article linked:
The basic idea here is to think about the transfer of information. Entanglement allows one particle to instantaneously influence another but not in a way that allows classical information to travel faster than light. This resolved the paradox with special relativity but left much of the mystery intact.
Also, given that FTL communication is equivalent to being able to communicate across time (see here for a discussion), it would also mean that in the universe of The Three-Body Problem, causality would be a local, tentative condition, not the absolute we generally believe it to be.
Mod
I said "based on an actual phenomenon", not that anyone is actually communicating faster than light using quantum entanglement. That's the "fiction" part of the science fiction. There's quite a bit of interesting debate as well as thought experiments about the phenomenon, since it's not something that can be directly tested. Einstein has an intuitive objection to the whole concept, hence his somewhat denigrating (but still cool) "spooky action at a distance".
A Chinese physicist just published a book to talk about the physics in TBP trilogy.http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%9B%BE%E4%B9%...
:)
Mod
http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%9B%BE%E4%B9%...
:)"
Cool! Now, if you could just translate it for me? That'd be great, thanks! :-)
But, seriously - if you are reading it, it would be great if you could post some of the insights.
Whitney wrote: "Zhao wrote: "A Chinese physicist just published a book to talk about the physics in TBP trilogy.http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%9B%BE%E4%B9%...
:)"
Cool! Now, if you could just translate it..."
I'd like to if I could :)
I have to say I don't fully understand the theories that referenced by this book. You may have to find another physicist to properly translate it I think.
And on the other hand, you wouldn't want to read it now. Most of the book are relevant to the next two books of TBP (because there is much more interesting stuff there), you don't want to read spoiler, do you?
Mod
How are the next two books? In a vague, spoiler-free way, of course. Do they have the same melding of character and science as the first one? How far in the future does the second one start?
Whitney wrote: "Ken Liu said that one of the big challenges in translating this book was that he had to learn so much science. I want to send a copy to Neil Degrasse Tyson in the hopes he'll do an episode of StarT..."I didn't like TBP very much when I firstly finish reading the first book. I was even disappointed because I thought Liu would get some improvement on characters and languages, while TBP didn't show any improvement. Actually I thought it was worse, Wang Miao is the worst primary character I ever read. I always believe he can be safely replaced by a robot like R2D2.
Characters are better in next two books -- but still far behind some master pieces like Hyperion -- but it doesn't matter anymore, because the plot it-self had turned me into a fan of TBP trilogy.
Liu did a really great job to build two fascinating stories. Each of them has a well-thought core idea/theory, and is carefully planned and very well developed. They are filled with philosophy and wisdom. The ideas are so unique and persuasive that many people have totally changed their view to the universe after reading the next two books.
The next books melt even more science than the fist one. The second one start immediately after the first book, and the whole story ends at ... well, you just need to know it lasts longer than
any stories that you ever know :).
Mod
Comparing to Hyperion is setting the bar pretty high. It seems to me that Simmons puts characters and writing quality first, whereas Liu puts science first. Based on what you've said, I'm still eager for the next two, but I won't hold any great hopes for character development. I'm glad you dropped by to give us a bit of a preview.
Now I need to go read Hyperion again, it's been years. I probably recommended that book to more people than any other after I first read it.
Mod
I'm not sure it would have been possible to pack as many ideas and as much science into this book and also develop the characters more. I guess it didn't bother me too much because I thought the concept and where it was going was so intriguing.
Whitney wrote: "People have commented in the general thread about the thinness of the characters, and it's hard to disagree. I would make an exception for Ye Wenjie, though. Did you think she wasn't done well eith..."Yes, I agree that Ye is one of the best-built characters. There's a short part (but a vital part) about her in the beginning of the next book. She did something contradicted what she had done, which makes her more interesting. Don't take this as spoiler, because you wouldn't know why I say this before you finishing reading the 2nd book :)
And, glad to meet another Hyperion fan here :-)
Marc wrote: "Thanks for sneak peak into the next books Zhao! You managed to make them sound pretty enticing without giving anything away :)I'm not sure it would have been possible to pack as many ideas and as..."
Agree. Although I'm keeping complaining the characters, the language style and even the structure balance problems of TBP trilogy, I still think it's still one of the best few sci-fi stories I've ever read.
Peter wrote: "Whitney wrote: "The Trisolarians mentioned how they will be able to instantly communicate with the Sophons on Earth via matched Sophons on Trisolaris. Looks like this will be a major plot point in ..."You are confusing communication with "transmission"-- the reason why communication via quantum entanglement is instantaneous is that there is NO (FTL) transmission involved.
Chinese scientists have already successfully tested it across Qinghai Lake, though there huge IRL challenges to solved before we can ever use it the way the Trisolarians did in the Three Body Problem:
Firstly, quantum entanglement merely communicates (NOT transmits) an "on-off" state: i.e. a change in the specific "state" (spin) of one particle will be reflected instantaneously in the "state" (spin) of the correspondingly quantum entangled particle-- so "coding" complex messages into a series of "on-off" (spin) states can be problematic.
Secondly, sufficient intervening masses, phenomena or even distance may disrupt or otherwise affect the quantum entanglement-- that's why the Chinese conducted the experiment across Qinghai Lake (only 60km? of low-density air).
IOW, it basically works just like the "ansible" principle used for instantaneous communication in Ursula LeGuin's Hainish novels... except that she had to make things up like the ansible, because no one has sufficiently discovered/proven quantum entanglement in 1960s.
Err, no. Quantum entanglement can be used to cause changes to happen instantly at a distance, but the information needed to interpret those changes still needs to travel at light speed or slower. If you simply measure the state of the entangled particle, its state will appear random to you (even if its entangled mate will have the opposite value), which is not useful. You can change the state of the entangled particle, but that breaks the entanglement, so any measurement of the state of the other particle will not be related to the state of yours. See here for a much more detailed description.
Peter wrote: "Err, no. Quantum entanglement can be used to cause changes to happen instantly at a distance, but the information needed to interpret those changes still needs to travel at light speed or slower. I..."Err, your answer makes no sense-- the instantaneous changes caused to the quantum entangled particle from/by the 1st particle IS ITSELF information....
But like I said, one of the greatest IRL challenges to communicating via quantum entanglement is "coding" complex messages/info into those changes of states and then "de-coding" complex messages/info from those changes of states.
That is the FICTIONAL (Trisolarian Science) part of the "sci-fi" in the Three Body Problem Trilogy--so if you are saying that it can't be done IRL (Earth Science),... err, ok, then I guess you win the (strawman) "argument" (of how quantum entanglement works IRL)?
Instantaneous Trisolarian communication via quantum entangled Sophons-- none of which exists IRL-- still does not involve any FTL transmission in the FICTION of Three Body Problem Trilogy.
The author used the term "quantum entanglement" which is a real world term with real world meaning. If the author is decide that this works differently in their universe, then either they should use a different term to describe what is clearly a different thing, or they are writing some form of science fantasy, not science fiction. Really, this is no different, if less familiar, then claiming gravity makes you fall up in the book's universe.
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
The Cyberiad (other topics)Tales Of Pirx The Pilot (other topics)
Flatland (other topics)
Dragon's Egg (other topics)
I don’t think a background in science is necessary to the enjoyment of this book, but I do think it probably adds a level of appreciation. Anyone in this discussion who has little background in science, I’d like to hear how you think that may have affected your reading of the book.
Guy mentioned his appreciation of the imagery in the three body game in the “general” thread. I agree, this was a highlight, although I felt a little chagrined that I didn’t figure out what was going on - considering the name of the book as well as the game. I loved how the scientists’ speculation in the game largely mirrored that of Renaissance scholars trying to model our own solar system.
Here’s an article on tardigrades, or water bears. Little critters that dehydrate themselves when water is short and who can live in that state for years. http://www.popularmechanics.com/space...
Liu said he hadn’t heard of these guys before writing the book, and he had thought “living in a dehydrated state violated fundamental biological principles”. Any evolutionary biologists out there care to weigh in on the alien physiology? Would developing an advanced civilization in those conditions be possible?
Quite a few things struck me as possible scientific thought experiments made real, such as the application of Nano-technology. I’m lost when it comes to the proton unfolding leading to the creation of the ‘saphons’ (which is a great name). As I understand it, string theory posits that multi-dimensional particles “fold” into our 4 dimensional universe. If the ‘unfolding’ done by the Trisolarians is something even theoretically possible or just a really neat idea I couldn’t say. Any quantum physicists out there?
There’s a couple things for a start. What else about this science in this book stood out to people, either as mind-blowingly cool, or ridiculously impractical?