The Three Body Problem

[KEV67]

I started reading this. I was a bit surprised.  It starts off during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 60s and 70s. Intellectuals were being horribly repressed.  I am a bit surprised a Chinese author felt he could set a book at this point of Chinese history.  The other thing that surprises me is that I thought it would be hard science.  Maybe it will be but part 1 was mostly Chinese modern history.  A three body problem is a sci-fi pun. It is mathematically very difficult to predict how three bodies in space will interact and revolve around each other. I suspect three bodies are approximately similar masses.

Edited February 4 by KEV67

[France]

I read this last year and I don't think I'm clever enough for all the science that comes later in the book! I thought the beginning was fascinating  as was the game, but I started to lose enthusiasm about half way though.

[KEV67]

Surprises me this ain't been made into a film yet, but maybe it will be.

[KEV67]

The science and technology is coming a bit more to the fore. I am still in the first half. I have studied some of the technical stuff in the past, computers, radio signals, etc. However, whether I will keep up with the science in the second half, I don't know.

[KEV67]

I quite liked the chapter in which the game players made a computer processor out of soldiers holding white and black flags. 

I once read a non-fiction book called Alone in the Universe. The writer said the earth was very unusual in that our solar system is stable.  There are not many asteroids thrown hither and thither and making nuisances of themselves. The relative stability of the solar system allowed complex life to evolve, along with some other happy happenstances. So I doubt pretty much intelligent life could evolve in a solar system with three stars.

[KEV67]

I wonder if what Cixin Liu wrote about the sun potentially being able to amplify signals is true. It sounds plausible, but maybe it is the science fiction equivalent of poetic licence.

[France]

As I said earlier the physics got too much for me! I tend to accept worlds in science fiction as I'm not knowledgeable enough to say 'That couldn't be so,' though my daughter who has a degree in chemistry gets very cross about impossibilities!

[KEV67]

I learnt something I did not know. Alpha Centauri is a three body system, although, if I understood right, one of the stars is not visible. 

 

Edit: Alpha Centauri is not a three body system like in the book. It is a binary star system with a red dwarf somewhere in the vicinity, but still a pretty long way away from the other two, which orbit around each other quite closely.  It is not a chaotic system.

Edited February 21 by KEV67

[KEV67]

This book reminds me a little of a book by Michael Crichton called Climate of Fear. They both have environmental terrorist groups. Michael Crichton was not a great believer in climate change. 

[KEV67]

I am interested in this self-interpreting code used to transmit interstellar messages. Are these a thing? Self-correcting protocols are used in telecommunications. If a bit within a byte gets flipped then at the end of the message there is a code which will not add up properly. In a lot of cases the erroneous bit can be identified and flipped back. Self-interpreting, though? Would that not imply some universal language? The only universal language I can think of is mathematics, but how would you translate any mathematical symbol or equation to any everyday word? Interesting idea, however. 

 

Maybe I was not paying enough attention in the chapter in which two protons were sent across interstellar space. How were these protons detected and identified. 

[KEV67]

When I was a teenager in Hove, we had a physics student from the University of Sussex as a lodger. He talked a bit about multi-dimensional space. He said there were ten or eleven of them, but most of them were curled up on themselves. I don't know what he is talking about. There are some mind-bending videos on YouTube about 4 dimensional space (not including time). You can make representations of four dimensional objects in three dimensions, just like you can represent a cube on paper. IIRC you can even represent a four dimensional cube on paper. As the book says, an interesting thing is that if you lived in four-dimensional space you would be able to see inside three-dimensional objects. 

 

Edited February 28 by KEV67

[KEV67]

There was a fair bit of science in this. Mention of the strong nuclear force reminded me of a booked by Isaac Asimov called 'The Gods Themselves'. The McGuffin in that was the strong nuclear force. That is the force that keeps all the photons and neutrons in the kernel of the atom together. There is also the weak nuclear force. I am a bit vague about that. It has something to do with beta radiation. A level physics was not entirely wasted.

[KEV67]

Netflix has filmed The Three Body Problem. I think they are streaming it soon. I doubt the Chinese will be happy. The Chinese film/broadcast industry has attempted to film it twice, but they did not have the resource.

[France]

The mind boggles a bit! I wonder how they are going to manage to get the science over or if they won't bother to try.

 

[lunababymoonchild]

On 2/28/2024 at 8:22 AM, KEV67 said:

As the book says, an interesting thing is that if you lived in four-dimensional space you would be able to see inside three-dimensional objects. 

 

Without being pedantic, I can look inside a three dimensional box, you just lift the lid. 🤪😜

[KEV67]

1 hour ago, lunababymoonchild said:

Without being pedantic, I can look inside a three dimensional box, you just lift the lid. 🤪😜

Good point. But in a 4D space you could see inside a 3D box without lifting the lid.

[KEV67]

3 hours ago, France said:

The mind boggles a bit! I wonder how they are going to manage to get the science over or if they won't bother to try.

 

I wondered about that too.

[lunababymoonchild]

1 hour ago, KEV67 said:

Good point. But in a 4D space you could see inside a 3D box without lifting the lid.

True

[KEV67]

8 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

True

My entire knowledge of this comes from a woman off YouTube. She could have been telling me anything. 

 

It reminds of a Hawkwind album I had. It was about these 2 dimensional alien invaders. You could see them on the album sleeve.