The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cuixin

 

 

The Three Body Problem

By Liu Cixin (刘慈欣)

The Three Body Problem requires its reader to have a bit more than a passing interest in modern physics. I don’t just mean Newton’s classical model, and Einstein's Relativity, but also Quantum Mechanics, the recent discoveries from particle accelerators experiments, String Theory, and it’s associated multidimensional analysis. It doesn’t require the math, fortunately.

The big story is the first contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life. Through an interactive computer game developed by an earth human waiting for their arrival, we learn the “real world” physics problem of a planet that “orbits” three suns. By “orbits”, I mean this planet, Trisolaris, is caught in the gravitational fields of three distinct “suns” (stars) that while also mutually entrapped in each others gravity, vary in every other important aspect (mass, velocity, vectorial direction of movement, etc). Life on this planet is a series of astronomical disasters, and the dominant species has evolved to survive both long and short periods of intense cold and heat and tectonic catastrophes.

The three body problem is a famous physics conundrum, first practically approached by Amerigo Vespucci, the travelling mapmaker, from whom the continents of the western hemisphere are named. The moon, earth and sun are three bodies and Vespucci attempted to use the predicted locations of the moon and sun to determine his position somewhere near Brazil. He predicted wrong.  Newton had not yet been born, so he based his estimate on past locations, and progressions of motion, which don’t really work on any regular basis. In reality, there is not a general mathematical solution to the problem, although there are rules for “special situations” such as the moon, earth and sun, discovered centuries later.

The story is extremely rich in various other physics problems, such as string theory, quantum mechanics, and of course in the general and special theory of relativity. In the English translation of Three Body, the story starts in the 1970s, in China during the Cultural Revolution. I have a Chinese version of the story that skips this beginning, probably because it really shows how embarrassingly awful the CR really was. Ye Wenjie refuses to denounce her father to the Red Guards, and is exiled, and is denounced again when she reads Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring”, and tries to warn people about the dangers to the environment. She ends up with a menial position on the “Red Coast” base with a primitive radio telescope. But her skill and knowledge, (she learned from her father, a famous physicist) mean she is utilized, regardless of her political “unreliability”. Listening to the signals on the radio telescope, she gets the first message from the aliens, the Trisolarians. The sender also warns her not to reply, because the sender is a traitor, and does not want his planet to discover another planet, because Trisolarians will conquer and destroy it. 

One thing I learned in my very shallow and superficial exploration of classical Chinese is that stories have many levels of meaning. Scholars told allegories using figures from the Chinese past to comment on the Emperor's actions.  I am not sure if this was Liu's meaning, but I saw Wen listening for and receiving a message through a radio telescope as a symbol of Chinese isolation from anything in the West. It tells of the longing to make contact with anyone and only having primitive equipment to do it with.  When I lived in Beijing in the 1980s, a decade after the end of the Cultural Revolution, I kept in touch with my family by riding my bike to the telegraph office.

The Chinese version of Three Body starts 50 pages and 40 years beyond all that 1970s history. The full uncensored version, translated to English in the West, is also readily available in Chinese on the mainland, even as a Chinese “Audible”.  Chinese people have relatively easy access to the uncensored version.

But when I did read the first fifty pages in the Chinese version, I think the effect was a more exciting opening, from a story-telling perspective. Its a familiar world, and are thrust into the action, with sharply defined characters, and powerful tension ratcheted up right away at a meeting with an international group of military leaders, scientists, and security experts, American Generals, Russians, Chinese, all scared shitless, trying to come up with a common defense strategy against an undefined extraterrestrial threat. A Chinese detective, Da Shi, a chain-smoking, profane, emotionally calloused, unsentimental cop, is the central character at this meeting. The story started from this point, has a “noir” feeling, kind of Chinese Raymond Chandler yarn. It drags the reader in immediately. But without the background about “Red Coast” base, the reader will eventually be lost, (as I was), because the backstory is critical to understanding why characters act and feel the way they do. It is so much more than a sci-fi “whodunit”.

Once the world knows the invasion is coming (a couple of hundred years in the future, because they are travelling at 10% light speed) we will divide up into factions, one so filled with self-hatred that they will destroy the people of the earth to make it easier for the “Trisolarian” invaders, another that thinks they can help the Trisolarians find a solution to the three-body problem, and somehow not have to invade. And another group that just wants to survive with the Trisolarian as their overlords.

It is the first novel of a Trilogy, and there are two more books to read.  It is definitely not a “beach read’. But if you want to understand the rise of China,, this book will reflect the choices people needed to make it in the peculiar circumstances of China's recent history.  Liu Cuixin's novel starts at the “Frontiers of Science” and pushes borders way beyond what I have read anywhere else.


Translation



读者对三体问题的需求，远不止是对现代物理学的兴趣。我的意思不仅仅是牛顿的工作和相对论，还有量子力学，从粒子加速器实验，弦理论，以及相关的多维分析中得到的最新发现。幸运的是，它不需要数学。

大故事是第一次接触外星智慧生命。通过一个由地球人开发的等待他们到来的交互式计算机游戏，我们了解了一个围绕着三个太阳运行的行星的“现实世界”物理问题。我所说的“轨道”，是指这颗行星，即三极行星，被困在三个不同的“太阳”（恒星）的引力场中，虽然它们彼此都被引力所束缚，但在其他每个重要方面（质量、速度、运动的矢量方向等）都不同。地球上的生命是一系列的天文灾难，主要物种的进化经历了长期和短期的强烈冷热和构造灾难。

“三体”对读者的第一个要求，不仅仅是对现代物理学的短暂兴趣。我不仅仅指牛顿和相对论，还有量子力学、粒子加速器实验、弦理论和相关多维分析的最新发现。大故事是第一次接触外星智慧生命。这个故事很大程度上是通过一个互动的电脑游戏来讲述的，通过解释一个围绕着三个太阳运行的行星的“现实世界”物理问题。我所说的“轨道”，是指被困在三个不同的“太阳”（恒星）的引力场中，它们虽然彼此都被引力所束缚，但在其他每个重要方面（质量、速度、运动的矢量方向等）都不同。地球上的生命是一系列的天文灾难，主要物种的进化经历了长期和短期的强烈冷热和构造灾难。

三体问题是一个著名的物理难题，首先实际上是由旅行地图绘制者Amerigo Vespucci提出的，他将西半球的大陆命名为。月球、地球和太阳是三个天体，韦斯普奇试图利用月球和太阳的预测位置来确定他在巴西附近的位置. 他预测不对。牛顿还没有出生，所以他根据过去的位置和运动的进展来估计，而这些在任何常规的基础上都不起作用。事实上，这个问题并没有一个一般的数学解决方案，尽管有一些“特殊情况”的规则，如几个世纪后发现的月球、地球和太阳。

这个故事非常丰富，包含了各种其他物理问题，如弦理论、量子力学，当然还有广义和狭义相对论。在《三体》的英译中，故事始于20世纪70年代，文革时期的中国。我有一个故事的中文版本跳过了这个开头，可能是因为它真的显示了CR是多么令人尴尬。叶文杰拒绝向红卫兵揭发父亲，被流放，读到瑞秋·卡尔森的《寂静的春天》，又一次被揭发，试图警告人们对环境的危害。

最后，她用一个原始的射电望远镜在“红岸”基地做了一个半月形的姿势。但是她的技能和知识（她从她父亲，一位著名的物理学家那里学习）意味着她被利用了，不管她的政治“不可靠”。她听到射电望远镜上的信号后，收到了外星人的第一条信息，那就是三亚。发信人还警告她不要回复，因为发信人是叛徒，不希望他的星球发现另一个星球，因为特里索拉人会征服并摧毁它。

我在对古典汉语非常肤浅和肤浅的探索中学到的一件事是，故事有很多层次的意义。学者们用中国历史上的人物来评论皇帝的行为。我不确定这是否是刘的意思，但通过射电望远镜收听和接收信息，这是中国与西方世界隔绝的象征。它讲述了渴望与任何人接触，只有原始的设备来做这件事。20世纪80年代，文化大革命结束10年后，我住在北京，骑着自行车去电报局，与家人保持联系。

中文版的《三体》从20世纪70年代的50页到40年。完整的未经审查的版本，翻译成英文在西方，也很容易在大陆上的中文，即使是中文“可听”。中国人相对容易接触到未经审查的版本。

但当我读到中文版的前50页时，我认为从讲故事的角度来看，效果是一个更令人兴奋的开场白。它是一个熟悉的世界，并被推进行动，具有鲜明的特征，在一次与国际军事领导人、科学家和安全专家、美国将军、俄罗斯人、中国人的会议上，强大的紧张局势迅速升级，所有人都吓得无精打采，试图合作。我想出了一个共同的防御策略来对付不确定的外星威胁。一个中国的侦探，大石，一个抽烟鬼、亵渎神明、感情冷漠、无情无义的警察，是这次会议的中心人物。故事从这一点开始，有一种“吵闹”的感觉，有点像中国的雷蒙德钱德勒纱。它立刻把读者吸引进来。但如果没有“红海岸”基地的背景，读者最终会迷路（就像我一样），因为背景对于理解角色的行为和感受方式至关重要。它远不止是一部科幻小说“whodunit”。

一旦世界知道入侵即将来临（未来几百年，因为他们以10%的光速行进），我们将分成几个派别，一个充满自我仇恨的派别，他们将摧毁地球上的人民，使“三极”入侵者更容易受到伤害，另一种认为他们可以帮助三位一体找到解决三位一体问题的方法，而不必入侵。另一个只想和三极体一起生存的群体是他们的霸主。


这是三部曲的第一部小说，还有两本书要读。这绝对不是“海滩读物”。但是，如果你想了解中国的崛起，这本书将反映出人们在中国近代史上的特殊情况下做出的选择。刘翠新的小说从“科学的前沿”开始，把我在其他地方读到的东西推向了更大的境界。