Liu Cixin and “The Three Body Problem”

Liu Cixin and “The Three Body Problem”

What can one say about this trilogy? I am intimidated by the adulation and enthusiasm demonstrated by his readers in their remarks on the chat sites. This trilogy, written by a much admired Chinese sci-fi author, is an unremittingly dark tale that invokes every single device and law in the world of fiction and physics and even includes the kitchen sink, its drain pipes, the bolts that hold it to the wall, the wall, the building of which the wall is a part, the ground on which the building sits, the world of which the ground is a part, the solar system containing the world, all the other stellar systems in the galaxy, all the galaxies in our universe, and all the other possible and clearly impossible universes that anyone might think of. The tone of this tale undoubtedly reflects the difficult times, the Cultural Revolution period, during which he grew up. That wasn’t so long ago, and unlike my experience of the great depression which was probably pretty sad for my parents but not so bad for us kids, must have been downright horrible for the average Chinese person, young or old.

For the reader who might not get to the end of these remarks I might say a few words comparing Liu’s work to others in a similar genre. Charles Stross has written some delightful and wildly humorous stories involving interstellar intercourse during a post-human period. He doesn’t violate too many laws of physics. Then there are the fondly remembered Rama tales by Arthur C. Clark, and the much more recent marvelous story, “Existence” by David Brin. If I were recommending a first time interstellar read to someone it would not be Liu’s trilogy, and I would not recommend it to anyone prone to depressing thoughts. Try Stross where a space pirate that resembles a bat and does indeed often hang upside down from the ceiling turns out not to be such a bad guy after all. Both Liu and Stross solve the necessary long times needed to travel across the vast distances between even the closest stars by putting everyone to sleep – well, until the end of Liu’s last novel where ‘light speed’ ships make their debut.

I was tempted through the first two books and part of the third to just pick out things, good and bad, and make a list. I will still do that but I need to expose my ignorance by bringing up some general points. Early on there is a weird computer game. Where did it come from? Was it the work of a Sophon? Also there is a count down. To what? Whatever happened to it? Did I go to sleep or were some pages missing from my copy? I even called my Astronomer friend, Bill Welsh, to find out if they had worked out any transits of planets in trinary systems. They hadn’t but he pointed out that their work with binary systems did involve the three body problem. A general criticism that is both good and bad is in the character development. Liu develops some very attractive characters but carries very few of them through the series. I really missed some of them; notably Shi Qiang, the dissolute but brilliant rebel cop. Liu had the means to save them with the ubiquitous hibernation technology but chose to be very parsimonious concerning character survival. In mentioning any of the characters the reader should remember that in China the family name comes first and the given name second.

Although the general theme of this work is love, kindness, and selflessness Liu manages to kill off 99.999999… Percent of all living things in two solar systems. These billions of hapless and generally innocent and clean living creatures (including nearly all humans) all die horrible screaming deaths recounted for us in interminable page after page of detailed description. The heroine, Cheng Xin, (not the original, Ye Wenjie, the one who watched her father murdered by fanatic teen agers during the revolution) gets a cushy spot at the end with a recently acquired mate. It’s been several hundred years but thanks to the miracle of hibernation she’s only about 35. Her true love, Yun Tianming, a brain only, sent into interstellar space by the staircase project, who has a more recently acquired body, is stranded elsewhere.

Now to expose my ignorance. There are Sophons flitting around and providing real time data to presumed bad guys 4.5 light years away. They were created from protons using ideas from string theory (dimensions) and entanglement. It sent me back to the books. Can you really have instant communication over an arbitrary distance? I think not and most of my physicist friends agree. Entanglement is a fascinating and not really a very new idea. It has a lot of potential but does not violate Einstein’s basic law: information can not be sent from one place to another faster than the speed of light. However, there is no book without Sophons, especially that gorgeous and incredibly dangerous robot that is the embodiment of a Sophon in book three. So we happily accept these little guys.

Liu accepts the rules but is loose with the language. ‘Light speed’ ships are really ‘near light speed’ because of course, time stops at light speed and it takes infinite energy to achieve it. Their absolutely wonderful space ships have ‘port holes.’ I have recently spoken with an aviation industry friend and asked him why passenger planes have windows. Without windows the plane would be cheaper, stronger, safer and each passenger could have an ultra res view screen in the back of the seat in front of him with a touch screen selection of any point of outside view he might desire. He said design engineers have said this for years but the high level managers always insist on windows.

.

Particularly annoying was the giant space telescope made out of multiple refractive elements. Giant space telescopes will be built and they will be reflectors, not refractors.

I have to mention his multi-dimension stuff. I admit I am not much of a fan of string theory. It is prodigiously difficult mathematically and as far as I know contributes little or nothing to our understanding of the universe. Liu has an excursion into the fourth dimension which I cannot see furthering the plot much. At the end he has the solar system collapsing into two dimensions. His lengthy descriptions of that are entirely unsatisfactory and completely confusing. It’s all based on three fairy tales told by one of the characters. The tales are well told and make good reading but their interpretation in terms of the multi dimensions could have been done differently.

There were a lot of interesting ideas: ‘The Dark Forest’ and the ‘Staircase’ project were thought provoking. The Dark Forest dealt with the problem we know as The Fermi Paradox, otherwise expressed as “Where is everybody?” It assumes the universe is aggressive and inimical to all life in ours and other little enclaves. Our best bet is to remain absolutely quiet in a galactic sense. Send out no signals. The staircase idea was actually worked on back in the 50s and early 60s. A colleague of mine took part in an experimental model study out on Point Loma near the UCSD lab where I worked. The concept involved setting off a series of nuclear explosions behind a spacecraft bearing a giant reflector. The blast pressure, being primarily radiation, would propel the craft to high interplanetary velocities. In the story Liu takes great care to get the numbers right and has the nuclear bombs stationed in space out through the solar system ready to go off and give a push to the craft’s sail as it goes by. The scientists in San Diego used a model space ship and ordinary explosives. As I recall the effort was not very successful.

What can I say finally? Aside from a number of loose ends the first book with its graphic view of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath is the best of the three. That proves I don’t know much. All the other critics gave two and three the best ratings. The author’s privilege is to tell his tale however he chooses. I am glad Liu is so successful and glad to have dipped into his views on things.