The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体; lit. 'Three-Body') is a science fiction novel written by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past (Chinese: 地球往事) trilogy, but the whole series is often referred to as The Three-Body Problem. The trilogy's second and third novels are The Dark Forest and Death's End, respectively. The first volume of The Three-Body Problem was originally serialized in Science Fiction World in 2006 and published as a standalone book in 2008, becoming one of the most successful Chinese science fiction novels of the last two decades. The novel received the Chinese Science Fiction Yinhe ("Galaxy") Award in 2006 along with many more over the years. By 2015, a Chinese film adaptation of the same name was in production. The English translation by Ken Liu was published by Tor …
The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体; lit. 'Three-Body') is a science fiction novel written by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past (Chinese: 地球往事) trilogy, but the whole series is often referred to as The Three-Body Problem. The trilogy's second and third novels are The Dark Forest and Death's End, respectively. The first volume of The Three-Body Problem was originally serialized in Science Fiction World in 2006 and published as a standalone book in 2008, becoming one of the most successful Chinese science fiction novels of the last two decades. The novel received the Chinese Science Fiction Yinhe ("Galaxy") Award in 2006 along with many more over the years. By 2015, a Chinese film adaptation of the same name was in production. The English translation by Ken Liu was published by Tor Books in 2014. Thereafter, it became the first Asian novel ever to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel, and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel.The series portrays a fictional past, present and future where, in the first book, Earth encounters an alien civilisation in a nearby star system that consists of three solar-type stars orbiting each other in an unstable three-body system.
ciencia ficcion, puray dura, profunda investigacion fisica, matematica, social, geopolitica, para crear a partir de un problema de modelo matematico, ( los tres cuerpos) una novela innovadora, un salto cuantico en la ciencia ficción
Advertencia de contenido And I loved violin playing Albert
It was an interesting read. Somewhat hard to get into the story, but then it was making me turn pages and I could barely put it down. I loved some of the sci-fi ideas presented there.
Advertencia de contenido Discusses elements of the plot
We haven't read the other books in the trilogy. How to describe? Liu has a very pessimistic perception of humanity and the nature of the universe. Not only does it science what kind of beings might evolve in a three-body solar system, but he also engages the Fermi Paradox, a very pessimistic theory about intelligent life. Be prepared to deal with frustration and disappointment.
That said, it is an important book and should be read.
Interesting premise but could get a bit wordy at times and once i read all three I couldn’t help but think back to the implied/embedded nationalism and misogyny. Or how being a historian of China ruins everything 😅
Set my imagination off, but felt like a stream of ideas.
Spannend aufgebaut mit verschiedenen Handlungssträngen, die sich irgendwann zusammenfügen. Technische / physikalische Grundprinzipien auch für mich als Laien verständlich dargestellt. Und die Frage nach dem "First Contact" mit all ihren Implikationen wurde toll beackert. Zusätzlich erfährt von noch etwas über die jüngere chinesische Geschichte.
The first few chapters had me darting to and from Wikipedia to help add some context to a story that is deeply set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It',s a triviality to call the story complex, a mystery than unfolds through the book. Be warned this is the first in a trilogy and a very much sets itself up this way, which was a little frustrating in the last few chapters.
A good hard fiction novel that explores the question of making first contact. It's a quick read that has decent character development, a smooth flowing plot, and asks deep philosophical science questions.
SPOILERS THO
The three-body problem in physics states that although it is trivial to model the path of two bodies (e.g. binary stars) revolving around each other, it is currently impossible to create a model that can accurately predict the future positions of three bodies around each other, as minute instabilities add up over time to create a chaotic system. This book postulates that the nearest star to the earth, Alpha Centauri, as a ternary star system, is such a chaotic system; despite its unpredictability, a race of sentient species have evolved to sentience on an immensely inhospitable planet. When they learn of the existence of Earth, and realize it is in a stable solar system with a relatively mild climate, what would such a civilization do?
The book reminds me of Carl Sagan's "Contact" (well, the movie; I haven't read the book) but goes beyond the touchy-feely aspects of …
SPOILERS THO
The three-body problem in physics states that although it is trivial to model the path of two bodies (e.g. binary stars) revolving around each other, it is currently impossible to create a model that can accurately predict the future positions of three bodies around each other, as minute instabilities add up over time to create a chaotic system. This book postulates that the nearest star to the earth, Alpha Centauri, as a ternary star system, is such a chaotic system; despite its unpredictability, a race of sentient species have evolved to sentience on an immensely inhospitable planet. When they learn of the existence of Earth, and realize it is in a stable solar system with a relatively mild climate, what would such a civilization do?
The book reminds me of Carl Sagan's "Contact" (well, the movie; I haven't read the book) but goes beyond the touchy-feely aspects of Sagan's work. Contact is distinctly American, and therefore, deeply religious; when Arroway finally meets aliens, the interaction is solely a personal one, which occurs without any observable proof that it took place at all. With that experience, Arroway is humanity's messiah, able to spread the message that the promised land is a space paradise of hob-nobbing with other, enlightened spacefaring species — if you have faith. 3BP dispenses with the notion that the space age will be a lovely vacation earned by a well-behaved humanity. I don't know if it's because the author takes a very hard-science approach or it's more of a Chinese cultural influence, but the characters in 3BP don't think of joining the aliens because they believe they're worthy. On the contrary, they invite the (presumably enlightened) aliens to Earth as a corrective measure: we're flawed, we're broken, we need your help, come fix us.
Of course, even that ends up being wildly optimistic, as the aliens don't really care about mentoring humans at all. They just want a planet with an easier difficulty level to live on. The universe is a harsh and unforgiving place, and it turns out that outer space isn't the paradise, Earth is. And the aliens wants it for themselves. So, well, they kind of do the science equivalent of driving down the property values so they can swoop in and buy up all the land at a super low price by the time their moving vans get there. (It'll take about 450 years, at a maximum of 10-percent of the speed of light.)
The book ends there. Not with a proclamation of some glorious, kumbaya future, or even a clear evil to be defeated, just a slowly ticking clock. Earth will be occupied in 450 years by star-hopping alien gentrifiers just trying to find a new backyard in which to raise their alien babies. So what now?
