The Three-Body Problem

By Bobby Neal Winters

I’ve just finished going through the audiobook version of The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen).  If you like hard science-fiction, I recommend it, but the word “hard” there carries multiple meanings. It is not an easy book.

It’s made me think.

There is a line from The Lord of the Rings that comes into my head periodically: “Some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.”

We are in danger of forgetting that we are animals. We are, in fact, quite dangerous animals.  The error of forgetting that we are dangerous animals is self-correcting. When we forget, we are often reminded of it again in very concrete ways: the French Revolution; the Holocaust; the Cultural Revolution.

I mention the Cultural Revolution because it comes up in The Three-Body Problem. This is something most Americans are at best vaguely aware of. It is enough for us to keep track of our own atrocities. The TBP contains an account of a professor of theoretical physics who is beaten to death by a group of 15-year-old girls, who had been stirred into a frenzy of revolutionary zeal. 

I almost mis-used the word “righteousness” for zeal because this type of zeal is often associated with religion. While far too much blood has been shed in religious causes, religion does not have a monopoly here.

Part of forgetting that we are animals is the self-hatred that comes with it.  By self-hatred, I don’t mean to refer to a person hating himself, but to a person developing a hatred of the whole human race.

This is something that arises in the novel in connection with the Cultural Revolution but also in connection with the environmental movement.

I want to tread lightly here because I believe in taking care of the environment. In my personal interpretation of the scripture, I believe that Man was created to take care of the Earth--the plants, the animals, everything--for God, and that we are accountable to God for the job we do.   Even if we all agreed on that--and I truly doubt that we do--there is enough room for interpreting the details to keep us arguing for a long, long time.

Liu allows us to see that there are some among the environmental movement who hate the human race.  While they weep gallons at the extinction of a species of bird, they would not shed a tear if the human race disappeared forever. 

There are not many environmentalists like this, but they are there.

He also allows us to see that those who are too narrowly focused on the immediate needs of humans in the short-term can do needless, long-lasting damage to the environment. The thoughtless (read that word) exploitation of resources can be ultimately harmful to the human race.

There is a definite current in the TBP about the dangers of un-restrained zeal, whether that be in communism or environmentalism. We could no doubt add capitalism to that as well. 

For me, it took a while to figure out who the hero of this book actually is. 

The hero in a science fiction book is usually the first scientist who appears. Not so here.  It is a police detective named Da Shi who appears quite late. He’s crude; he’s obnoxious; but he saves the day and provides a ray of hope at the end.

There is not a shortage of villains.

The author has a warmth for the people in the country-side that shows through clearly, though he recognizes their foibles. He also recognizes the foibles and the fragility of intellectuals.

The title of the book, the Three-Body Problem, refers to an “unsolvable” mathematical problem. I put the quotes there because the solution requires a broadening of the idea of what a solution means.

The mathematical three-body problem is about the movement of celestial bodies. The two-body problem is solved: a planet circles its sun in an ellipse. It can be figured out with a formula. The general three-body problem cannot be solved in that way. It requires broadening one’s definition of what a solution is. One can know the truth, but that truth is no longer so specific as to be particularly useful.

Liu treats this part of the science in the book accurately. I was pleased as mathematics is not often dealt with in science fiction. In the tradition of all good science fiction, he science is accurate to the limit of current theories, though he does--in the tradition of the field--extrapolate to the point where the “science” is more like magic.

I’ll close as I opened.  I recommend this to science-fiction readers with the warning that it is challenging.

I understand that there is a series on Netflix...

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.