Three-Body Episode 2 Recap
> Three-Body Recap
Wang Miao met with Ding Yi, who, seeing Wang Miao's wedding ring, reminisced about buying a house for his intended marriage to Yang Dong, lamenting that he had thought she would finally embrace a domestic life. Ding Yi described Yang Dong as a distant star whose light felt cold. Wang Miao then shared that representatives from the Battle Command Center had approached him that afternoon, proposing he join the Frontiers of Science organization.
Relieved that Wang Miao had declined, Ding Yi dismissed the organization's members as "arrogant idiots," explaining that their own investigations should have revealed two individuals completely unrelated to the Frontiers of Science, with Yang Dong being one of them. When Wang Miao asked why Yang Dong took her own life, Ding Yi simply stated, "Because physics doesn't exist anymore." Skeptical, Wang Miao countered that if physics were truly gone, a book released from one's hand should fly upwards, not fall.
Ding Yi wryly agreed, musing that historical figures like Newton and Einstein should be floating in the sky. He then invited Wang Miao to play pool, a game he and Yang Dong cherished because it reminded them of particle collisions in an accelerator. Ding Yi had Wang Miao perform five collision experiments, reorienting the pool table by ninety degrees after each of the first four shots.
Each of the five shots yielded the same result: the black ball consistently went into the corner pocket. Ding Yi then challenged Wang Miao to explain this outcome using the language of physics. Wang Miao obliged, noting that the consistent mass of the balls, their relative positions, the velocity of the cue ball, and the resulting momentum exchange all proved the uniformity of physical laws across time and space—the very bedrock of all scientific discovery.
Ding Yi then asked Wang Miao to imagine an alternate scenario where the results were impossible: the black ball veering off course, flying into the air, or even accelerating out of the solar system. Ding Yi confirmed that such impossible results had indeed occurred in Yang Dong's accelerator experiments. Her first three data sets, recorded at different times, were all inconsistent with each other and with theoretical predictions.
While Wang Miao noted that abnormal data can be a normal part of experimentation, Ding Yi insisted that "this time, it's different." He recounted how, during the investigation into her mentor Professor Munphy's death, Yang Dong was shown faxes she had sent him. She was horrified to discover that the timestamps indicated Munphy had received data identical to hers before her experiments were even complete.
Wang Miao declared this "absolutely impossible" within known physics, and Ding Yi agreed, adding that they only believe it's impossible because they still believe in physics. If such an event were true, the uniformity of physical laws would be shattered, rendering physics nonexistent and precipitating a catastrophe for theoretical research. This, he explained, is why some people desperately cling to theories like the "shooter and farmer" hypotheses promoted by the Frontiers of Science.
He warned that such unprovable theories, while offering hope, could also lead to despair, as it did for Yang Dong. The phrase "physics doesn't exist anymore" haunted Wang Miao, who even visualized pool balls defying gravity on his drive home. He later met Shen Yufei at a large manor, a private residence provided by a Frontiers of Science member for their discussions. Wang Miao admitted he still couldn't fully accept their theories, despite finding them appealing.
Shen Yufei explained that the name "Frontiers of Science" reflects their belief that doubt and the desire to push past boundaries are the most captivating parts of any subject. Wang Miao then presented the "shooter hypothesis and the farmer hypothesis" to the gathered members. In the shooter hypothesis, two-dimensional beings on a target might mistake a marksman's random shots—which appear every ten centimeters—for a fundamental law of their universe.
In the farmer hypothesis, a turkey scientist might declare a universal law that food arrives at 11 a. m. every day, only to be slaughtered on Thanksgiving when the farmer comes at the usual time. Wang Miao concluded that humanity could be like these misguided scientists, implying that our perceived physical laws might have inherent boundaries. An emotional scientist in the audience declared that while he might accept the theory, he could never accept being a "turkey scientist."
Wang Miao voiced his concern that such a belief system could be psychologically "killing." Shen Yufei chillingly retorted that the turkeys were, in fact, "meant to die on Thanksgiving Day." Leaving the meeting, Wang Miao confronted Shi Qiang, accusing him of orchestrating his recent encounters to push him toward investigating the Frontiers of Science. Shi Qiang admitted to the manipulation and asked what Wang Miao had learned.
He stated that while forensics confirmed Yang Dong's death was a suicide, he was more interested in the "why." He confessed to deliberately focusing Wang Miao on Yang Dong and revealed that her funeral was in two days, knowing Wang Miao would attend. In a separate conversation, Shi Qiang had assured his superior, Chang Weisi, that he would solve the case by following Wang Miao, while also pressuring Chang to resolve his pending suspension.
At Yang Dong's funeral, Wang Miao met her mother, Ye Wenjie. He introduced himself as a friend and nanotechnology researcher working on a super-strength material, which Ye Wenjie praised as audacious. He offered to give her a photograph of Yang Dong he had taken recently, but as he pulled it out, he noticed a strange anomaly and quickly retracted it, blaming a printing glitch. From a distance, Shi Qiang noted the long conversation.
Later, at home, Wang Miao examined the photo and discovered a series of numbers. A call to his photo developer confirmed the numbers were also on the negative, which was impossible for his antique, fully mechanical Leica M2 camera that lacked any data imprinting function. Wang Miao realized the numbers were a countdown. The photo he almost gave Ye Wenjie showed 1,194 hours remaining.
He took a new photo of his living room, and the countdown on it read 1,187 hours—just over 49 days. He was left to wonder what would happen when the time ran out.
