Three-Body Episode 20 Recap
> Three-Body Recap
Wei Cheng, dedicated to solving the Three-Body Problem, worked tirelessly using only blank ledgers and pencils. He had no knowledge of Henri Poincare's assertion that the problem was mathematically unsolvable, nor did he care for established masters, believing his new evolutionary algorithm, which used quantity to derive quality, could succeed through massive computation, even if current computers were insufficient. Day after day, he used up many ledgers, with the remnants often burned in an incense burner, causing excessive ash.
One day, Shen Yufei burst into his room, instantly recognizing his unique research from a few discarded papers, surprising Wei Cheng with her exceptional mathematical talent and shared obsession with the Three-Body Problem. Unlike the unobservant temple visitors, Shen Yufei possessed an academic demeanor. Recognizing his poor working conditions, she offered him access to supercomputers and a minicomputer, urging him to leave the temple with her.
Unable to sleep after her departure, Wei Cheng wandered the temple grounds and overheard Shen Yufei praying to Buddha, "Buddha, please help my Lord break away from misery." He found this prayer profoundly strange and contradictory, which instilled in him a growing sense of inexplicable fear. He sought guidance from a temple master, who cryptically warned him against joining Shen Yufei, sensing that she concealed unimaginable secrets.
Despite the warning, Wei Cheng decided he couldn't remain in the temple forever and chose to go with her. Over the next few years, Wei Cheng lived his dream life in a big house, with a minicomputer and frequent access to global supercomputers, all funded by Shen Yufei, whose wealth he did not question. They married for convenience, and their only regular interaction revolved around discussions of the Three-Body Problem.
While Shen Yufei was preoccupied with the Frontiers of Science, often hosting numerous visitors, Wei Cheng remained solely focused on his calculations, having no interest in joining her organization. Wang Miao recognized the groundbreaking nature of Wei Cheng's work. While previous approximation methods had only yielded a few stable solutions, Wei Cheng's evolutionary algorithm had found over a hundred.
Wei Cheng's ultimate goal was to construct a mathematical model that could precisely predict the subsequent motions of the Three-Body System given any initial configuration with known vectors, a goal shared by Shen Yufei. However, his breakthrough also brought him trouble. Pan Han, a biologist in his thirties from the Frontiers of Science, threatened Wei Cheng, brandishing a real gun and destroying his computer to force him to stop his calculations.
That same night, Wei Cheng felt a cold object on his neck, waking him to find Shen Yufei, holding a knife, who also threatened him, declaring she would kill him if he ceased his work. She told him that completing his calculations would make him a savior, but stopping would condemn him as a sinner, rendering his existence meaningless. Wei Cheng felt trapped, destined to die either way.
Feeling that he was already living on borrowed time, Wei Cheng entrusted all his models and shared documents on a disk to Wang Miao, urging him to verify them but also to stay away from these matters, as the world was on the brink of significant change.
He revealed he wasn't as foolish as he seemed, having learned much by living with Shen Yufei, but believed that police or even God would be useless, as humanity had reached a point where prayers went unanswered, with even God and Shen Yufei's "Lord" struggling. Soon after, Wang Miao called Shen Yufei, who confirmed Wei Cheng had constructed the model and expressed her eagerness to test it immediately in the Three-Body game.
Before hanging up, she simply told Wei Cheng, "do not drink." Wang Miao was taken to the Nanomaterial Center to enter the Three-Body game. Inside, he first encountered Copernicus, who identified himself as a "lost soul abandoned by God" and described how the Tri-Solar Syzygy had destroyed previous civilizations. He then heard Einstein, trembling, speak of the "Great Rip," a catastrophic event that no one could survive.
Wang Miao then met Einstein, who acknowledged the human-formation computer model developed by Wang Miao, Newton, and others was close but lacked the gravitational perturbation described by general relativity, a gap his own work could bridge. However, he admitted the results hadn't been astronomically confirmed. Shen Yufei joined Wang Miao, acknowledging that if Wei Cheng's model failed, it meant mathematics offered no solution to the Three-Body Problem. She led him to the impending Pendulum Initiation Ceremony, their last hope.
At the ceremony, the UN Secretary General informed them that while dozens of evolutionary algorithms had been developed, including many superior to Wei Cheng's, all had conclusively proven the Three-Body Problem to be unsolvable, revealing the Trisolaran System as an unpredictable chaotic system. Wang Miao questioned how humanity could have faith in exploring the complex universe if even simple systems were chaotic.
The Secretary General further revealed that a colossal companion planet, a product of the Great Rip, now orbited their world. He detailed how Civilization No. 191 was annihilated when three suns, appearing as frozen flying stars, converged on their planet, exceeding the Roche limit and tearing it into two pieces. The oceans boiled, continents melted, and a river of lava solidified into unstable rings, causing centuries of meteorite rains.
Life on both the companion and mother planets was nearly wiped out. After 90 million years, Civilization No. 192 emerged. Recent discoveries revealed that the Trisolaran Stellar System once had twelve planets, but only theirs remained, consumed by the three "breathing" suns, which cyclically expand and contract, devouring planets. The next expansion was predicted in 1.
5 to 2 million years, leading to the conclusion that "God has turned his back on Trisolaris," leaving them as "the loneliest kids in the universe." As the Pendulum Initiation Ceremony began, Shen Yufei remarked on humanity's insignificance but also the greatness of life, evident in Civilization No. 192's tenacious rebirth. She thanked Wang Miao for showing her this resilience, even if tenacity in such despair was tragic.
She suddenly thought of Yang Dong, speculating that Yang Dong must have experienced even greater despair to conclude that "Physics has never existed and will never exist." Shen Yufei told Wang Miao he was the "chosen one" with a mission, as she had nothing left to do.
She then left the game, stating that Trisolaran Civilization's only path was to "gamble with the universe" and venture into the vast sea of stars to find a new home in the Milky Way. The Pendulum Ceremony officially commenced, the gigantic metal fist of the pendulum swinging eternally against the unfeeling universe, a symbol of Trisolaris's indomitable battle cry. Four hundred fifty-one years later, Civilization No. 192 was destroyed by twin suns.
However, it had reached the Atomic and Information Ages and crucially proved that the Three-Body Problem had no solution, ending 191 cycles of futile effort and setting a new course for future civilizations: to abandon their stellar system and find a new home in the stars. After this outcome, Pan Han appeared, mockingly telling Shen Yufei that her efforts were meaningless and that her less advanced civilization had no chance of success.
He claimed that both the Adventists and Redemptionists were driven by selfish desires, and humans were merely seeking to overcome their perceived insignificance. Shen Yufei, however, was not desperate; the game had shown her unimaginable sights, including worlds torn apart by tidal forces and planets consumed by stellar coronas. She recognized that these seemingly powerful forces were mere "tiny drops" in the universe. She conceded that both factions were selfish, with humanity simply seeking to feel important.
She concluded that humans make choices, but the Lord, having been listened to, had already made its choice by making no choice, implying its departure. Shortly after, Shi Qiang called Wang Miao, reporting that Shen Yufei had been found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. He confirmed that Wei Cheng's mathematical model had not succeeded, but had instead conclusively proven the Three-Body Problem to be unsolvable.
Shi Qiang mentioned that Shen Yufei had been "devastated" and had even referred to Yang Dong as having been "even more so." Surveillance footage showed that Pan Han was the only person who had entered or exited the scene around the time of Shen Yufei's death, making him the prime suspect.
