The Horrible Truth About Physics | Three Body Problem Series 

The thing that struck me about the series most was how believable it was. It didn't prey on base fears/emotions so much as it's hard to shake the feeling that there is a chance the universe works like this.

I don’t normally comment before watching a video, but I have to thank you for introducing me to the Three body problem and it’s sequels. It’s one of the only pieces of science fiction that I considered to be truly “science horror”.

Ironically, an earth / trisolaran alliance would have been unusually powerful in the universe as they evolved so close to eachother and could share in their technological explosion

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." -Eric Andre

The Three Body Problem series managed to do something I didn't think was possible. They managed to take Lovecraftian horror, and turn it into mainstream sci-fi stories.

It is puzzling to me that so many stories assume that discovering the universe is more mysterious, uncontrollable or unknowable and possibly hostile leads to madness and suicide. Most of human religion and myth has worked on this assumption for millenia and many of those the gods are not kindly towards humnas, yet most people can accept such a world and live in it.

I have a physics degree and have since really been looking forward to finding this kind of hard sci Fi to read. I feel like this series was made for me and can't wait to read it after finishing up children and God emperor of dune.

The end of this series was chilling in a way that even the classic cosmic horror artists couldn’t measure up to. I felt really empty and insecure when I looked up at the night sky for like 3 weeks after I finished the last book lol

Love the cosmic horror in this series. wallfacers vs wallbreakers is such a dope concept, cant wait for that video. my favorite sci-fi series of all time, nothing has hit quite like that since reading it a couple years back :( I think about the concepts explored in the books constantly.

That trilogy was incredible. Especially the "Dark Forest" analogy. I loved the long timescale, the interresting technology (dimention collapse bomb, nice), the societal shifts, etc.

Thanks for this video. After being introduced by your previous videos I gorged myself on the three books. I finished a month ago yet I'm still suffering from the existential horror of the series. It's epic and wide in scope. The physics is a little over my head but not so much as to be a distraction. And the final ending bent my brain into different shapes at the prospect of the final end of everything. A good series. Again, thank you Quinn. Love you, brother. You rock.

Ive had an existential crisis while reading this series lol. To be reminded of how truly small I am, how limited I am, and what a minuscule fragment even our entire galaxy is of the whole. I’ve just finished The Dark Forest, can’t wait to start Death’s End. It’s reignited my wonder and terror of the universe, and I got out of that crisis remembering I should more thankful every day for this incredibly strange experience.

The ways he delt with concepts of deep time in the later books were really frightening and perspective shifting for me as well.

I'm happy to see this series get some attention. I read it a couple years back and i was sad it wasn't discussed now. It's so imaginative and powerful.

Big fan of cosmic horror. I have to be honest, I lost count of the number of times these books gave me goosebumps. There is terror embedded in the vastness of space that we human beings just cant comprehend. We are all living in a bubble thats relatively safe here on earth. Out there is a different beast... "If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?"

just finished the series this past week, definantly one of the most beautiful yet existential sci fi books ive read, i love how cixin liu constantly puts characters in situations that seem so unfathomably hopeless and somehow humanity still prevails this is especially true in deaths end theres like a world changing event every other page

I've read this series a few years ago, and was so moved by it that I searched on youtube for videos about it. Sadly, I couldn't find any, and now you've done it! Thank you!

this was terrifying....the idea that an older, more advanced race could just wipe us out like a child killing an insect without even a second thought, that there could be unimaginable horrors lurking in the darkest reaches of our own galaxy, watching over us intently like horrible elderich gods...just WAITING for us to make a mistake and fall right in to their trap....gives me chills, man.....

Thank you for continuing these works! Hearing the breakdown of material, and presenting the sum of the deeper issues, serves as a great reminder of what makes the Three Body Problem great - easily a series I wish to return to!

Ahhh yes. I can't believe that I didn't know you reviewed this series till now, and I'm sure glad that I found it! I tremendously enjoyed the ideas that the Three Body Problem presented, and I thoroughly enjoy your commentary about it, because it brings a different perspective to many of the aspects of the book. As always, great job, and keep up the good work!

I’m so happy you are doing a set of videos for “remembrance of earths past trilogy”… another massive sci-fi epic in timescales as grand as the Foundation, Dune, and Hyperion Cantos series… looking forward to your videos…

This channel made me discover the series, it sounded so intriguing I immediately closed the video that mentioned it after the spoiler warning and got to reading it. Now that I finished the trilogy I finally came to watch the videos and I gotta wholeheartedly thank Quinn for letting me know about it, it has become one of my favourite sci-fi, up there with even Dune!

I don't know how you do it, but you bring back that magical sensation of fantasy i lost somewhere along the way. I love your videos dude! Don't ever stop.

I'm re-reading this series AND listening to the audiobook. The argument against the farmer/shooter metaphor, however, is the universe looks the same in all directions. While it may be possible that one corner is totally redesigned by life, but that every corner is redesigned exactly the same becomes much more unlikely.

Can't wait for more 3 body videos, your original video turned me on to the series. Thanks Quinn! Really enjoy your vids

Will watch these videos after I read the rest of the series. 'The Three Body Problem' was a mind-blowing read. Terrifying and awe-inspiring all at once, can't wait to read the next book!

Awesome content Quinn. Thanks to you i've considerably expanded my SF books repertoire, though i only watch your videos of stuff i've read to avoid spoilers :)

Yessss!!! More Three Body Problem content. No one's doing it like you, appreciate all that you do!

An absolutely fantastic series! I have recommended it to a couple of friends who were after some high concept serious sci fi and they loved it too. If you’re thinking of trying it, be aware that it takes a while for the different story strands to come together but when they do it is highly satisfying.

Wow, thank you for your video series on those books! I read them two years ago, they still haunt me, and did change my perception of life (that might sound naive). I can't say it made me optimistic at all, but for some reason it also helped me through some mental illness issues, I mean it didn't heal me at all, but it helped me getting some perspective. I could never watch the sky as I used to do. Greetings from France! :) look forward to watch your other content!

This series is so interesting! Thank you Quinn for your passion maybe I’ll read the series sometimes in the future

Read the series, and stumbled on your videos. Thank you very much! Personally, my favourite science fiction series. Very deep and stupefying. I would love if you would upload more videos on this series in the future. I think the series can be analysed and discussed endlessly!

Quinn Thank you so much for these! I picked up the series after you made your first video on it and just finished it last night ! It was awesome

Thank you for more, please if possible can you do a complete in depth reading of this trilogy you're videos are so amazing and keep me immersed in the experience

Awesome to see your channel doing well, man. Really appreciate your content and professionalism.

Quinn you have got me to read so much stuff lol. I finished the Foundation series and then you start making THESE. I came for Dune(even though I had read the entire series before you started doing the lore vids) and I've stayed for everything else. Keep up the good work.

Thanks you, Quinn, this was very interesting. I fell out of Science Fiction a long time ago; I just can’t find the will to muster any interest in a lot of the contemporary stuff. However, I’ve been thinking about reading these series after I saw the three book bundle in a bookstore I frequent. Your video has convinced me to read it. In fact, tomorrow I’ll go and buy that bundle thingie!

The problem the series delves most deeply into I think is the problem of induction. That’s what the shooter and farmer examples highlight, just because things have happened in the past doesn’t mean they will continue to happen in the future. Both the turkeys and the 2D people observed past events and concluded that these were immutable laws of nature when in fact they weren’t. This is also illustrated by the Three Body Problem video game in which there is no way to accurately predict the future. This problem has made it impossible for science to generate lawlike knowledge.

Dude thanks for making these videos. If I hadn't started watching the first one I never would have paused it so I could start the series, and boy would I have missed out

I love your videos and this is my favorite series ever, so I literally gasped when I saw this video was up. Thanks for all the great stuff.

Quinn, isn’t it amazing just how much those books stick in your head? I’ve been thinking about them since I read them last year. It’s still haunting.

Orbital mechanics kicked my butt. Even Newton had trouble with it. I don’t like differential equations either. Thank god for numerical methods, fast computers and MATLAB. Not sure I like the Fermi paradox either

I'm so glad you made a video about this. I've always wondered this but didn't know how to put it into words

You are my first introduction to the series I am new subscriber. Your oratory style and proficiency is what drew me in. Always been a fan of science fiction as Im in my 50s and had to use my imagination when I was young. We did not have the resources of today. Keep up the awesome work bud

Great job. If you decided to add a channel and do just straight up science videos. You would own that spectrum on RU-vid, make lots of money. The voice the visuals, its perfect. I really mean that having, subscribed to many of them.

Quinn ur spoiling us with these frequent uploads! 😍

I like how every one of the videos on this series is very compact, like its own story. Thank you

Thank you for making me aware of this series. Everything a out it appeals to me, and I wouldn't have known about it without you Quinn. Cheers

After Quinn made the first video on the trilogy ,it grasped my interest. I ordered the 1st book . I've also completed the Dark forest .Can't wait to dive into death's end.

The vast scope of this story and its sheer volume of interesting ideas (especially in Death's End), has me worried that all other sci-fi will just feel collapsed and folded in comparison.

Man! Your voice is very soothing. Your cadence and measured tones are very pleasing to the ear. You could become a very prominent voice over one day. I really do believe you have what it takes.

I read the three body trilogy and it’s subsequent spinoff because of your first video on the series. Thank you so much for introducing it to me. :)

Aliens with the power to change physics but can't make a habitable planet. Sounds about right.

I finished Three Body Problem and didn't think much of it. I really didn't expect to spend quarter of the book in a video game... It's all justified by plot twist in the end but still. These videos motivate me to continue in the series because it looks like the next two books dive deeper into the ideas and cosmic horror. That shooter hypothesis blew my mind knowing about higher dimensions and how blind we are to what they are and what happens in them.

Liu’s trilogy is both exciting & mind boggling. The horror builds slowly as even the mathematics become as riveting as the languages. Quinn, stumbling across your videos last year has introduced me to realms of books & their worlds abandoned in there midst of living a busy life. In the final pages of “The Three-Body Problem” now. Wow! Thanks, Quinn!

I loved this book series. I hope you continue making videos about it.

The Farmer bit reminds me of a couple of books written in the original XCOM game universe, where Earth is just one of many planets that the advanced aliens in the game had seeded with life millions of years ago, with the intent to travel the cosmos and harvest what they had planted.

The only disappointing thing for me in The Three Body Problem was the instantaneous quantum entanglement communication. The No Communication Theorem put this to bed before the book was even published.

I’m always starved for more TBP content from you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the first one lol.

Always happy to see one of your videos Came for your Dany Dragons series and stayed for the Lovecraftian perspective on everything

I haven't read the book, and I am glad for this reading. But I do want to address two things brought up by this fiction: life couldn't have existed from the beginning of the universe because only the lightest elements existed after the big bang. Heavier elements require one or two generations of stars as well as supernovas to be created, and not even all stars undergo a supernova when they die. As for the Fermi Paradox, the assumption that we should expect advanced alien life to use radio to transmit for thousands of years is a little humanocentric. The more eldritch part of the video reminded me a bit of Infinite Space on the Nintendo DS.

I'm half way through the final book. It's a wild ride and definitely worth reading. Scify literature has been known to forecast the future. Sometimes you can’t See The Forest For The Trees. Cheers

you really have the perfect voice for telling us about what you have read. thank you!

Yesss I found your current channel! I love the theme of this channel!

*I really enjoyed this video. Great job as always, Quinn!* *Reality is a hallucination and our brain's interpretation and processing. We do not sense "reality" . As for Physics not existing* , there is some speculation that the laws of Physics may be different in different parts of the Universe. In the initial novel, there is that incident at the billiards table where it is brought up that the laws of Physics may not be invariant. As for Quantum Mechanics, a civilization which can master QFT (Quantum Field Theory) would be like gods. Depending on their power and abilities, they could materialize, move, create planets, stars, and galaxies. They would use this power to engineer the whole Universe. Interesting enough, the galaxies in our Universe are organized like a neural network...aka giant brain...a giant computer. I'm not saying this was done by intelligence, but this is something a godlike civilization at Kardashev Level 4-5 would do. As for the 3 body problem or n body problem (generalized), it's an interesting plot device as a 3 star system would not have a solution and would be chaotic (in the novel: Chaotic Times). This chaotic orbit of the planet from the novel does not apply so much to the classical definition of the 3 body problem which is the Sun, Earth, and the Moon or even something infinitesimal small such as the Helium atom and two electrons "orbiting" the atom (won't go into the wave function and decoherence).

For future reference, here's some help pronouncing 刘慈欣. Liu sounds like the name "Leo" but shortened. Cixin sounds like "Ser-sheen" without the R. Leo Se-sheen. Líu Cíxīn. But family names come last in English, so Cíxīn Líu.

Always got time for your content. Top notch as usual.

You just blew my mind. Love your content

I've never been particularly impressed by these existential questions. There aren't many possible answers to them, though in the end it's either 'you're worrying about something that doesn't exist so there's no reason to engage in it' or 'it's beyond your capacity to control it, so there's no reason to engage in it.' Either way, the outcome is the same.

Thanks Quinn ! You single handedly got me into sci-fi and I been goin hard ever since watching your first video a few months ago!

You're killing it bro. Futurama and 3 body problem, phenomenal

Commenting before watching. I started reading the three body problem a few years ago, but never finished it, although what I did read was really good and had me hooked. I can't watch this vid yet, but I promise Ill be back after I finish the series. Thanks for reminding me it exists!

This series is so mind botteling… seriously though, I haven’t had a day go by that I don’t think of a concept from one of these 3 books. I find some people have trouble getting into it and all I can say is read it slow and allow yourself to catch up. Has anyone read the “4th” book that was written by a fan or something?

The question I ask myself (haven't read the books yet) if the Trisolarans technology is so advanced, that they are seemingly able the change the very fabric of reality itself, why weren't they able to fix their home? I imagine leaving ones home and travelling for centuries is a demanding journey, even for a society as advanced as the Trisolarans

Your content looks great, brilliant imagery. Thanks for making this video.

Putting this one on my “later - spoilers” playlist for now, since I haven’t finished the series, but I *loved* the first book, and highly recommend it!

Hey man, i’ve started reading the books cause of you and i am now on the third one, can i ask you to do a video about the battle of darkness and the droplet? About its consequences for the dark forest theory and the deterrence era

Yo never watch these videos after eating weed brownies, holy cow

I finished Death's End today. The series reminded me of the works of Asimov and the golden age of sci-fi during which the books were tools to understand ourselves and our society. But one of the things that the Three Body series does that I have never seen before is that, with the character of Ye Wenjie, it asks should humanity as it currently is really be in charge of this planet? Love your videos Quinn.

i’m really enjoying this channel. can’t wait to finish the third book before i start watching in earnest.

This series frustrates me so much, everything about it seems perfect for me, the themes, ideas, mix of scifi & horror, the grounded physics etc but for the life of me I cannot cope with the writing style, it's really a matter of personal taste here but man I've already put down the first book 5 times and literally forcing myself to go back to it every now and then for the sake of the story. Dammit.

It's interesting to see Liu Cixin's books got discussed in this way,and I believe thousands years of recorded history in China actually shaped his view profoundly. If you compare people from ancient writing and the ones in contemporary society,you maybe found out human nature rarely changed .Hence for example,if human want to live peacefully without intervention(it's also chinese common folks wish for in thousand years),you maybe found out this peace time hard to last long due to all sorts of reasons(except for common pandemic and wars,changes in galaxy also effect earth which cause volcano eruption and so on).So " turkey farm" example just refect people who has this wish to persuade the "paradise" ,and maybe from Liu Cixin's impression during decade long cultrual revoultion era ,the paradise dream just from "hard to reach "to "almost impossible ". So I think some classic sci fi novels depsite have wonderful versions,but in my view lack of relatively to contemporary world,but I guess that's why people want to read them also back then, in order to" escape current world" .Maybe now atmosphere in society are changing again?

Great vid, your script for this video conveys the necessary information at a pleasant pace.

I really enjoy all of your Three Body Problem series, please make more. 😁

I found the first book really hard to read.. I remember pages and pages of a guy asking to borrow a camera.. and the other guy being shocked as to why he as asking for a camera...Bizarre rehydration scenes.. that and it was hard to keep track of who anyone was.. However I really enjoyed hearing the voice of a none western author.. you can feel the cultural differences in the page.. I do need to finish the series..

As someone who took first year physics and astronomy at university and came out thinking at least half it was b.s., I love it when you upload stuff like this.

It's always a good day when you upload

Your videos are great and have served as great recommendations for more reading. Keep doing your thing. :)

Another very solid and interesting video! That being said I'd also like to insist on asking why alien life should be bound by our math. As much as it seems to probe the ideas of the alien, why does a lot of it fall back onto basic game theory? The axiom the book follows is basically that if the prisoner game where it is assumed life must always choose to betray other life in order to continue existing. The truth of this is currently entirely unknowable, since we only have a sample size if life bearing planets is exactly one. It is therefore just as likely that life on other planets actually requires trust and cooperation instead of betrayal to survive and thus it may have a completely different outlook. Or perhaps it has nothing to do either model, and simply exists. Perhaps life does exist in other dimensions, just as curious, but incapable of interacting with our 3/4 dimensions in a meaningful way and we are merely ships passing in the night. I think it is still a very interesting question to raise, but one in which I don't think the answer is inevitably dark. It could be, but it just as easily could not. For every scientist who would die as a result of the inversion of modern physics, I think just as many would be intrigued by the possibility of studying a device that could warp physics itself. That being said I think it would be a very different series to have a quackjob physicist with theories about how physics is wrong because of aliens, but still.

Wouldn't the same existential problem be true for both the shooter and the farmer in these examples? Why should we concern ourselves if the truth is actually just infinite fractals of awareness and existence? Infinite scale and infinite scope, Ouroboros consuming itself for eternity.

Thanks for suggesting my next audible adventure Quinn!

@quin’s ideas thank YOU for introducing me to the series!

I just read Three Body Problem. Gotta say, it’s probably in my bottom 5 sci-fi books. But apparently it needs the other two to flesh it out. So since I trust Quinn’s recommendation, I’ll read the second book. I can’t think of any book I’ve ever read that is part of a series that begins so broadly and slowly.

Like many nerds back in the '70s I was very excited by the Drake Equation. It was a very hopeful equation: even if the filters were tight you could still get pleasing results by throwing quadrillions of candidate planets at it. It was a seductively simple idea. Carl Sagan loved the Drake Equation. He never actually said "billions and billions", but he was sure that we'd find intelligent life "within our lifetimes", because of the supposed probabilities. But I think that "billions and billions" has led us in the wrong direction. I think it's time to call it quits on the Drake Equation. One problem is that the Drake Equation is not a predictive model. It is of no practical use; not only don't we have usable values we can plug in to it, but we don't even know most of the useful ranges. So, we make guesses and we try to fit them in to the equation. The guesses can be tarted up to sound fancy and informed. But they're just guesses, and the Drake Equation isn't a complete description of the problem. (It's not much concerned with the nature of reality or even the definition of sentience.) The results range from near-zero to one, depending on whom you ask, and the phase of the moon. Great. Very useful. Notably, the results are influenced by the enthusiasm of the observer. SETI types somehow seem to produce larger values from the equation than people who are less invested in the outcome. Why? Well, it's obvious. We're biased. We *want* there to be other life. And so we come up with all manner of explanations (and, yes, excuses) to explain the lack of evidence for any other life. And criticisms of the Drake Equation are hand-waved away as "lacking imagination" or "hubris" or the like. But I suspect we have grossly inflated the probability of other sentient life by directly linking it to the number of candidate planets, and have simultaneously underestimated the difficulty in sentient life arising in the cosmos. PROBLEM: don't know the odds of other sentient life arising, but we DO know that it took almost the entire life of the universe for sentient life to arise on Earth. And we know that couldn't have happened very quickly. First, other stars had to live and die and explode before our solar system and Earth was formed. And after that it seems that simple life arose relatively quickly. But it then took billions of life for that abundant life to evolve sentience. PROBLEM: due to the Sun's own lifespan, the Earth doesn't have billions of habitable years left. It is old. At best, it probably has 1 to 1.5 billion years left, due to the sun's lifespan. So, we're lucky we arrived when we did. This strongly suggests that (1) it takes a long time (possibly much of the age of the universe) for simple life to arise in a system, and (2) the transition from simple life to sentience is an extremely unlikely one. Look, I get it. I'm a nerd. I look at the night sky and I want there to be other life. I read all the nerd books. I subscribe to this channel. I like the Big Ideas. There is something deeply compelling and comforting in the mathematical simplicity of things like the Drake Equation. But science is an honest process where you test your theory against the results, and then reframe your assumptions and thinking accordingly. What if the basic assumptions are wrong? What if the odds of sentient life arising in any given universe are truly infinitesimal?

Loved the triology, and love your analysis of it!

Haven't watched the video, but I tossed you a like anyways. I didn't want to spoil the book in any way. Your recommendation of the Hyperion Cantos turned out to be just a fantastic read, and I thank you. I'm looking forward to digging into this series.

When we look into the sky, we look into the past, billions of years ago. There are things that can be obscured from us by the universe. But a civilization born after the big bang could not change the past. I ranks this "terror" in the same place than "Roko's basilisk" : a child's fear.

Many years ago, the topic was usually presented in the form of a book entitled 'Flatland." But reality can be far stranger than we think Try studying the Electric Universe material. So long as the concepts of Plasma Physics are recognizable to you, their ideas make a great deal of common sense. For those in denial of the obvious functions and power of electricity in space, well, some are lost at sea and never found again.

Hey man, you got a great channel. Like come to look for your advice about awesome science fiction books and great directions to start off with to further expand my consciousness. You do a great job man. Keep up the good work for all the strange and awesome kick ass nature of science, fiction and whatnot.

What if we are just food for some higher dimensional beings?