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3 Body Problem: Exploring Science Behind Netflix Show
There is a lot to understand when you watch Netflix’s latest series 3 Body Problem. The science that you saw in it might have put you in question, so here are the answers.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.
Netflix has brought you a mind-boggling series that revolves around science. This latest show is created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, known for their work in Game of Thrones, who have this time collaborated with the writer of True Blood, Alexander Woo.
Throughout the eight episodes of 3 Body Problem, you come across a lot of new concepts such as Sophons, nanofibers, and more. Well, these new abstract ideas do force you to think about the twisted world of science. Well, we've got you covered.
The explanations below are given by Dr. Matt Kenzie, who is the associate professor of physics at the University of Cambridge. Luckily he is also the science advisor of the series, who was recently interviewed by Tudum.
It is time to get your pen and papers out and study a bit of what's beyond usual science.
Countdown in Auggie’s eyes
During the first two episodes of 3 Body Problem, the audience is shocked to see that Eiza González’s nanotechnologist Auggie can see a countdown right within her eye. This countdown can only be seen by her, over which Dr. Kenzie has stated that it isn't a “projection in your image line — it’s really happening in your eye.”
As per the physicist, “There’s this really cool phenomenon called Cherenkov radiation, where in certain materials, particles can travel faster than light does in that material.”
Speaking further about his theory, which includes a particle-detector tank, Dr. Kenzie stated, “They then emit this radiation in a very specific cone, a bit like a sonic boom when a jet engine goes overhead — it’s the equivalent, but with light instead of sound. My theory for how these images appear on people’s retinas or in people’s vision in the show is that you could produce Cherenkov light in the liquid in someone’s eye to make an image kind of appear — or a countdown.”
Stars blinking in the sky
At the end of the first episode, it is shown that stars happen to blink in a coded pattern. However, in this case, everyone can see it. This might make you question that stars do blink, right? Well, they twinkle don't blink. They can't be totally turned on and off. And as per Dr. Kenzie, “There is no real way of doing that apart from making some kind of mask of the sky.”
Tank that Vera jumps into
In the first episode, Dr. Vera Ye who was the college professor of the Oxford Five- a group of scientists trying to save the world, jumps into a large tank and dies.
This tank shown in the series is a particle detector aka Cherenkov tank, yes the same one that Dr. Kenzie explained about earlier. The Cherenkov tanks are used to measure, observe, and identify particles, that are emitted from the sun. In the series, it is mainly used to study the particle neutrinos.
During his discussion of the theories, that are shown in the show, Dr Kenzie stated, “Part of the reason that they’re kind of interesting is that we don’t really understand much about them, and we suspect that they could be giving us clues to other types of physics in the universe that we don’t yet understand.”
Now you might question, how did Vera end up dead by falling into the water?
This was because Vera’s experiment was shut down and hence the water in the tank was drained out to a shallow level.
Nanofibers
Auggie is shown to be the inventor of nanofiber tech. Similarly, Auggie is even shown to run a company dedicated to designing self-assembling synthetic polymer nanofibers.
Here’s an explanation by Dr Kenzie about what are nanofibers exactly.
“Any material with a width of nanometers” he said. Nanometers is one millionth of a millimeter. To intrigue you more, the nanofibers are constructed out of graphene, which is a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, which happens to be very strong.
Dr Kenzie while talking about nanofibers also stated, “They can be very flexible. They tend to be very good conductors of both heat and electricity.”
Exploring nanofiber technology
Well, this might intrigue you but yes, nanofiber technology does exist in the real world. However, as per the physicist, it is made under a very specific condition.
“One of the difficulties is how you hold them in place — the scaffolding it’s called. You have to design molecules which hold these things whilst you’re trying to build them,” stated Dr. Kenzie.
Although it is shown in the series that the nanofiber technology is mass-produced by Aiggies company, in the real world this technology is not as immensely manufactured as depicted on Netflix.
We also see in episode 5 that this tech is used to cut through humans flesh, to which Dr. Kenzie has said that yes, it is strong enough to slice through almost anything.
Talking more about the same tech, the professor at the University of Cambridge explains, “If you wanted a machine that could do some precision cutting, then maybe (nanofiber) would be good.”
He has also stressed that this technology can be developed for use in manufacturing as well as construction industries.
Calling nanofibers a technology of the future, Dr. Kenzie further stated, “I know they’re also tested in the safety of the munitions world. If you need to bulletproof a room or bulletproof a vest, they’re incredibly light and they’re incredibly strong.”
VR headset
The director of episode 3 Andrew Stanton, while speaking about the in-series VR headsets has told Netflix, "You can feel it, you can smell it, you can touch it, you can taste it. The VR headset is an experience no one on Earth has ever had before.”
In the aforementioned episode, it is shown that Jin and Jack played by Jess Hong and e, respectively play a game wearing VR headsets. These headsets literally transport them into the world of the game they are playing.
They are shown to experience the period from Shang Dynasty to Tudor-period England. This is where they now have to save a young avatar who is called Follower and other people of the same world.
In the series, when Jon and Jack wear the headset and play the game they realize, they have to save the people of the planet of the follower from a three-body problem. A similar problem had been encountered by an extraterrestrial species known as San-Ti, which led to their planet being doomed.
This issue has forced the alien species to flee to Earth, and the VR game is actually helping them sort out the best human scientists. The VR headset makes Jin and Jack feel every bit of the game because of the upgraded technology that Saa-Ti possesses.
Can we actually build a gaming headset that allows us to feel the virtual world?
Dr. Kenzie on the possibility of having such VR headsets in real life stated, “It’s basically going to have to short-circuit your brain somehow.”
Talking about the headset that would literally transport you into another dimension, he further stated, “It’s one thing to display an image and make sounds, but really giving the sensations of smell and touch and taste — it really feels like you’re in another place when you put this headset on and play the game.”
Further putting forth real-life examples, he stated, “There are experiments where you can make people feel like they’re being touched or feel like they’re getting a sensation of some kind of taste. But the headset (in the show) does it without any wiring. It somehow does this in a wireless or technological way that we do not know or understand.”
Can human bodies dehydrate?
Ok, we have heard about hibernation, but in the series, it is shown that the inhabitants of the planet in the game that is being played by Jin and Jack, literally dehydrate their bodies.
They perform this to survive the tough times, and once they enter a stable era they then again rehydrate themselves. Let's see what Dr. Kenzie has to say about it.
Asserting that dehydrating one's body in real life is impossible and that it is only science fictional, the scientist stated, “You can freeze human bodies for a bit and then restart them.”
Further adding, “They have these amazing medical procedures where your core temperature is lowered and then your blood is moved out into these bypass machines, and it allows them to do heart surgeries and brain surgeries.”
Can we preserve the human brain?
We see that Will’s brain is actually taken out of his body and put on ice then sent into space for a project called Project Staircase. It seems that this experiment is possible.
As per Dr. Kenzie, preserving a brain although is not super logical, but this can be achieved when “It’s cryogenically frozen and put in a box so that it won’t rot. ”
“But then it’s just sent into space, and space is very cold anyway, so it probably preserves the brain biologically, in some sense of the word,” adds the scientist.
Further explaining the concept, he stated, “I don’t think we would be able to do anything with it with our current technology. We can’t then remake a human from that brain. But I think actually doing what is done in the show — just taking out someone’s brain in a reasonably careful medical extraction and then cryogenically freezing it and then putting it into space — is possible.”
Sun as a super-antenna
Talking about the episode 2 event, where young Ye Wenjie discovers that a message can be sent to the extraterrestrials using the sun by reflecting the signals to other planets, Dr Kenzie states it is a bit of a stretch.
Explaining how different layers of the electrically charged gas called plasma of the Sun work, Dr. Kenzie stated, “If you really got the conditions absolutely perfect, then maybe you could send in a signal, it reflects back off the first layer, but then it also propagates to the next layer and reflects back from that layer.”
“Now, if they happen to then interfere constructively, you get an amplification — the same way an amplifier works,” added the science advisor.
Sophon
A Sophon in the series is actually a proton, which the San-Ti’s have turned into a sentient. It is a supercomputer that has artificial intelligence. The San-Ti’s develop Sophons to spy on humans and also destroy the scientific research of humans.
They can see and hear everything, and track the humans and their plots while also interfering with their technology.
As per Dr. Kenzie, the Sophons in the series “can make its own decisions, but it also has some other fairly magical features, which is that it can act autonomously and move itself around.”
He further explains that the Sophons are responsible for the “havoc and illusions” similar to what is witnessed by Auggie, these same supercomputers are the ones “screwing up our science data,” and “listening in on conversations and communicating back to the San-Ti.”
Can Sophons exist today?
Explaining the concept of the Sophons, Dr. Kenzie stated that it is practically impossible that the Sophons could exist today. “In our three-dimensional space world and our one dimension of time, no, they couldn’t, basically,” says Dr. Kenzie.
For Sophon to exist in reality it needs to extract energy from around its environment and then also store it.
He further stressed that the Sophon would need to know about the hidden dimensions, unknown to the humans to program themselves.
Explaining the fictional characters, Dr. Kenzie stated that although Sophons have their own super intelligence and powers, they have their own limitation as well.
“They can’t be everywhere all at once, all the time,” says Dr. Kenzie.
Wallfacer
Wallfacers are the individuals who are chosen to come up with a plan to fight San-Ti. The Sophons are not capable of figuring out a difference between the truth and the lie, so world leaders in the said series come up with Wallfacers.
In the series, the decision made by Wallfacers is absolute and hence doesn't actually need a justification or explanation.
Named after the ancient Buddhist name for meditators, Wallfacers are the ones to fight against Sophons by keeping their plans a secret.
Explaining the logic behind Wallfacers, Dr. Kenzie stated, “Sophons can hear and see what we’re doing, and they can understand what we’re planning, but they’re not mind readers. They can’t get into our mind, they can’t uncover your thoughts. And they’re particularly bad at interpreting metaphor and analogies and straight-up deception.”
What is the three-body problem?
The three-body problem is the celestial phenomenon when three celestial objects such as a planet, sun, or stars, which are in close proximity to each other exert force onto one another.
As per Dr. Kenzie when two objects exert force onto each other, you can easily predict the rotation of the object, but “As soon as you have three bodies or more that are all exerting a force on each other at the same time, then that system breaks down.”
The physicist further explained, “If you have three bodies or more, then the orbit becomes chaotic.”
In the series, the planet of San-Ti has a three-sun solar system. This allows the planet to switch between stable and chaotic eras.
One sun of the planet’s sun makes it stable, while rotation around another, it snatches the planet away, forcing it to wander in the gravitational field between the three suns, and making it fall into a chaotic era.
This chaotic era makes the atmosphere on the planet too extreme to live in. As per Dr. Kenzie “There’s no known solutions to the three-body problem,” but to leave the planet, which the San-Ti’s do.
ALSO READ: 3 Body Problem: Everything To Know About The Upcoming Show's Trailer, Cast, Release Date, And More
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