3 Body Problem - Countdown to 3/21/24 - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > 3 Body Problem - Countdown to 3/21/24

Vegetable: Oct 22, 2010

Open Source Idiom posted:

There was an article about a few years back, but essentially we've reached a situation with actors and streaming shows such that the leads are now being paid considerably more per episode than they once were, regardless of apparent star power.

While there are no A list stars here, other than Pitt's producer credit, that was largely true of the Apes films IIRC -- the first film's only star power at the time was James Franco. (Karen Konoval is the star of my heart, though, and Serkis is no slouch). What you have here is far more actors, many of them character actors with industry name recognition.

This is a show that could afford to film and then dump scenes with Sylvester McCoy, but also employ people like CCH Pounder, Mark Gattiss, Benedict Wong, Liam Cunningham, Jovan Adepo and Jonathan Price, among others, some in tremendously small roles. All these people are quite respected in the industry, despite being working actors. That you don't know who they are doesn't mean they don't need to be paid a lot to have them all on your project, it just means you're uneducated.

As someone who obsessively consumes Hollywood inside baseball poo poo, lol at you calling other people uneducated. None of those actors would be expensive. They�re at best C-listers, with the exception of Pryce, who appears in a guest role (and would likely be paid that way).

If anything, the cast is quite clearly where this show cut its corners. Almost all of them are nobodies. And it absolutely shows. The leads are some of the worst I�ve seen for something with pretensions of prestige television. The actor playing Jin is literally an amateur.

They obviously saved the money for the insane amounts of complex CGI and the large number of sets. I don�t think they quite got the balance right. But mostly lmao at this guy for talking out his rear end.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 08:40

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# ? May 2, 2024 02:02

Open Source Idiom: Jan 4, 2013

Vegetable posted:

As someone who obsessively consumes Hollywood inside baseball poo poo, lol at you calling other people uneducated.

If the cap fits...

# ? Apr 6, 2024 09:25

counterfeitsaint: Feb 26, 2010; I'm a girl, and you're
gnomes, and it's like
what? Yikes.

I wasn't planning on binging it, but it was really good so I kept watching it.

I don't really understand the alien's timeline or motivations though. Glancing through some of the spoilers in the thread, it sounds like a lot of them are just changes from the book, but the show is on my mind so I'm going to write a wall of text about it anyways.

1. So these guys need to get off their planet because the three suns requires everyone to go into stasis, hosed up their cultural progress, and will eventually destroy the planet. Okay, sure. But in that case why are they sitting on their thumbs waiting for the dumb apes nearby to send them a hello world message? Even with out paltry technology we've detected thousands of exoplanets and are on the verge of analyzing the atmospheres around some of them. Wouldn't it be way easier to just find a suitable uninhabited planet to go to? Gotta be cheaper than using up all the remaining resources of your civilization to build 11 dimensional supercomputers to keep the locals in check.

2. What about our message made them think this planet would be suitable for them to inhabit anyways? Does Earth have the right atmosphere? Temperature range? Solar radiation? Gravity? If they could detect this information before receiving our message, why hadn't they already learned that and already on their way?

3. Was the fleet built and ready to go? Building 1000 ships and having them just wait around in orbit until aliens contact you seems like a pretty insane thing to do, especially when they're even more at risk from the suns up there than everyone on the surface.

4. Was Project Staircase the same in the book? I don't see how detonating a nuke a few meters away from the probe isn't going to vaporize it. Based on the little animations, the detonation happens so close it's between the solar sheet and the probe itself, wouldn't that force the sheet forward and the probe backwards? Even if it didn't vaporize, the extreme stress of that kind of acceleration is obviously going to tear the whole thing apart, which it did.

5. Why did they call us bugs? Not why do they think we're bugs, that makes sense, but why reveal yourself and communicate in any way after cutting ties with the cult? If they never spoke to us again after learning about lying, we'd all go back to idly brutalizing each other and being lazy and complacent. Sure a few people know, and the hard drive exists, but it's gonna be a lot harder to get everyone to believe and work together with just that limited evidence. Instead they managed to galvanize the entire race into working against them.

I was gonna ask about the Pacifist keeping secrets, but that seems to have already been answered previously in spoilers. Same thing for why they spent all their resources building spies to come watch us before learning about/freaking out about the concept of lying.

There were a few other minor quibbles, but I enjoyed the show so much that they didn't bother me, and they feel really nitpicky; First, has life on this planet had the ability to go into stasis since the earliest, most primitive incarnations? And then that trait remained through the entire evolutionary process? I can see complex intelligent organisms doing that, but the first single celled (or equivalent) life feels like a stretch. The second one is, I'd have loved to see the other players in the game setting up their 'solution'. "Okay Great Khan, first we need 13 million soldiers, here where is where they all need to precisely stand. Don't worry I mapped all this out ahead of time. Now they each need a little sign, and then flip the signs back and forth..." They'd be boiled alive for sure. Finally, what was on Ser Davos' ID? It had to be some organization a Royal Naval Captain would be familiar with, so not some unknown secret group. Seems like the sort of thing you'd want to confirm rather than just glancing at a badge, but that would ruin the flow of the scene so that gets a pass.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 10:44

Stegosnaurlax: Apr 30, 2023

counterfeitsaint posted:

I wasn't planning on binging it, but it was really good so I kept watching it.

I don't really understand the alien's timeline or motivations though. Glancing through some of the spoilers in the thread, it sounds like a lot of them are just changes from the book, but the show is on my mind so I'm going to write a wall of text about it anyways.

1. So these guys need to get off their planet because the three suns requires everyone to go into stasis, hosed up their cultural progress, and will eventually destroy the planet. Okay, sure. But in that case why are they sitting on their thumbs waiting for the dumb apes nearby to send them a hello world message? Even with out paltry technology we've detected thousands of exoplanets and are on the verge of analyzing the atmospheres around some of them. Wouldn't it be way easier to just find a suitable uninhabited planet to go to? Gotta be cheaper than using up all the remaining resources of your civilization to build 11 dimensional supercomputers to keep the locals in check.

2. What about our message made them think this planet would be suitable for them to inhabit anyways? Does Earth have the right atmosphere? Temperature range? Solar radiation? Gravity? If they could detect this information before receiving our message, why hadn't they already learned that and already on their way?

3. Was the fleet built and ready to go? Building 1000 ships and having them just wait around in orbit until aliens contact you seems like a pretty insane thing to do, especially when they're even more at risk from the suns up there than everyone on the surface.

4. Was Project Staircase the same in the book? I don't see how detonating a nuke a few meters away from the probe isn't going to vaporize it. Based on the little animations, the detonation happens so close it's between the solar sheet and the probe itself, wouldn't that force the sheet forward and the probe backwards? Even if it didn't vaporize, the extreme stress of that kind of acceleration is obviously going to tear the whole thing apart, which it did.

5. Why did they call us bugs? Not why do they think we're bugs, that makes sense, but why reveal yourself and communicate in any way after cutting ties with the cult? If they never spoke to us again after learning about lying, we'd all go back to idly brutalizing each other and being lazy and complacent. Sure a few people know, and the hard drive exists, but it's gonna be a lot harder to get everyone to believe and work together with just that limited evidence. Instead they managed to galvanize the entire race into working against them.

I was gonna ask about the Pacifist keeping secrets, but that seems to have already been answered previously in spoilers. Same thing for why they spent all their resources building spies to come watch us before learning about/freaking out about the concept of lying.

There were a few other minor quibbles, but I enjoyed the show so much that they didn't bother me, and they feel really nitpicky; First, has life on this planet had the ability to go into stasis since the earliest, most primitive incarnations? And then that trait remained through the entire evolutionary process? I can see complex intelligent organisms doing that, but the first single celled (or equivalent) life feels like a stretch. The second one is, I'd have loved to see the other players in the game setting up their 'solution'. "Okay Great Khan, first we need 13 million soldiers, here where is where they all need to precisely stand. Don't worry I mapped all this out ahead of time. Now they each need a little sign, and then flip the signs back and forth..." They'd be boiled alive for sure. Finally, what was on Ser Davos' ID? It had to be some organization a Royal Naval Captain would be familiar with, so not some unknown secret group. Seems like the sort of thing you'd want to confirm rather than just glancing at a badge, but that would ruin the flow of the scene so that gets a pass.

Ignoring all the other questions i don't have answers for, they called us bugs because Captain McBoatyface referenced humans not caring about bugs they kill.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 11:36

Strom Cuzewon: Jul 1, 2010

Did I briefly pass out at some point, or did they never explain who the hell Wade is? At the start he just looks like Benedict Wong's spy/cop-boss, and then suddenly he's the guy leading armies of scientists and launching nukes into space. And it feels like there was never an explanation of how he got from one to the other.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 11:56

Stegosnaurlax: Apr 30, 2023

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Did I briefly pass out at some point, or did they never explain who the hell Wade is? At the start he just looks like Benedict Wong's spy/cop-boss, and then suddenly he's the guy leading armies of scientists and launching nukes into space. And it feels like there was never an explanation of how he got from one to the other.

I'm assuming he's king of the illuminati. That's good enough for me right now.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 12:01

GABA ghoul: Oct 29, 2011

counterfeitsaint posted:

I wasn't planning on binging it, but it was really good so I kept watching it.

I don't really understand the alien's timeline or motivations though. Glancing through some of the spoilers in the thread, it sounds like a lot of them are just changes from the book, but the show is on my mind so I'm going to write a wall of text about it anyways.

1. So these guys need to get off their planet because the three suns requires everyone to go into stasis, hosed up their cultural progress, and will eventually destroy the planet. Okay, sure. But in that case why are they sitting on their thumbs waiting for the dumb apes nearby to send them a hello world message? Even with out paltry technology we've detected thousands of exoplanets and are on the verge of analyzing the atmospheres around some of them. Wouldn't it be way easier to just find a suitable uninhabited planet to go to? Gotta be cheaper than using up all the remaining resources of your civilization to build 11 dimensional supercomputers to keep the locals in check.

2. What about our message made them think this planet would be suitable for them to inhabit anyways? Does Earth have the right atmosphere? Temperature range? Solar radiation? Gravity? If they could detect this information before receiving our message, why hadn't they already learned that and already on their way?

3. Was the fleet built and ready to go? Building 1000 ships and having them just wait around in orbit until aliens contact you seems like a pretty insane thing to do, especially when they're even more at risk from the suns up there than everyone on the surface.

4. Was Project Staircase the same in the book? I don't see how detonating a nuke a few meters away from the probe isn't going to vaporize it. Based on the little animations, the detonation happens so close it's between the solar sheet and the probe itself, wouldn't that force the sheet forward and the probe backwards? Even if it didn't vaporize, the extreme stress of that kind of acceleration is obviously going to tear the whole thing apart, which it did.

5. Why did they call us bugs? Not why do they think we're bugs, that makes sense, but why reveal yourself and communicate in any way after cutting ties with the cult? If they never spoke to us again after learning about lying, we'd all go back to idly brutalizing each other and being lazy and complacent. Sure a few people know, and the hard drive exists, but it's gonna be a lot harder to get everyone to believe and work together with just that limited evidence. Instead they managed to galvanize the entire race into working against them.

I was gonna ask about the Pacifist keeping secrets, but that seems to have already been answered previously in spoilers. Same thing for why they spent all their resources building spies to come watch us before learning about/freaking out about the concept of lying.

There were a few other minor quibbles, but I enjoyed the show so much that they didn't bother me, and they feel really nitpicky; First, has life on this planet had the ability to go into stasis since the earliest, most primitive incarnations? And then that trait remained through the entire evolutionary process? I can see complex intelligent organisms doing that, but the first single celled (or equivalent) life feels like a stretch. The second one is, I'd have loved to see the other players in the game setting up their 'solution'. "Okay Great Khan, first we need 13 million soldiers, here where is where they all need to precisely stand. Don't worry I mapped all this out ahead of time. Now they each need a little sign, and then flip the signs back and forth..." They'd be boiled alive for sure. Finally, what was on Ser Davos' ID? It had to be some organization a Royal Naval Captain would be familiar with, so not some unknown secret group. Seems like the sort of thing you'd want to confirm rather than just glancing at a badge, but that would ruin the flow of the scene so that gets a pass.

1. The real reason is that the books were written two decades ago when our ability to detect exoplanets was pretty bad and the whole topic wasn't very publicized in pop science media. There is a later retconned in-universe reason revealed in the second book, but it's a major spoiler.

2. In context of the first book: IIRC they just didn't know about earth, but once they knew they deduced that it's in the habitable zone. They were also in communication with the ETO, so they could have just asked what the environmental conditions are. And the fleet can be turned around easily and quickly, if it needs to. It wasn't such a huge gamble. The second book reveals another reason, but that's spoiler again.

4. Yes, Staircase is based on a real idea and is plausible from an engineering point of view. The CGI scenes in the show are of course complete nonsense and would have destroyed the capsule. They probably just decided to go with clarity instead of scientific accuracy when designing these scenes.

5. IIRC they are trying to sow division and despair in the population. Doomerism/defeatism/escapism is a huge topic in the book. Turning everyone into a doomer is basically how they think they can win this. We were already running a huge international effort to prepare for the invasion before the "you're bugs" message, so I don't think it alarmed governments much more than they already were.

6. I think the hibernation/dessication idea comes from tartigrades? They were pretty popular in pop science around that time. Hibernation to survive extremely harsh conditions is something you can find through most parts of the animal/plant/fungi/prokaryotes/archae kingdom on earth. It's pretty common, including in microorganisms. Most parts of earth experience seasonal weather changes, so life had to develop strategies to survive harsh winters or summers from almost the very beginning.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 12:12

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

Stegosnaurlax posted:

he's king of the illuminati.

They kinda shuffle by this by having the military guy look his ID and immediately cave to what he wants. I think they mentioned once or twice some agency that he's supposed to be heading, although he seems more like the Illusive Man from Mass Effect than the head of an intelligence agency.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 15:10

Buttchocks: Oct 21, 2020; No, I like my hat, thanks.

Zero VGS posted:

Netflix cancels all great shows after Season 2, it's the law.

There were a lot more than three seasons, but Netflix developed a weapon to collapse them.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 17:19

Zero VGS: Aug 16, 2002; ASK ME ABOUT HOW HUMAN LIVES THAT MADE VIDEO GAME CONTROLLERS ARE WORTH MORE; Lipstick Apathy

Buttchocks posted:

There were a lot more than three seasons, but Netflix developed a weapon to collapse them.

Oh god... the sOAphons

# ? Apr 6, 2024 17:23

Wii Spawn Camper: Nov 25, 2005; That's fine. I guess you're just losers then.

Netflix (and, to a lesser extent, game of thrones) has ruined tv shows for me, i won�t start watching a show unless it has already finished. I thought this show was a mini-series or I�d never have started it. I was happy to learn the books are finished, at least.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 17:44

kalensc: Sep 10, 2003; Only Trust Your Respirator, kupo!
Art/Quote by: Rubby

discoukulele posted:

- Yeah, there's content from the next two books in 3BP
- The content from the next two books are the first few chapters from each. Roughly the first 100 pages of Book 3 and somewhere around that for Book 2 (but I'm not positive on that one). It's not anything majorly spoilerish as it's all of the setup stuff from both books.
- You could probably go from Three-Body to the Dark Forest (there's just a few minor subplots that the series added, but otherwise it's almost entirely the same). It might be better to read Three Body Problem first though.

Thanks disco ukulele!

# ? Apr 6, 2024 17:46

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

When wade says sohpons it sounds like cell phones and it kinda works.

# ? Apr 6, 2024 18:23

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

Buttchocks posted:

There were a lot more than three seasons, but Netflix developed a weapon to collapse them.

Junior Vice President of Programming looks at the viewership data. A show popped up on his radar that was about to reach its third season. Do we have to cancel this show? he asked the Senior Vice President? It might be interesting after all

The Senior Vice President sighed and said of course we have to cancel it. We have to cancel all shows before they reach a third season or else it might be more difficult to cancel later.

The Junior Vice President loaded a cancellation order into an envelope and was preparing to have it mailed out, when he took another look at the viewership data.

Someone from some other unknown department had already cancelled the show

# ? Apr 6, 2024 19:46

Carwash Cunt: Aug 21, 2007

Maybe this is an old man yelling at cloud opinion, but drat I wish show like this could put out a season once a year.
The first 4 seasons of Sopranos were released in 4 years.
Deep Space 9 was annual.
The Wire got 3 seasons finished in 3 years.

If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for modern shows too. :colbert:

# ? Apr 7, 2024 00:21

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

GABA ghoul posted:

2. In context of the first book: IIRC they just didn't know about earth, but once they knew they deduced that it's in the habitable zone. They were also in communication with the ETO, so they could have just asked what the environmental conditions are. And the fleet can be turned around easily and quickly, if it needs to. It wasn't such a huge gamble. The second book reveals another reason, but that's spoiler again.

I believe the original space propaganda message also went into a bit more detail about how great earth is (under Chinese rule).

# ? Apr 9, 2024 07:41

kanonvandekempen: Mar 14, 2009

GABA ghoul posted:

1. The real reason is that the books were written two decades ago when our ability to detect exoplanets was pretty bad and the whole topic wasn't very publicized in pop science media. There is a later retconned in-universe reason revealed in the second book, but it's a major spoiler.

2. In context of the first book: IIRC they just didn't know about earth, but once they knew they deduced that it's in the habitable zone. They were also in communication with the ETO, so they could have just asked what the environmental conditions are. And the fleet can be turned around easily and quickly, if it needs to. It wasn't such a huge gamble. The second book reveals another reason, but that's spoiler again.

I've read the books a while ago but I don't seem to remember the spoilers you talk about, can you clarify?
EDIT: if it's against the rules of this thread to ask about the books, please ignore me, I don't want to get probated.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 10:40

Yadoppsi: May 10, 2009

kalensc posted:

I binged the original Three-Body this past week, drat that was good stuff. The dubbing of the English-speaking characters was hilarious, and the back half probably could have been edited down a tad tighter but still, A+ would recommend.

Watching the Netflix version is like reading a Coles Notes, goddam do they knock down key plot points and character development like dominoes. If I hadn't watched Three-Body first then I'd feel really disconnected from a lot of what's going on in 3 Body Problem. I feel like Goldilocks, albeit the Netflix version is moving extremely fast whereas the original was only a tad slow imo.

Perhaps you or some other readers of this thread would enjoy this fan made Supercut of Tencent's 3Body: https://disembiggened.com/

# ? Apr 9, 2024 11:05

PriorMarcus: Oct 17, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

Yadoppsi posted:

Perhaps you or some other readers of this thread would enjoy this fan made Supercut of Tencent's 3Body: https://disembiggened.com/

This is just the first book, right? Any news on Tencent adapting the rest?

# ? Apr 9, 2024 11:18

huh: Jan 23, 2004; Dinosaur Gum

I can't even bring myself to watch the last two episodes. It is just so boring. How can this be? I love the books. I love Game of Thrones.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 12:01

Yadoppsi: May 10, 2009

PriorMarcus posted:

This is just the first book, right? Any news on Tencent adapting the rest?

S2 is in pre-production. Yang Lei said they are going to start filming early 2025.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 12:05

Stegosnaurlax: Apr 30, 2023

huh posted:

I can't even bring myself to watch the last two episodes. It is just so boring. How can this be? I love the books. I love Game of Thrones.

What does this have to do with game of thrones?

# ? Apr 9, 2024 12:35

HerpicleOmnicron5: May 31, 2013; How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?

Stegosnaurlax posted:

What does this have to do with game of thrones?

Same showrunners. Some same cast members.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 13:02

Nice Tuckpointing!: Nov 3, 2005

HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:

Same showrunners. Some same cast members.

I bet the Droplet in Season 2 will be played by Emilia Clarke.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 14:43

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Peter Dinklage will play the concept of four dimensional space. How else would you bring that to screen?

# ? Apr 9, 2024 15:50

GABA ghoul: Oct 29, 2011

kanonvandekempen posted:

I've read the books a while ago but I don't seem to remember the spoilers you talk about, can you clarify?
EDIT: if it's against the rules of this thread to ask about the books, please ignore me, I don't want to get probated.

Book 2 spoilers:

Moving around in the dark forest is extremely dangerous. Every planet in a habitable zone is likely to be already occupied by a hostile civilization and it's totally random if they are technologically behind or ahead of you. If you get unlucky and stumble upon more advanced aliens, they will easily destroy your fleet and also the solar system it came from.

I may remember this wrong but I think the Trisolarans built that fleet to be ready when their planet finally decided to take a bath in one of the suns. It was supposed to be a measure of last resort. Then the over-sharing naked apes from the neighboring star discovered radio communication and changed everything.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 16:26

kalensc: Sep 10, 2003; Only Trust Your Respirator, kupo!
Art/Quote by: Rubby

Yadoppsi posted:

Perhaps you or some other readers of this thread would enjoy this fan made Supercut of Tencent's 3Body: https://disembiggened.com/

Honestly, there is a lot that needs to be cut from the original TenCent version imo, at least not in terms of whole scenes. Reducing 22~ hours to 6 gives the series the same awkward rushed pace as the Netflix version.

I'd definitely recommend starting with the TenCent version if I knew someone was curious about the adaptations. I liked the chemistry between the actors portraying Wang Miao and Shi Qiang a lot, ditto the performances by the actresses portraying Ye Wenjie. A lot of posters commented earlier in the thread that the characters in the books lacked depth, at least the first book, but I didn't feel that way about the majority of the TenCent cast.

Anyways, I'll definitely check out second seasons of either production.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 18:34

huh: Jan 23, 2004; Dinosaur Gum

kalensc posted:

the chemistry between the actors

I think that's what is lacking in the netflix version.

# ? Apr 9, 2024 21:13

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

Was daydreaming about humans fighting much more advanced enemies and decided to look up whether Megazone 23 was on streaming. Parts 1 and 2 are on RetroCrush, Freevee and Tubi!

Warning: extremely graphic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JSJ7LE_AOg

Humans are fighting an offshoot of the human race that are approximately 50 years more advanced. They�ve genetically modified themselves and are now unrecognizable to humans

I started daydreaming what an animated 3 Body Problem trilogy would be like, but come to think of it, 90% of it would be people standing around and talking, so maybe not the best use case for animation

# ? Apr 14, 2024 02:24

Dr. Stab: Sep 12, 2010; 👨🏻‍⚕️🩺🔪🙀😱🙀

I hope that supposed expert fish babysitter transfers the goldfish to a proper tank with a filter in season 2. :ohdear:

Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Apr 15, 2024

# ? Apr 15, 2024 00:10

Caros: May 14, 2008

So I know it is a lot to ask a sort of remedial math question on a tviv thread, but the whole 3 body problem thing keeps bugging me. Mostly because it feels like the show/book misunderstands it. But it might be me?

I understand the basic issue. One thing goes around sun? Primative people were able to work out things like eclipse schedules by factoring in orbital mechanics. Compatively easy, to the point that high schoolers can be given the equations and predict the position of the bodies millenia in advance.

But when you get to three bodies with overlapping orbits and fields of gravity it gets weird. Things get flung in and out so there is no one size fits all way to look at such a system and say 'if you have a system like this run it through this formula and you can predict out to ten thousand year.

But... You can still do it manually. No? Thry have telescopes, we know the speeds of the objects, the gravity that they exert. Primative trisolarans are absolutely hosed, no doubt since there is no reasonable way to compute the problem, but once you are at the point that you are building photonic supercomputing you have the ability to brute force the problem on the individual level. You can model where your planet will be in position to the suns tomorrow. Then run where it would be in position the day after, and the day after and the day after that until you have a accurate calendar stretching thousands or millions of years.

Time consuming. Resource intensive on modern computing, but absolutely doable when your super advanced civilization depends upon it.

# ? Apr 21, 2024 07:04

cohsae: Jun 19, 2015

Caros posted:

So I know it is a lot to ask a sort of remedial math question on a tviv thread, but the whole 3 body problem thing keeps bugging me. Mostly because it feels like the show/book misunderstands it. But it might be me?

I understand the basic issue. One thing goes around sun? Primative people were able to work out things like eclipse schedules by factoring in orbital mechanics. Compatively easy, to the point that high schoolers can be given the equations and predict the position of the bodies millenia in advance.

But when you get to three bodies with overlapping orbits and fields of gravity it gets weird. Things get flung in and out so there is no one size fits all way to look at such a system and say 'if you have a system like this run it through this formula and you can predict out to ten thousand year.

But... You can still do it manually. No? Thry have telescopes, we know the speeds of the objects, the gravity that they exert. Primative trisolarans are absolutely hosed, no doubt since there is no reasonable way to compute the problem, but once you are at the point that you are building photonic supercomputing you have the ability to brute force the problem on the individual level. You can model where your planet will be in position to the suns tomorrow. Then run where it would be in position the day after, and the day after and the day after that until you have a accurate calendar stretching thousands or millions of years.

Time consuming. Resource intensive on modern computing, but absolutely doable when your super advanced civilization depends upon it.

Even if you create a predictive model, you're still faced with the fact that eventually the planet will either collide with a star or be flung out of orbit into space.
So the only true solution to the problem is to leave. This is what the game is supposed to teach.

# ? Apr 21, 2024 07:14

Tayter Swift: Nov 18, 2002; Pillbug

In theory and if you had perfect accuracy and point-like objects... yes, you can work out the instantaneous velocities using Newtonian mechanics and multivariable calculus. But you can't have perfect accuracy down to the quantum (and relativistic) level. There's always going to be some amount of uncertainty, and errors in calculating a general-case n-body system will amplify over time to where you simply can't predict their positions far enough out.

# ? Apr 21, 2024 07:24

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Caros posted:

So I know it is a lot to ask a sort of remedial math question on a tviv thread, but the whole 3 body problem thing keeps bugging me. Mostly because it feels like the show/book misunderstands it. But it might be me?

I understand the basic issue. One thing goes around sun? Primative people were able to work out things like eclipse schedules by factoring in orbital mechanics. Compatively easy, to the point that high schoolers can be given the equations and predict the position of the bodies millenia in advance.

But when you get to three bodies with overlapping orbits and fields of gravity it gets weird. Things get flung in and out so there is no one size fits all way to look at such a system and say 'if you have a system like this run it through this formula and you can predict out to ten thousand year.

But... You can still do it manually. No? Thry have telescopes, we know the speeds of the objects, the gravity that they exert. Primative trisolarans are absolutely hosed, no doubt since there is no reasonable way to compute the problem, but once you are at the point that you are building photonic supercomputing you have the ability to brute force the problem on the individual level. You can model where your planet will be in position to the suns tomorrow. Then run where it would be in position the day after, and the day after and the day after that until you have a accurate calendar stretching thousands or millions of years.

Time consuming. Resource intensive on modern computing, but absolutely doable when your super advanced civilization depends upon it.

They don't get into it in the show, but yeah, the San-ti do eventually get to the point where they can accurately predict chaotic and stable eras. But then they discover another problem, which is that their planet is eventually going to spiral into one of the suns.

There's another thing that they don't mention in the show that is also kind of important. The giant human computer actually worked - mainly because the San-ti have dozens of limbs and can do complex calculations in their heads quickly - but it failed to account for general relativity.

# ? Apr 21, 2024 07:33

uXs: May 3, 2005; Mark it zero!

Caros posted:

But... You can still do it manually. No?

No. It's a chaotic system so absolutely tiny differences in your starting parameters will cause massive differences later on. And even if you could get the starting parameters 100% correct (which you can't), there's also all the other bodies in the system that will have a minimal, but still significant, influence.

On the other hand, it does take time for chaos to take over so in practical terms it can be calculated well enough. You just have keep adjusting every so often.

And eventually your planet is hosed regardless.

# ? Apr 21, 2024 08:32

counterfeitsaint: Feb 26, 2010; I'm a girl, and you're
gnomes, and it's like
what? Yikes.

I understand that gravity's effect is reduced by an inverse square of distance, but it's also technically without limit right? So really if you're calculating anything out, say, the movement of the Earth and moon to predict an eclipse, it's always a several body problem, even if most of those objects (the other planets in the system) are having very, very minor impacts. Is that not correct? Are the effects of other bodies in the system so minor as to be completely disregarded, even calculating far into the future? Even if you ignore everything else, something as straight forward as predicting the movements of the moon would be a three body problem, since you have the moon, the earth, and the sun.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 03:57

jisforjosh: Jun 6, 2006; "It's J is for...you know what? Fuck it, jizz it is"

counterfeitsaint posted:

I understand that gravity's effect is reduced by an inverse square of distance, but it's also technically without limit right? So really if you're calculating anything out, say, the movement of the Earth and moon to predict an eclipse, it's always a several body problem, even if most of those objects (the other planets in the system) are having very, very minor impacts. Is that not correct? Are the effects of other bodies in the system so minor as to be completely disregarded, even calculating far into the future? Even if you ignore everything else, something as straight forward as predicting the movements of the moon would be a three body problem, since you have the moon, the earth, and the sun.

Yes but you also have the gravity of every other planet is the solar system to consider. It's a non-zero impact and in a billion year timescale there is a noticeable effect but tge forces mostly cancel out in any meaningful time frame.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 05:49

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

The different bodies in our solar system are indeed chaotic. It's just instable over such a large timescale that it might as well be stable for us.
In chaos theory, there is a term called Lyapunov time. This is basically the time it would take for even the most perfect numerical simulation to turn to poo poo because ridiculously small measuring differences would yield completely different results.

From what I found, this Lyapunov time for the solar system is 5 million years. And even then this paper suggests that there is some order beyond that. The planets will still be on their ellipses. it's more about how much they pull each other towards one another and if they synch up.
https://journals.aps.org/prx/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevX.13.021018

NASA also has a page which details how much uncertainty those eclipse predictions have. It's barely anything on a societal level.
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/uncertainty.html

If you have three suns with the same cardinality of mass, this chaotic system breaks down into random positions way faster. You won't know where you end up in a year. (Not that this term would really mean a lot in that environment.)

For reference the Lyapunov time for weather reports is about 15 days, so if someone tells you it's going to rain in 4 weeks, they might as well be guessing.

cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Apr 22, 2024

# ? Apr 22, 2024 07:52

uXs: May 3, 2005; Mark it zero!

counterfeitsaint posted:

I understand that gravity's effect is reduced by an inverse square of distance, but it's also technically without limit right? So really if you're calculating anything out, say, the movement of the Earth and moon to predict an eclipse, it's always a several body problem, even if most of those objects (the other planets in the system) are having very, very minor impacts. Is that not correct? Are the effects of other bodies in the system so minor as to be completely disregarded, even calculating far into the future? Even if you ignore everything else, something as straight forward as predicting the movements of the moon would be a three body problem, since you have the moon, the earth, and the sun.

Apparently yeah, if the bodies are too small they can be disregarded. Like if you have a planet and its small moon, it behaves (close enough) as just one body.

At least that's what I got from this video with Neil deGrasse Tyson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GfIDwwxfsM

# ? Apr 22, 2024 09:40

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# ? May 2, 2024 02:02

Boris Galerkin: Dec 17, 2011; I don't understand why I can't harass people online. Seriously, somebody please explain why I shouldn't be allowed to stalk others on social media!

counterfeitsaint posted:

I understand that gravity's effect is reduced by an inverse square of distance, but it's also technically without limit right? So really if you're calculating anything out, say, the movement of the Earth and moon to predict an eclipse, it's always a several body problem, even if most of those objects (the other planets in the system) are having very, very minor impacts. Is that not correct? Are the effects of other bodies in the system so minor as to be completely disregarded, even calculating far into the future? Even if you ignore everything else, something as straight forward as predicting the movements of the moon would be a three body problem, since you have the moon, the earth, and the sun.

You're correct. Technically, you feel the gravitational effects of everything around you as well, from the pen on your desk to the cat running around outside to yo momma and the earth and sun. Also the opposite scale too: some random bacteria 4000 miles away from you is affecting you as well.

But when we're modeling physics we come up with reasonable limits/simplifications because the effects of a bacteria with respect to gravity is negligible since the masses are so small.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 11:35

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