Society reaction to news about aliens was pretty believable for me. I think there's a huge difference between, for example, scientific discovery of sentient life somewhere in galaxy and sudden declaration of war from beings in 4 light years away
The "disbelief" would make sense if it was just an announcement on tv or internet videos. But if you are looking at the sky and you see with your own unfiltered eyes that there is a gigantic circuit board covering the whole sky and that a freaking gigantic eye is staring back at you, you would be panicking
I believe that the reaction was justified because of the whole demonstration with "You are bugs" and the eye in the sky. That would have definitely freaked people out. If it was just some announcement, then yeah I don't think as many people would be freaked. There would be skepticism and stuff, but kinda hard to have that when there was a literal eye in the sky.
I enthusiastically love your reactions to these episodes. You balance professional knowledge with a clear understanding of story structure and necessary creative freedom, not letting one impede the enjoyment of the other. I know the editing for reactions is difficult due to copyright and your method walks that line perfectly. I also love your science-focused videos, of course. Great work!
Thank you SO MUCH for the explanation about string theory, higher dimensions, and quantum entanglement. Of course, I don't really understand it but at least have more of an idea of what these theories are talking about. In the past I've just let it go as something impossible to picture, so this gives me much more enjoyment of 3 Body Problem and other science fiction movies and TV series that employ them as plot devices. I thoroughly enjoyed 3 Body Problem and look forward to the last few video commentaries.
One of the problems that I had with episode 5s egg slicer scene was that she was there to watch it. I can only think that they would have told her "we need to use these" and if she asked "what do you need my nanofibers for?", they would have told her "we're going to use them to help women of color in the 3rd world become more self-sufficient farmers" or some hippie crap. They didn't need *HER* there. They just needed the nanofibers.
I actually liked the last episode better than this one, despite the scientific inaccuracies. It is a science *fiction* story after all. But it was very interesting to learn what was wrong and how it actually works either way!
Regarding to "selling the rights of a star", search about a guy who claimed ownership of the moon and started selling plots (and he actually sold quite a few!)
I've only watched the Netflix version - but I've argued a little bit on Reddit about this. From what is presented about the sophons - is your expectation that sophons could break nano-fibres by banging into them like they do the particles in the accelerator, or is there something about the fibre that would make it impervious to a proton-computer travelling nearly at the speed of light? Anyway - I find the show incredibly frustrating as they show the sophons can hack the global internet and all phones (all that security) all at the same time - which would utterly cripple global trade, comms, research, travel, diplomacy ... yet they don't do anything useful like encrypt it all with San Ti tech, or fill the internet with junk AI spam, or turn off all power grids, or open all virology labs ... seems MASSIVELY powerful and utterly under-utilised. Hack the whole world just to threaten That the sophons can create full open-eyed hallucinations with sound and speech means that at any moment they could make on of Wade's bodyguards mistake him as an enemy and shoot him - also utterly underutilised capacity
Yeah, the whole owning a star is hilarious. Human ego at it's finest thinking we can own something that much larger than us. By the time we get to all of that business I hope we have something that stops corps and businesses from having free reign like the no claiming land rules in the outer space treaty.
The star sales are not real this time either. They are also novelty star sales, they just are charging more money and giving the money to the war effort.
I'm wondering if the buying a star thing is a jab at that company that supposedly could make you a Lord or Lady in Scotland by buying a small plot of land.
It's more likely a reference to countries that sold "War Bonds" during WW2. The characters in the show know that the money is really just a donation for the war effort.
Here's the thing I'm unsure about with Jin's plan: How feasible is it to deploy 1000 nukes in increasing distance in space? Like, wouldn't it take way too long to get to the planned location of the last one with our current technology? Unlike the way she describes it, they'd have to be relatively close to each other, cuz obviously the whole problem is getting to the San-Ti fleet, so you couldn't place them from here till there.
I mean, obviously there's tons of details that'd make her plan practically impossible, but that's the one glaring issue I can't rly suspend disbelief in.
I have a question about the rocket proposal, which suggests that a series of bombs placed in the path of the rocket will detonate, accelerating the rocket to a fraction of light speed. How will the bombs get there is the first place and how long would it take them to get there? They would have to be travelling for a considerable amount of time and would have burned up their fuel, thus maintaining a constant velocity. Thank you
@@MichaelSiegel14 thank you, one reason I asked is because you mentioned it as a theory that had been put forward in the 60's and, to me at least, seems fundamental to enable the rocket to meet the aliens. Perhaps I shall file it under the 'Somehow Palpatine Returned' school of script writing.
The bombs are placed relatively close to Earth, way within the solar system, so that would be somewhat doable. The entire 1000-bomb sequence would happen within a few minutes. IIRC the book (or next episode?) mentions they're all within Jupiter's orbit.
I'm no physicist and maybe I'm reaching but, about the Sophons' ability to harness energies and propel itself near lightspeed...could it have something to do with it being able to access higher dimensions? I mean maybe they're not traveling through our 3 dimensions at near lightspeed but exploiting higher dimensionalities and their energies??? A stab in the dark here
How do all the bombs get out there? Project Orion, the ship carried teh bombs and laid them like eggs. In this show .... the bombs are just out there by magic?
@@MichaelSiegel14 if they say so LOL ... long set up time, but the story is set up to give them centuries ... But also assumes an astonishing level of precision and consistency in a one-shot endeavors while the date of the world hangs in the balance!
The way the staircase project is presented in the series makes no sense regarding classic orbital mechanics. You cannot place a bomb just standing there in space waiting for the probe. Each one of those 1000 bombs would need to be placed on an specific orbit with a millisecond timing for the rendez-vous, that would take decades or even centuries.
They can be actively supported to stay in position, like constantly burning some ion drives instead of being an orbital object driven by inertia. This will be costly, but doable, considering supposed global collaboration.
@@ionsilver557 This is not based on current technology or physics: up until now, the very concept of standing still in space doesn't even have a meaning is classical physics. We known of conical trajectories and there is nothing on the radar that suggests any other trajectory might exist. I wonder if the book provides more details on this. I think they took a shortcut for the tv show.
No, it makes sense. I don't think that in the show it is stated that the bombs are completely stationary. So they can just be in the right place at the right time Moreover, if you do the calculations, the process must be over very fast so the bombs don't stretch out of the solar system. If a bomb went off every minute the whole "staircase" would stretch for 150 light minutes, approximately 19 AU, assuming 300 bombs
@@coloboquito My point is that it would take centuries to place 1000 bombs on the proper trajectories to meet the probe with millisecond accuracy. I think that the Netflix series took a shortcut, maybe the book is more realistic.
@@camelectric it purely depends on the time between explosions. I assumed that the explosions are uniform in time. This way for a 300 bombs the distance to the last bomb is approximately 1.5*cΔt (in my previous comment it was 150*cΔt because I forgot to multiply by 0.01, a stupid mistake) so if bombs go off every 5 minutes the last bomb will be approximately 1 AU away - definitely doable. You are free to check my calculations of course
I'm not sure you heard the part where the reason it's not a problem (to Wade) is because the san ti, with their superior technology, could likely intercept it (yes, even decelerate it in order to do so)
The problem of Netflix adaptation is it lacks how human society as a whole react to the crisis. You don't feel people from different fields and countries struggling to survive. They made the grand story shrink to Big Bang Theory save the planet.
half of episode 6 is about how human society reacts to the crisis and we're still just in season 1 dog what are you even watching bc it wasn't the show I saw
What television show ever shows us the whole human society? Few, if any. Even in this novel, "society" is represented by a bunch of military guys in a single room in China.
Are you saying this as a book reader? 'cause, really, the book certainly didn't do much better in the sociology department or the international state of things. (Okay, truth be said, second half of the Dark Forest DOES get interesting on those points).
Society reaction to news about aliens was pretty believable for me. I think there's a huge difference between, for example, scientific discovery of sentient life somewhere in galaxy and sudden declaration of war from beings in 4 light years away
Good points!
The "disbelief" would make sense if it was just an announcement on tv or internet videos.
But if you are looking at the sky and you see with your own unfiltered eyes that there is a gigantic circuit board covering the whole sky and that a freaking gigantic eye is staring back at you, you would be panicking
Jin's actress is such a powerful, convincing performer for me.
I'm have my overall series review after episode 8 and I talk about the acting overall. She's one of several who were great.
I, for one, welcome our new Sophon overlords.
Santi, sophons are just their heralds.
I believe that the reaction was justified because of the whole demonstration with "You are bugs" and the eye in the sky. That would have definitely freaked people out.
If it was just some announcement, then yeah I don't think as many people would be freaked. There would be skepticism and stuff, but kinda hard to have that when there was a literal eye in the sky.
Alex Sharp (Will Downing) actively lost weight to portray the character more accurately.
That role could easily have become maudlin but he makes it work well.
@@MichaelSiegel14 They casted Alex Sharp first and all the Ox Five had to do chemistry script read test with Alex before they were casted.
I enthusiastically love your reactions to these episodes. You balance professional knowledge with a clear understanding of story structure and necessary creative freedom, not letting one impede the enjoyment of the other. I know the editing for reactions is difficult due to copyright and your method walks that line perfectly. I also love your science-focused videos, of course. Great work!
Thank you SO MUCH for the explanation about string theory, higher dimensions, and quantum entanglement. Of course, I don't really understand it but at least have more of an idea of what these theories are talking about. In the past I've just let it go as something impossible to picture, so this gives me much more enjoyment of 3 Body Problem and other science fiction movies and TV series that employ them as plot devices.
I thoroughly enjoyed 3 Body Problem and look forward to the last few video commentaries.
I also went to Erie for the eclipse! We stayed watched just outside the city so we had time to get out before the traffic.
I enjoy your teaching so much! 🌌🌘👩🚀🚀
Really love your videos! Thanks for your commentary
20:00
I feel like you answered your own question. These sales would be official, government recognized names and ownership, unlike the registry.
One of the problems that I had with episode 5s egg slicer scene was that she was there to watch it. I can only think that they would have told her "we need to use these" and if she asked "what do you need my nanofibers for?", they would have told her "we're going to use them to help women of color in the 3rd world become more self-sufficient farmers" or some hippie crap.
They didn't need *HER* there. They just needed the nanofibers.
9:43 "You'd need a lot of technological breakthroughs and a lot of WILL to do it"
hah.
I actually liked the last episode better than this one, despite the scientific inaccuracies. It is a science *fiction* story after all.
But it was very interesting to learn what was wrong and how it actually works either way!
Atomic bombs have a crazy good record for something so scary. They have prevented more war than been used in war.
"If there are aliens there you can't really sell the star they own..."
Didn't stop Europeans colonizing the US!
Regarding to "selling the rights of a star", search about a guy who claimed ownership of the moon and started selling plots (and he actually sold quite a few!)
(obviously it was a scam... :P)
I've only watched the Netflix version - but I've argued a little bit on Reddit about this. From what is presented about the sophons - is your expectation that sophons could break nano-fibres by banging into them like they do the particles in the accelerator, or is there something about the fibre that would make it impervious to a proton-computer travelling nearly at the speed of light?
Anyway - I find the show incredibly frustrating as they show the sophons can hack the global internet and all phones (all that security) all at the same time - which would utterly cripple global trade, comms, research, travel, diplomacy ... yet they don't do anything useful like encrypt it all with San Ti tech, or fill the internet with junk AI spam, or turn off all power grids, or open all virology labs ... seems MASSIVELY powerful and utterly under-utilised. Hack the whole world just to threaten
That the sophons can create full open-eyed hallucinations with sound and speech means that at any moment they could make on of Wade's bodyguards mistake him as an enemy and shoot him - also utterly underutilised capacity
Yeah, the whole owning a star is hilarious. Human ego at it's finest thinking we can own something that much larger than us. By the time we get to all of that business I hope we have something that stops corps and businesses from having free reign like the no claiming land rules in the outer space treaty.
The star sales are not real this time either. They are also novelty star sales, they just are charging more money and giving the money to the war effort.
I'm wondering if the buying a star thing is a jab at that company that supposedly could make you a Lord or Lady in Scotland by buying a small plot of land.
It's more likely a reference to countries that sold "War Bonds" during WW2. The characters in the show know that the money is really just a donation for the war effort.
@@hoos3014 Ah... that makes sense. Thanks.
Here's the thing I'm unsure about with Jin's plan: How feasible is it to deploy 1000 nukes in increasing distance in space? Like, wouldn't it take way too long to get to the planned location of the last one with our current technology? Unlike the way she describes it, they'd have to be relatively close to each other, cuz obviously the whole problem is getting to the San-Ti fleet, so you couldn't place them from here till there.
I mean, obviously there's tons of details that'd make her plan practically impossible, but that's the one glaring issue I can't rly suspend disbelief in.
They'd have to be in a short distance along the path to the fleet. It would take years but they compress it to weeks from what I can tell.
I have a question about the rocket proposal, which suggests that a series of bombs placed in the path of the rocket will detonate, accelerating the rocket to a fraction of light speed. How will the bombs get there is the first place and how long would it take them to get there? They would have to be travelling for a considerable amount of time and would have burned up their fuel, thus maintaining a constant velocity. Thank you
The series kind of glosses over this critical point.
@@MichaelSiegel14 thank you, one reason I asked is because you mentioned it as a theory that had been put forward in the 60's and, to me at least, seems fundamental to enable the rocket to meet the aliens. Perhaps I shall file it under the 'Somehow Palpatine Returned' school of script writing.
The bombs are placed relatively close to Earth, way within the solar system, so that would be somewhat doable. The entire 1000-bomb sequence would happen within a few minutes.
IIRC the book (or next episode?) mentions they're all within Jupiter's orbit.
I'm no physicist and maybe I'm reaching but, about the Sophons' ability to harness energies and propel itself near lightspeed...could it have something to do with it being able to access higher dimensions? I mean maybe they're not traveling through our 3 dimensions at near lightspeed but exploiting higher dimensionalities and their energies??? A stab in the dark here
How do all the bombs get out there? Project Orion, the ship carried teh bombs and laid them like eggs. In this show .... the bombs are just out there by magic?
I'll comment on that in episode 8. They say they can get them out there using existing rockets.
@@MichaelSiegel14 if they say so LOL ... long set up time, but the story is set up to give them centuries ... But also assumes an astonishing level of precision and consistency in a one-shot endeavors while the date of the world hangs in the balance!
The thing that bothers me is the placement of the bombs between the probe and the sails.
The way the staircase project is presented in the series makes no sense regarding classic orbital mechanics. You cannot place a bomb just standing there in space waiting for the probe. Each one of those 1000 bombs would need to be placed on an specific orbit with a millisecond timing for the rendez-vous, that would take decades or even centuries.
They can be actively supported to stay in position, like constantly burning some ion drives instead of being an orbital object driven by inertia. This will be costly, but doable, considering supposed global collaboration.
@@ionsilver557 This is not based on current technology or physics: up until now, the very concept of standing still in space doesn't even have a meaning is classical physics. We known of conical trajectories and there is nothing on the radar that suggests any other trajectory might exist. I wonder if the book provides more details on this. I think they took a shortcut for the tv show.
No, it makes sense. I don't think that in the show it is stated that the bombs are completely stationary. So they can just be in the right place at the right time
Moreover, if you do the calculations, the process must be over very fast so the bombs don't stretch out of the solar system. If a bomb went off every minute the whole "staircase" would stretch for 150 light minutes, approximately 19 AU, assuming 300 bombs
@@coloboquito My point is that it would take centuries to place 1000 bombs on the proper trajectories to meet the probe with millisecond accuracy. I think that the Netflix series took a shortcut, maybe the book is more realistic.
@@camelectric it purely depends on the time between explosions. I assumed that the explosions are uniform in time. This way for a 300 bombs the distance to the last bomb is approximately 1.5*cΔt (in my previous comment it was 150*cΔt because I forgot to multiply by 0.01, a stupid mistake) so if bombs go off every 5 minutes the last bomb will be approximately 1 AU away - definitely doable. You are free to check my calculations of course
Sidestepping the deceleration issue again, I see. "That won't be a problem." What you have isn't a probe, it's a kinetic impactor.
I'm not sure you heard the part where the reason it's not a problem (to Wade) is because the san ti, with their superior technology, could likely intercept it (yes, even decelerate it in order to do so)
They're not sidestepping deceleration.
The problem of Netflix adaptation is it lacks how human society as a whole react to the crisis. You don't feel people from different fields and countries struggling to survive. They made the grand story shrink to Big Bang Theory save the planet.
half of episode 6 is about how human society reacts to the crisis and we're still just in season 1 dog what are you even watching bc it wasn't the show I saw
What television show ever shows us the whole human society? Few, if any. Even in this novel, "society" is represented by a bunch of military guys in a single room in China.
Are you saying this as a book reader? 'cause, really, the book certainly didn't do much better in the sociology department or the international state of things. (Okay, truth be said, second half of the Dark Forest DOES get interesting on those points).
Literally half the episode is about all of that
@Malfehzan it barely does the first book is almost all a few people in China this show actually expands the first book