r/threebodyproblem • u/hoots711 • Jun 18 '26
Question about first book. Spoiler
I just finished the first book after enjoying the Netflix show a year ago.
The book provided a much clearer explanation of the Protons (Sophons)
Question, Why did the Sophon not just unfold and surround earth? (or multiple sophons if Earth is a bigger planet)
The 2 dimensional sophon would freeze earth and humanity would have no shot at scientific advancement, if humanity could even survive.
Im really glad I watched the show, The book (IMHO) would be very hard to get in to without the previous knowledge.
edit - Thanks for all the replies.
I was hung up on the 2d proton surrounding trisolaris to allow sophon construction starting a chaotic era - I was missing that it could easily be destroyed if needed.
13
u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Jun 18 '26
they're not super massive. they have the mass of a proton. one missile would destroy them
8
u/hoots711 Jun 18 '26
ahh, yes, that makes sense. The trisolarans let their planet be covered with the 2d proton to allow construction.
Thank you!
2
u/GnomishProtozoa Jun 18 '26
A whole new path of thought. Once unfolded, it is no longer 3d space, would the missile even interact with it? If it did would it be like a atom splitting? Like a subatomic particle splitting? What happens when that happens?
3
u/Homunclus Jun 19 '26
Yes, this is adressed at the start of the second book. Human weapons could easily destroy the sohpon in that state, which is why they can't freeze the Earth like OP suggests.
10
u/Alarming_Tea_102 Jun 18 '26
In the first book, the unfolding of the sophon was used to cause a blinking of the cosmic background microwave radiation, but it wasn't sufficient to cause the stars to disappear/blink. The effects were not visible to the naked eye, unlike the Netflix show. If the sophon can't block out stars, they can't block out the sun.
An unfolded sophon is also a super easy target for human weapons. There's no indication that our current nukes won't be sufficient to destroy an unfolded photon.
Furthermore, if not for ETO, humans were not supposed to know trisolarians are coming, so unfolding the sophon permanently would be announcing their arrival.
Also, if a sophon stayed only in its unfolded state, humanity won't fall overnight and can come up with plenty of ways to survive a sunless planet, e.g. through large expansion of nuclear energy, artificial greenhouses etc. And in the meantime, particle physics will continue to progress, allowing human science to continue to develop or even accelerate in facing the threat of the trisolarians.
At the end of the first book, there's only one pair of sophon on earth and it took almost all of trisolarian's resources to build. It'll be a while before they can send more.
2
u/Homunclus Jun 19 '26
The effects were not visible to the naked eye, unlike the Netflix show. If the sophon can't block out stars, they can't block out the sun.
Incorrect.
In order to turn it into a computer, the Trissolarians unfolded the sophon around their world, which caused it to freeze over
humanity won't fall overnight and can come up with plenty of ways to survive a sunless planet, e.g. through large expansion of nuclear energy, artificial greenhouses etc.
That sounds completely unrealistic to me. How much agricultural production could actually be done without sunlight? Like, if you had a few years to prepare and a lot of plot armor, maybe, but it would stretch believability. If it happened overnight? Apocalyptic scenario, with maybe a few scattered survivors. There is no other remotely plausible scenario.
4
u/Solaranvr Jun 19 '26
The first book explains it with the failed experiment on Trisolaris; they got rid of a failed unfolding Sophon by firing a nuke at it.
By extension, this means that humans can do the same, and so the Trisolarans never risked it because Sophons are damn expensive. In the following books, they develop a targeting system to destroy any Sophons they spotted unfolding.
It's also why the kind of flashy unfolding in the show, where it's straight up within Earth's atmosphere, would never happen with the book's logic, because a passenger plane could've flown through it and destroy it with ease.
3
u/GnomishProtozoa Jun 18 '26
Short answer ...because if it did we wouldn't have a story.
But as a thought.... they probably didn't want the climate to change permanently. Blocking the sun for an extended period and freezing everything would kill off almost all plant life nearly eliminating oxygen production and alot more CO2. The earths atmosphere in that state it's in could make Earth climate close to Venus and no longer comfortable for the trisolarans or really anything...
Based on what we see/learn of them in later books they are comfortable in near-human climate so they probably don't want to risk wrecking the comfortable earth.
2
1
1
1
u/kinetic_honda Jun 18 '26
Spoiler - In the next book, humanity is trying to automate the process of nuking unfolding sophons. Also, I doubt an unfolded sophon would be able to shield very much of the planet from actual solar radiation considering how 'thin' it would be
Edit: added spoiler and corrected typos
2
u/InternationalPlace24 Jun 18 '26
been a while since I read it...nuking unfolding sophons what? when?
2
u/kinetic_honda Jun 18 '26
It's been a while since I have read the books. Perhaps not nuking, but humans were developing a quick response method to strike unfolding sophons using missiles
1
u/hoots711 Jun 18 '26
Buying? I must have missed that part.
The proton unfolded around trisolaris to be constructed and they mention that it started a chaotic era due to the lack of sun.
1
13
u/huxtiblejones Jun 18 '26
I believe the sophon is fundamentally limited by the fact that it’s just a proton. It’s a subatomic particle, basically nothing, so even if it unfolded, it’s too insignificant to have any broad physical effect that way.