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Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” is based on a science fiction trilogy and follows a group of physicists.
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We asked an astronomer and an aerospace engineer to explain some of the show’s scientific concepts.
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It might help to have a little background on the Fermi paradox and the Wow! sign before you watch.
The upcoming Netflix show “3 Body Problem” is a sci-fi story about a group of physicists struggling to find an alien civilization.
Taking its name from a complex orbital sequence — three celestial bodies moving around each other — the show is based on the science fiction trilogy “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” by Liu Cixin.
In the show, several of the main characters studied physics at Oxford University. Fortunately, you don’t have to have the same background to enjoy the show.
However, there are some scientific concepts that may be helpful to know before you tune in on March 21st.
The problem of the three bodies is insoluble and chaotic
Some of the show’s action takes place in a virtual world orbited by three suns. The celestial mechanics of such a planet have long puzzled scientists in the real world.
“This has been a problem for hundreds of years,” Shane Ross, professor of aerospace and ocean engineering at Virginia Tech, told Business Insider.
Isaac Newton was able to figure out the two-body problem, how a pair of massive objects such as stars or planets move when they are affected by each other’s gravity.
“The two-body problem is a sort of paradigm of stability,” Ross said. When placed in a third body, however, that does, everything over the top.
Mathematically, “it’s unsolvable,” Ross said of the three-body problem. msgstr “You can never write out the solution as some algebraic formula.”
It’s a bit like the butterfly effect: a small change can change the result a lot. “Any uncertainty we have in the initial conditions grows exponentially, to the point where the state of the system is essentially unpredictable.”
Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth
The three-body system in the story is based on a real neighboring star system called Alpha Centauri.
At about 4 light years from Earth, it is the nearest star system to our own and contains three stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri, which has two planets orbiting around it.
“We are talking about something very close to us,” said Franck Marchis, senior planetary astronomer with the SETI Institute. “It’s like looking at the neighbors’ backyard, basically.”
However, it would take special conditions for life, at least as we know it, to survive on either planet around Proxima Centauri. “The conditions for life are very rare,” said Ross. “I think Earth is a very special planet,” adding that “there could be life in some other form that we don’t know about.”
If a civilization from Alpha Centauri evolved at a pace similar to our own, then “they are probably more advanced than us,” Marchis said because the system is estimated to be between 5 and 7 billion years old and was Earth’s solar 4.5 billion. long ago.
The Fermi paradox begs the question, where are all the aliens?
If there are advanced beings on other planets, why haven’t they made contact? That’s the question astrophysicist Ye Wenjie is asking when she brings up the Fermi paradox in the show.
In 1950, Nobel prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi asked where all the aliens were. Years later, other scientists picked up the question. If there were other civilizations, they must have left some evidence.
For Marchis, the so-called Fermi paradox is an outdated way of thinking. “The idea is that because we’re a technologically advanced civilization, the first thing we do is travel through the galaxy, like Star Trek,” he said.
Instead, he prefers the “zoo hypothesis.”
If they are truly advanced, he said, “they probably reached a certain level of feeling or consciousness that makes them more respectful of other advanced civilizations.”
In short, they are purposefully avoiding contact with our planet.
Aliens may have communicated through the Wow! sign
One of the most mysterious possible alien communications is known as the Wow! sign. In the show, Clarence (Benedict Wong) describes how the strange sign was picked up in Ohio and China.
During the 1970s, researchers at The Ohio State University got really involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. They used a radio observatory called “Big Ear” to try to receive extraterrestrial communications.
In 1977, volunteer Jerry Ehman was looking at a computer printout of a sign that Cluas Mór had taken three days earlier. He circled the numbers and wrote “Wow!” alongside them. The signal was 72 seconds strong and located at a frequency known as the hydrogen line.
At the time, the researchers thought aliens would communicate through that frequency “because it’s the easiest way to send signals through the galaxy,” Marchis said.
The sign was not found or rediscovered Marchis said. (And no other observatories have reported picking up the signal, in China or elsewhere.)
Since the sign itself wasn’t saved, there’s no way to know if there was a message, Marchis said. A number of more precise explanations for the signal, such as the radio transmission of a passing comet, have been proposed.
SETI has come a long way since the ’70s, with many researchers using newer technology and a wider range of signals, Marchis said. “We assume that if aliens do communicate with us,” he said, “they are a little higher than the people from the 1970s.”
Occam’s razor suggests that simple explanations are often better
Like many other sci-fi movies and shows before it, including “Encounter” and “Fringe,” “3 Body Problem” makes reference to Occam’s razor.
In 1852, philosopher Sir William Hamilton coined the term “Occam’s razor,” attributing the idea to the 14th century theologian William of Ockham.
William Ockham had written, “Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate,” or “Plurality must be established without necessity.” It is an idea that was also mentioned by Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Today, the well-known concept is mentioned as “the simplest solution is usually the right one.” The often cited example is, if you hear the sound of hooves, think of horses, not zebras (provided you are not on the savanna).
Neutrino detectors are built deep underground
The show’s trailer includes a dramatic shot of one of the characters stepping into what looks like a neutrino detector and falling, presumably to his death.
Neutrinos, also known as ghost particles, are subatomic particles that give the sun and supernova create. Billions pass through your body at any given time.
Like particle accelerators, the devices could help unlock some of the universe’s secrets. They are often built underground to protect them from cosmic rays that interfere with the data.
Three celestial bodies lined up is called a syzygy
During the third episode of the show, the three suns in the virtual world are aligned in a triple eclipse.
Ross pointed out that the show begins around a “costly significant day,” the vernal equinox. “That is the day in the world that it is equal to daylight and night,” he said.
It is also close to the upcoming solar eclipse which has a path of totality through much of North America.
“That’s the sun, the moon, and the whole Earth in a line,” Ross said. “It is called syzygy, when three heavenly bodies are exactly in line.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
