The Three-Body Problem

“Shameless!” He bent down to pick up his wig. As he straightened up, he saw Wang. Pointing in the direction of the escapee, he said, “He dared to claim that he invented calculus!” He put on his wig, put a hand over his heart, and bowed courteously to Wang. “Isaac Newton, at your service.”

“Then the one who ran away must be Leibniz?” Wang asked.

“Indeed, an unscrupulous man. I don’t really care about this little claim to fame. Inventing the three laws of mechanics has already made me the greatest, God excepted. From planetary motion to cell division, everything follows the three great laws. Now, with the powerful mathematical tool that is calculus, it will only be a matter of time before we master the pattern of the motion of the three suns.”

“It’s not that simple,” said the man who had tried to stop the fight. “Have you considered the amount of calculation that’s needed? I saw the differential equations you listed, and I don’t think an analytical solution is possible, only a numerical one. However, the calculating capacity required is such that even if all of the world’s mathematicians worked without pause, they’d still not be able to complete them by the time the world ended. Of course, if we can’t figure out the pattern of the suns’ movements soon, the end of the world will not be too far away.” He bowed at Wang as well, a more modern bow. “Von Neumann.”

“Didn’t you bring us thousands of miles to the East specifically to solve the problem of calculating these equations?” Newton asked. Then he turned to Wang. “Norbert Wiener and that degenerate who just ran away also came with us. We encountered some pirates near Madagascar. Wiener fought the pirates by himself so that the rest of us could escape, and he died valiantly.”

“Why did you have to come to the East to build a computer?” Wang asked Von Neumann.

Von Neumann and Newton looked at each other, puzzled. “A computer? A computing machine! Such a thing exists?”

“You don’t know about computers? Then what did you have in mind for completing the vast amount of calculations?”

Von Neumann stared at Wang with wide-open eyes, as though his question made no sense. “Using people, of course. Other than people, what else in the world is capable of performing calculations?”

“But you just said that all the mathematicians in the world wouldn’t be enough.”

“Instead of mathematicians, we’ll use common laborers. But we need many of them, at least thirty million. We’ll do mathematics using human wave tactics.”

“Common laborers? Thirty million?” Wang was amazed. “But if I recall correctly, this is an age when ninety percent of the population are illiterate. Yet you want to find thirty million people who understand calculus?”

“Have you heard the joke about the Army of Sichuan?” Von Neumann took out a thick cigar, bit off the end, and lit it. “Some soldiers were being drilled, but because they had no education, they couldn’t even follow the drill instructor’s simple orders to march LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT. So the instructor came up with a solution: He had every soldier wear a straw shoe on the left foot and a cloth shoe on the right. When they marched, he shouted”—here he switched to a Sichuan accent—“STRAW-CLOTH-STRAW-CLOTH.… That’s the kind of soldier we need. Except we need thirty million of them.”

Hearing this modern joke, Wang knew that the man before him wasn’t a program but a real person, and almost certainly Chinese.

“It’s hard to imagine such a large army,” Wang said, shaking his head.

“That’s why we’ve come to see Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor.” Newton pointed at the pyramid.

“He’s still in charge?” Wang looked around. He saw that the soldiers guarding the entrance to the pyramid really were equipped with the simple leather armor and ji-style halberds of the Qin Dynasty. The anachronistic mix of historical elements in Three Body no longer surprised him.

“The whole world is going to be under his rule because he has an army of more than thirty million preparing to conquer Europe. All right, let’s go see him.” Von Neumann turned to Newton. “Drop the sword.” Newton obeyed.

The three of them entered the pyramid, and just as they were about to emerge from the tunnel into the Great Hall, a guard insisted that they strip off all their clothes. Newton objected. “We’re famous scholars. No one of our stature would carry hidden weapons!”

As the two sides explored this stalemate, a deep, male voice came from the Great Hall. “Is it the foreigner who discovered the three laws of motion? Let him and his companions in.”

They entered the Great Hall. The First Emperor was pacing back and forth, his robe and his famous long sword both dragging along the ground. As he turned to gaze at the three scholars, Wang realized that his eyes were the same as the eyes of King Zhou of Shang and Pope Gregory.

“I already know the purpose of your visit. You’re Europeans. Why not go find Caesar? His empire is vast. Surely he can find you thirty million men.”