Astrophysicist Reacts to 3 Body Problem Season Finale

[@Tallenn]

Just wanted to say, I REALLY enjoyed your reactions to this show. These are the only reactions where I actually learn stuff, and it's really interesting to get the perspective of an actual scientist to a story like this. I hope you react to the other seasons when they come out as well as other hard sci-fi!

[@dntwantgglplus]

i second this!

[@jennyruth5620]

third! 😂❤

[@RocketSurgn_]

Adding to the choir! Great reactions, interesting points and a very reasonable approach to the compromises shows have to make to work!

[@thomashiggins9320]

I'll third it, and recommend a reaction series to "The Expanse"! 😁 And then read the novels. Just as an FYI, the episodes in that series can be *incredibly* dense with story and character, and while the authors forthrightly describe it as "space opera *skinned* as hard science," it includes enough solid science to interest you. So, I wouldn't try for more than one or two episodes a week, should you decide to react to that show. That said, if you do decide to react to it (and please do) don't get too far ahead of what you post -- no more than two episodes in advance. The community for "The Expanse" is very supportive and largely intolerant of those who post spoilers. We point out stuff reactors may miss in what they just saw, but that's about it. Very few try to talk about the implications of a particular plot thread or one of the huge numbers of Chekhov's Guns scattered throughout. That makes it pretty fun to keep the comments pretty current with where you'll have reached in the show. While the seasons don't even approach the length of those on network televisions, there are six of them and that's a substantial commitment. All I can say is, *every reactor* I've seen considers it truly rewarding and time well spent.

[@Bigdave1369]

I had been waiting for your review of this episode to see if you (as an astrophysicist) would catch the cameo in the spacecraft launch scene. The flight controller who did the countdown was Bobak Ferdowsi. He is an actual flight engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He served on the Cassini-Huygens and Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity missions. His 15 minutes of fame came when Curiosity landed on Mars, which was broadcast live and drew a huge audience. He was the "Mohawk guy" with the blue star shaved into his hair who provided the mission status updates and touchdown announcement. The live cameras at JPL couldn't get enough of him. I thought his casting was a great easter egg.

[@TheChappaai]

The Dark Forest Hypothesis was named after the second book of the series, which, as far as I know, gave the game theoretical deduction first, despite that conditions similar (but still somewhat different) to its prediction was present in previous sci-fi literature.

[@Tekdruid]

12:53 " *Doctor* Durand, thank you very much! I didn't spend six years in Oxford to be called "Mister"! "

[@jecelassumpcaojr890]

There are cultures where only people in the medical field are called "doctor". Around here (Brazil) people in the legal field are the ones who insist most loudly on being called "doctor" even if they don't have any kind of degree at all.

[@cstone3178]

Darmok! One of my favorite ST:TNG episodes!!! Such an intelligent premise, executed flawlessly (imho). Great point - this would be an obvious method to obfuscate communications! Yes,please! More reaction videos! I have watched other reaction channels but find your videos far more interesting. Because of your background, you can speak intelligently about the science behind the fiction. And, because you are also an author, you have a good take on the dramatic side of things. A great all-in-one package for us sci-fi nerds out here on youtube! Keep ‚em coming!!! ❤

[@ChrisHiblerPinball]

It was fun watching each episode followed by your analysis. Thank you Michael.

[@nasabear]

It's always a good day when CCH Pounder shows up.

[@jeffbachman2949]

I would have zero complaints if the show made a change to keep her around she's great in everything

[@sergioaccioly5219]

I liked those videos a lot. Thank you, Michael, for them. Not only they were entertaining, but a great teching vehicle too.

[@MOK9888]

I really enjoyed the live reactions, watching your face as the story unfolds, it was like reliving it for the first time again. 👍 Also really enjoyed hearing a scientist’s viewpoint. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra was also my first reaction/thought to the joke. I think that’s why Saul is on the San ti hit list and why he is one of the Wallfacers, he knows how to communicate so the San ti don’t understand, even if he doesn’t know he knows and he is the only one Wenjie told. Please continue with these live reactions.

[@shamblepants1450]

I really enjoyed your reactions to this series, and would be very happy to see you react to more science related series or movies.

[@NdranC]

I really enjoyed this reaction series. I enjoy watching people that are experts on a subject commentate on said subjects when they get brought up in media, specially astrophysics. I would love if you would consider doing this but for "The Expanse". I don't know if you have seen it yet but it's lauded as one of the most realistic scifi shows every made and it deals heavily in the subject matter of your expertise.

[@davidf9257]

I like your reactions! If you haven't watched FOR ALL MANKIND you should definitely check it out. Not for a live reaction-there are 40 episodes so far over four seasons-but just from a "what would happen if NASA kept their foot on the throttle for decades because the space race never ended."

[@MichaelSiegel14]

For All Mankind is definitely on my list. Multiple people have been recommending it!

[@rayfighter]

@@MichaelSiegel14 awesome!

[@RocketSurgn_]

@@MichaelSiegel14 Be prepared for heavy soap opera drama if/when you watch, some very eye rolling moments and plot lines that were painful to watch… but it’s worth it! It’s a very interesting series and nice to think of a future where we actually kept investing in space the way we did for the space race, beyond touching the moon!

[@chrisbaldwin3420]

Your first idea of of communicating in a way the San Ti couldn't understand was exactly the same idea I had ..I was assuming the 'joke' and the 'fairy tale' misunderstanding were important themes that would point towards developing a means of communication that didn't leave us as an 'open book'. Excellent response to the series. Loved it and can't wait for the second season

[@zeikeykumo4079]

I really enjoyed your reviews. I liked all of the objective commentary you offered throughout and when you had a subjective view it was not exaggerated or obnoxious. I was introduced to many fascinating scientific concepts through the series and I appreciate your going in to detail on how true or fictitious some of them are. My favourite book in the series (minus the romance bit, you'll understand what I'm referring to) was THE DARK FOREST. If you do get around to reading the rest of the story I would love to hear your thoughts on how everything turns out.

[@gordonbrinkmann]

I enjoyed the live reaction videos, on the one hand your videos for what they are and on the other hand because I like the show and was interested what you would say about it. So I understand if these are a bit exhausting or time consuming to make, but I'd definitely watch more of them. 😊

[@brett7935]

I really liked your review series on this. You have a way of converging a lot of information in a very pleasant manner and I bet are a great teacher. If you did a review series on The Foundation (one of the original big science fiction) or Dark Matter a contemporary popular science fiction author, both on Apple TV, I would definitely watch them!

[@justinreilly6619]

I really enjoyed listening to your reactions to this series and I appreciated your Scientific knowledge regarding. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

Inner city, Speed limit 20 km/h, actor: "it was an accident!"

[@jeffbachman2949]

Great videos I really enjoyed this show and your videos. Hope to see ya back when they come out with season 2!

[@mhm2908]

Thoroughly enjoyed watching these! And I would be fascinated to hear how you get on with the book(s)

[@fanghur]

Actually, the sophons are able to fake the CMBR as well if they want to. Remember the whole ‘the universe is blinking at you’ scene?

[@MichaelSiegel14]

I think in the book they make the CMB blink. But if they're doing that, they can't be interfering with the particle accelerators.

[@fanghur]

@@MichaelSiegel14 honestly., the sophons were by far my least favourite element of this series, because the amount of blatant plot holes their mere existence leads to is legion, not least of which being that their instantaneous FTL communication ability completely undermines a major component of the worldbuilding later on. That and it would be trivially easy for them to devastate Earth without any need for an invasion fleet simply by blocking out all the sunlight from reaching the Earth by unfolding a safe distance away; that is canonically an ability they have, but which is never utilized.

[@celdur4635]

@@fanghur There's too many particles in space to do that without breaking, they are the less durable things you can imagine.

[@fanghur]

@@celdur4635 Except that they are also explicitly stated to be able to repair themselves short of being totally annihilated. Like, the mere fact that they are able to casually enter into particle accelerator beams without being instantly destroyed should make that point plain.

[@celdur4635]

@@fanghur That's magic, not science. So the author can limit them however he wants, its a weak point of the books.

[@purkz1]

loved the reactions

[@marknovak6498]

I was wondering why they only allowed three bombs successful. That was way too few.

[@MichaelSiegel14]

TV convention. You can't have people sitting around for months while the bombs go off only for the 123rd to go wrong.

[@marknovak6498]

@@MichaelSiegel14 They could have had is a post-launch news report. I will tolerate a montage since they did not need it for other parts of the story.

[@darkaero]

If you do more series reactions The Expanse would definitely be the most interesting. The science is incredibly accurate with great effort put into it being as realistic as possible and it's a great show in general.

[@mrstyle25]

Thank you.

[@robpalmer1387]

Loved your entire review series and loved the show. But - Aerospace engineer here … so I must say that nothing in space is static, everything is moving in some orbit… so to “line up” hundreds of bombs to be encountered so EXACTLY that each needed to go through a hole in the center of the sail was ludicrous.

[@MichaelSiegel14]

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Even when we send things to Mars, there are course corrections. And once you're up to a high fraction of the speed of light, hitting that window is going to be impossible.

[@hristokaishev4665]

Love your reactions to this show! Remembrance of earth's past is a favorite of mine. The books are insane! The Chinese show was also nice and i loved the Netflix one as well. Most of my friends who never read the books did not watch the whole chinese show cause they thought it was way too slow and boring and i absolutely understand that. I read a comment on another video that sums up the Netflix show really well: If you dont know anything about the books and you are a scifi guy/gal you will like the show, If you've read just the first book there will be way too many changes and you will think they fucked it up. But if you've read all the books you will pick up on so many easter egs, which characters they blended together and the setups for later that you will most likely love it. Also people seem to forget that the chinese show did a lot of changes as well.

[@leventetanka754]

"In space, noone can hear you scream".

[@oreoxdrift]

Subscribed and waiting for you to read the book 😀

[@beauwhitehouse9797]

Please do S2 and S3. And also yourself reacting to your previous season videos.

[@MichaelSiegel14]

Haha. I've sometimes through about doing "Astrophysicist reacts to astrophysicist reacting to" as an April Fool or something.

[@pelletsburnerandpower]

Wouldn't the neutron flux ruin the material? Regardless of what the sail or the capsule is made of, neutrons ruin everything.

[@christopherlambert5264]

"War of the Worlds" TV series from 1988?

[@Jolly_Rodger]

I really liked your comments and reaction on this show. Especially I like the fact that you, as a scientist, comment on scientific aspects of this science fiction. One thing though - the state of our contemporary physics and cosmology specifically makes me think that it is already sabotaged by some sinister conspiracy. Take for example the CMB map you showed - it could be considered a great scientific achievement until you find out that this map was “cleared” from “noise” literally “by hand”. Very scientific, isn’t it? They even managed to remove entire Milky Way from picture, so what else did they remove or added? Or here is another example - you showed a picture of internal structure of Sun - huge ball of ideal gas with nuclear reaction in the center. Nice and understandable. Except that we have two gas giants - Jupiter and Saturn in our system that were presumably formed from the same primordial cloud by the same physical laws and forces and they both are condensed bodies with solid core and liquid mantle. At some point, however short, of its evolution Sun was the size of Saturn and Jupiter so why didn’t Sun become liquid? Are there different physical laws for formation of stars and planets? I’m not trying to pick a fight, I’m just trying to illustrate the state of our science (nothing personal). Unfortunately the saying “Science moves forward one funeral at the time” seems to be correct. I am genuinely looking forward to your comments and critics of the next season.

[@jmchez]

I've never been able to understand how the civilization in STNG that talks in cultural references could build anything technical. Humans, "Reverse the polarity in the Heisenberg compensators by unwinding the tertiary coils." (it's always the polarity). The Aliens, "Gazaka, when fled the battlefield not knowing his direction, pulled the soldiers from the three encampments". Really?

[@MichaelSiegel14]

Yeah, if you think too hard about Darmok, you run into those kinds of problems.

[@FoxMulder-FBI]

X-Files had a good reason for the aliens to want to invade. They come here for us. Humans are the resource

[@nopenope7914]

Yeah glad to say I totally get that itch too when anyone omits "Doctor" for women and/or minorities. I admit for everyone else I get a little low-key judgy when someone insists on it in a unrelated settings. On the flipside it is kind of hilarious how overseas asian students react when a professor says "oh please just call me Dave". I think "oh no don't say that now they are panicking..."

[@ogjaybird7408]

Maribou and I had completely different opinions on which scientists we liked and which scientists rubbed us the wrong way. Maribou's theory is that the five were specially calibrated for every single viewer to really like one of them and really hate another of them and, thus, keep everybody coming back for the next episode.

[@tomkam9783]

I like that you cite the difference between a book and a movie made from that book. People dunk on film adaptions "in relation to" the book, but films need to stand on their own and should generally be judged that way. As to the time it takes to make your reactions, "...I don't know how other people do it," those other people aren't thinking about it, they are (usually) just reacting to it. I think what you're doing is more like a personal review, but science biased, which is fine; I've really enjoyed these reviews/reactions. I'm a bit tired of seeing things just thrown into a story without any real thought. Perhaps one day a writer will take the time to just get everything straight before making their film. Very nice work, Mike!

[@marknovak6498]

13.8 billion years ago. There was a slight revision in the age after the initial finding. You already know that it is a trap to draw me out as anal retentive. OK, I will hold back on any more corrections.

[@Tenz220]

With the capability the sophons have showed tgey could just as well hacked into every nuke on earth and brought humanity to extinction just by launching them.

[@dl1thy]

But then the San Ti wouldn't have a planet to escape to, would they? That is also why they didn't eradicate humans with a relativistic missile aimed at the sun for example according to the dark forest theory on point of contact.

[@Tenz220]

@@dl1thy I mean the planet would probably recuperate in a century or 2 by the time the Santi arrive.

[@jmchez]

Now review, "The Acolyte". Hah, hah, haha, hah!

[@johnc007]

The San Ti should terraform Mars and live there instead. Or terraform Mars and make humans live there instead lol. The other interesting thing is you can see how China faces challenges of dealing with realities like sanctions and tariffs to hold back their progress and how it parallels with the San Ti and humanity. But just like in the series you will see China adapt and advance faster then they would if sanctions never existed. It’s the real world mimicking the fictional reality of 3 body problem.

[@collinr1363]

If you enjoy scifi stories Stargate SG1 season 2 episode 16 A Matter of Time may make for an interesting reaction. It is one of the more science focused episodes of the series and you dont need knowledge of the series plotline. It can be viewed as a stand alone episode more or less

[@1voluntaryist]

My main problem with 3 B.P. was the authoritarian bias, e.g., decisions that effect our species made by a few. Three people are tasked with finding a solution to "the invasion/extinction" coming. I am much more intelligent than average, an outlier, a recluse. But that doesn't mean I don't value all intelligent beings equally. Also, I value exchange of ideas, no matter the degree of intelligence. Of course it helps if all tossing out ideas are familiar with the subject, the jargon, and the theories. But, it's not an insurmountable problem. With this I suggest the entire 8 billion of us should be completely briefed, and encouraged to use spare time thinking/discussing a solution. To discount anyone would be to disrespect them, yourself, and intelligence. That's not logical. It forgets our history, our experience gaining knowledge, e.g., "If I have seen farther than most, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Note: You also see better standing on a pigmy.

[@berniezenis4876]

Would the space debris from the nukes be a danger for the probe? Given you're an astrophysicist, I assume that your brain will automatically fill in the blanks I left. For anyone else reading this, wait to see if Michael responses because it will contain more accurate info than if I filled in the blanks now.

[@MichaelSiegel14]

That would be a concern, yes.

[@billross7245]

I would imagine it depends on the materials used for the bomb casing. Can a space nuke be designed with minimal shrapnel, or perhaps the explosion itself would vaporize the casing materials.

[@phadrus4435]

If you watch the Tencent version of the 3 Body, I would be like if you would take us along for the ride as you did with the Netflix version.

[@classictowers668]

Spacing for spoilers: (about lying) They can lie to us. They can't lie to each other of their species.

[@SachinJames89]

There's 30 eps Tencent's Chinese adaptation of the 1st book is completely available for free on KZbin... Also there's an animated adaptation called 'Three Body Animation' which starts from judgement day from the first book and ends midway of the second book...

[@camelectric]

I just finished the original Chinese version and I found it much more interesting, mature and scientifically accurate than the Netflix series. I really enjoyed your reactions for this series, thx.

[@billross7245]

I finished the Chinese series and the audio book narrated by Rosiland Chao (Ye), and I have to say that series was one of the most accurate book to screen adaptations I've seen.

[@jeffbachman2949]

​@billross7245 I liked some of it but had some really issues. 30 episodes really dragged. They tended to explain things and then explain them again. Then have flashbacks of those same scenes explaining them again. The Chinese censorship also hurt it I think I dislike changing ye backstory with her father and some of the editing I found weird and the musical montages.

[@DTan-sz3we]

finally...