So what exactly are the Sophons in 3 Body Problem, anyway?
There’s a lot of complicated science going on in Netflix’s new series 3 Body Problem. Aside from the math puzzle that the series is named after, there are things like solar radio amplification, near light-speed travel, nano fibers, particle accelerators, and theoretical physics, just to name a few. But among the most complicated and confusing of all these elements are the Sophons, the little San-Ti assistants that prove to be massive nuisances to humanity throughout the first season.
The Sophons are one of the most fascinating and speculative sci-fi elements of the 3 Body Problem story, so to help you get a better understanding of what exactly they are and what they can do, we’ve put together a guide on everything you need to know about Sophons.
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[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for3 Body Problem season 1.]
The Sophons are technically tiny proton-sized supercomputers that the San-Ti designed by folding protons out from three-dimensional objects into higher dimensions, giving them more space — where the San-Ti built the computers that they house. But that’s still a weird and complicated idea to understand, so we’re going to simplify it a little further: The Sophons are basically very tiny spy machines.
They can fly at the speed of light to anywhere on Earth and record sound and images. This allows the San-Ti to be inside essentially every room on Earth at the exact same time, able to spy on every human conversation, email, text message, phone call, and video chat. From there, each Sophon can report back its findings to the San-Ti homeworld because of a quantum entanglement it has with a sister Sophon back there (since quantum entanglement allows for instant communication, you see).
They can interact with the world, but only in very tiny ways. We eventually, in episode 5, see the Sophons messing up particle acceleration experiments, but only because they can bounce off the particles in order to send them off course. The Sophons can’t do things like
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