“This is Galileo,” said Aristotle. “He advocates understanding the world through observation and experiment. He is an unimaginative thinker, but his results demand our attention.”
“Mozi also conducted experiments and observation,” Wang said.
Galileo snorted. “Mozi’s way of thinking was still Eastern. He was nothing more than a mystic dressed as a scientist. He never took his own observation data seriously, and he constructed his model based on subjective speculation. Ridiculous! I feel sorry for his refined equipment. We’re different. Based on large amounts of observational data and experiments, we make strict, logical deductions to build a model of the universe. Then we go back to experimentation and observation to test it.”
“That’s correct.” Wang nodded. “That’s also my way of thinking.”
“Have you brought a calendar as well, then?” The pope’s tone was mocking.
“I don’t have a calendar. I only brought a model built upon observation data. But I must make it clear that even if the model is correct, it’s not certain that by using it one can master the precise details of the sun’s motion and create a calendar. However, it’s a necessary step.”
A few lonely claps echoed throughout the Great Hall. The applause came from Galileo. “Excellent, Copernicus, excellent. Your pragmatic way of thinking, adapted to the experimental, scientific approach, is lacking in most scholars. Based on this alone, your theory is worth listening to.”
The pope nodded at Wang. “Go ahead.”
After calming himself and walking to the other end of the long table, Wang said, “It’s actually pretty simple. The reason why the sun’s motion seems patternless is because our world has three suns. Under the influence of their mutually perturbing gravitational attraction, their movements are unpredictable—the three-body problem. When our planet revolves around one of the suns in a stable orbit, that’s a Stable Era. When one or more of the other suns move within a certain distance, their gravitational pull will snatch the planet away from the sun it’s orbiting, causing it to wander unstably through the gravitational fields of the three suns. That’s a Chaotic Era. After an uncertain amount of time, our planet is once again pulled into a temporary orbit and another Stable Era begins. This is a football game at the scale of the universe. The players are the three suns, and our planet is the football.”
A few hollow laughs rang out in the Great Hall. “Burn him to death,” the pope said impassively. The two soldiers standing at the door in rusty armor started toward Wang like two clumsy robots.
“Burn him.” Galileo sighed. “I had hopes for you, but you’re nothing more than another mystic or warlock.”
“Such men are a public nuisance,” Aristotle agreed.
“At least let me finish!” Wang shoved away the iron gauntlets of the two soldiers.
“Have you seen three suns? Or know anyone who has?” Galileo asked.
“Everyone has seen them.”
“Then, other than the sun that appears during Chaotic Eras and Stable Eras, where are the other two?”
“The sun that we see at different times may not be the same: It’s only one of the three suns. When the other two are far away, they look like flying stars.”
“You lack basic scientific training,” Galileo said, shaking his head. “The sun must move continuously to a distant spot. It cannot jump over the intervening space. According to your hypothesis, there should be another observable situation: The sun must get smaller than it usually appears but bigger than a flying star, and gradually shrink into a flying star as it moves farther away. But we’ve never seen the sun behave that way.”
“Since you have scientific training, you ought to have some knowledge of the sun’s structure.”
“That’s my proudest discovery. The sun is made of a sparse but expansive gaseous outer layer and a dense and hot inner core.”
“Very true,” said Wang. “But you apparently haven’t discovered the special optical interaction between the sun’s gaseous outer layer and our planet’s atmosphere. It’s a phenomenon akin to polarization or destructive interference. As a result, when we view the sun from within our atmosphere and it gets a certain distance from us, the gaseous outer layer suddenly becomes completely transparent and invisible, and all we can see is its bright inner core. The sun then appears to be only the size of the inner core, a flying star.
“This phenomenon has confused every researcher in every civilization throughout history, and prevented them from discovering the existence of the three suns. Now you understand why the appearance of three flying stars heralds a long period of extreme cold: because all three suns are far away.”
A brief silence followed as everyone pondered this. Aristotle was the first to speak. “You lack basic training in logic. It’s true that we can sometimes see three flying stars, and that’s always accompanied by destructive periods of extreme cold. But based on your theory, we should also sometimes see three normal-sized suns in the sky. This has never happened. In all the records of all the civilizations, this has never occurred!”
“Wait!” A man wearing a strangely shaped hat and a long beard stood up and spoke for the first time. “I’m Leonardo da Vinci. There may be such historical records. One civilization saw two suns and was immediately destroyed by their combined heat, but the record was very vague.”
“We’re talking about three suns, not two!” Galileo shouted. “According to his theory, three suns must appear sometime, just like three flying stars.”
“Three suns have appeared,” Wang said, utterly calm. “And people have seen them. But those who saw such a great sight could not leave behind any information about them because seeing three suns would mean that they had at most a few seconds left to live. They had no chance to escape or survive. Tri-solar days are the most terrifying catastrophes for our world. On such days, the surface of the planet would turn into a smelting furnace in a second, and the heat would be enough to melt rocks. After the destruction caused by a tri-solar day, an eon would pass before the reappearance of life and civilization. This is yet another reason why there’s no historical record of them.”
Silence. Everyone stared at the pope.
“Burn him,” the pope said, gently. The smile on his face was a little familiar to Wang: the smile of King Zhou of Shang.
The Great Hall came alive, and everyone seemed to be preparing for a celebration. Galileo and some others joyfully carried a stake out of a dark corner. They pulled off the charcoal-black body still tied to the stake and cast it aside before fastening it in an upright position. Another group happily piled firewood around the stake. Only Leonardo ignored the commotion. He sat at the table, pondering, and occasionally using a pen to calculate something on the table.
“Giordano Bruno,” Aristotle said, pointing at the blackened body. “Like you, he came here and spewed nonsense.”
“Use a low fire,” the pope said, his voice weak.
Two soldiers started to tie Wang Miao to the stake using asbestos ropes. Wang used the hand that was still free to point at the pope. “You are nothing more than a program. As for the rest of you, you’re either programs or idiots. I will log back on!”
“You cannot return. You will disappear forever from the world of Three Body.” Galileo cackled.
“Then you must be a program. A normal person would certainly understand the basics of the Internet. The most the game can do is record my MAC address. I can just switch computers and create a new ID. I’ll announce myself when I’m back.”
“The system has recorded your retinal scan through the V-suit,” Leonardo said, looking up at Wang. Then he returned to his calculations.