Three-Body ep 15 recap/spoilers

Episode 15 recap: Wang Miao reveals the structure of the universe.

Dou Dou asked Wang Miao a riddle about how many broken streetlights there are. After Wang Miao finished his calculations, Dou Dou told him that according to the time setting, it was daytime and the lights didn't need to be turned on, so the streetlights wouldn't be broken. Wang Miao thought Dou Dou was tricking him, but Dou Dou said that he had already given him the answer, and it was just that he hadn't noticed it himself. Wang Miao suddenly understood that the answer had already appeared in the game, but he hadn't paid attention to it before.

Wang Miao entered the game again, changing his ID to Copernicus. By this time, the Three-Body world had progressed to the European Middle Ages, and Wang Miao even encountered Galileo and others. Wang Miao told the Pope that the reason they couldn't accurately predict the patterns of the sun was that in this world, there were three suns that interacted with each other, causing unpredictable movements of the Three-Body. When a planet stably orbits one of the suns, it is called a Stable Era. When another sun, or two suns, come within a certain distance, their gravitational force will steal the planet from its orbit around the original sun, causing it to wander within the gravitational range of the three suns, which is known as a Chaotic Era. After a period of uncertainty, the planet will be captured by one of the suns again, establishing a stable orbit and entering the next Stable Era. The sun they see may not be the same one, and when the sun is far enough away, it appears as a flying star.

Galileo thought that if that were the case, they would see all three suns appear together. Wang Miao thought that it had happened before, but there had been no records of it. The Three Days of Vacuum was the most destructive disaster in the Three-Body world, where the planet's surface would instantly turn into a smelting furnace, and the high temperatures would melt all the rocks. In a world destroyed by the Three Days of Vacuum, it would take a long time for life and civilization to reappear. The Pope wanted to burn Wang Miao to death, but then the Three Days of Vacuum occurred outside. Civilization 183 was destroyed in the "Three Days of Vacuum." This civilization had evolved to the level of the Middle Ages, and because Copernicus successfully revealed the basic structure of the universe, the Three-Body civilization would undergo its first leap.

Xu Bing Bing learned about the evidence that Wang Miao had gathered, which led to suspicions about Ye Wenjie. Shi Qiang informed Chang Wei Si about this and urged him to quickly retrieve the files. Mu Xing participated in activities at the Science Frontier, but Shen Yu Fei felt that she wasn't very interested in science. Mu Xing admitted that what interested her more was people's perspectives on these matters. Mu Xing asked Shen Yu Fei about the purpose of the Science Frontier, and Shen Yu Fei told her to ask Pan Han.

Wang Miao logged into the game again and encountered Neumann and Newton. Neumann needed thirty million soldiers for calculations, so they came to the East to find Qin Shi Huang. Neumann instructed the three soldiers to form a group, holding red and white lights. The soldier in front represented "out," while the other two represented "in one" and "in two." If both "in one" and "in two" raised white lights, they would raise a white light; otherwise, they would raise a red light. The soldiers assembled a million NOT gates and other components, combining them into a system to perform calculations. This computer was named Qin-1, and by inputting the motion vectors of the three suns observed in a certain time section, it could predict the future motion of the sun at any given time.

Xu Bing Bing discovered some overlooked aspects in the previous investigation of Ye Wenjie. Ye Wenjie had a niece named Chen Xue, who was the daughter of Ye Wen Xue. They had little contact, and it was Ye Wenjie who supported Chen Xue. Chen Xue graduated from Macheng Institute of Technology in June and had been abroad before and after Yang Dong's suicide. It was said that Chen Xue currently lived in the same building as Ye Wenjie's colleagues, as Ye Wenjie had lent her the apartment since she didn't live there permanently. However, Chen Xue had minimal contact with Ye Wenjie and had no connection to the Science Frontier.

Xu Bing Bing also discovered that Shen Yu Fei's nanotechnology company had hired a large number of mathematics experts several months ago, which didn't seem directly related to the company's main business. Xu Bing Bing thought about Shen Yu Fei's husband, Wei Cheng, who was involved in mathematics, and concluded that these auxiliary calculations were ultimately serving him. Shi Qiang believed it was necessary to get to know him.