Liu Cixin Quotes

The universe is a hollow sphere floating in the middle of a sea of fire. There are numerous tiny holes in the surface of the sphere, as well as a large one. The light from the sea of flames shines through these holes. The tiny ones are stars, and the large one is the sun.

War is as regular and ordered as economics?” “War is economics.

unscientific ways of thinking will dominate scientific thinking among human intellectuals, and lead to the collapse of the entire scientific system of thought.

Unlike other human religions, they worshipped something that truly existed. Also unlike other human religions, it was the Lord who was in crisis, and the duty of salvation fell on the shoulders of the believer.

Everyone likes to reminisce, but not one wants to listen, and everyone feels annoyed when someone else tells a story.

Porque la existencia de la mayoría de la gente no es más que un cúmulo de felices casualidades.

My dad said that people who are sensitive to beauty are good by nature, and if they’re not good, then they can’t appreciate beauty.

Language was a bottleneck — he knew he didn’t have enough time. He fantasized that the knowledge he had spent his life accumulating — not much, but dear to him — was lodged in his brain like small pearls, and that as he spoke, a crystal ax chopped the pearls out of his brain onto the floor, where the children scrambled to gather them like sweets at New Year’s. It was a happy fantasy.

Have you heard of the Monte Carlo method? Ah, it’s a computer algorithm often used for calculating the area of irregular shapes. Specifically, the software puts the figure of interest in a figure of known area, such as a circle, and randomly strikes it with many tiny balls, never targeting the same spot twice. After a large number of balls, the proportion of balls that fall within the irregular shape compared to the total number of balls used to hit the circle will yield the area of the shape. Of course, the smaller the balls used, the more accurate the result.

The rhythmic sound made by the blood drops was like the steps of someone walking away.

When it was born, the universe was smaller than an atom, and everything within it was intermixed as a single whole; the natural connection between the universe’s small parts and its great entirety was thus determined. Though the universe has expanded to whatever its current size, this connection still exists, and if we can’t see it now, that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to in the future.

Science fiction is a literature that belongs to all humankind.

But from the perspective of aesthetics, I must be right and the universe must be wrong.

do you know what the greatest expression of regard for a race or civilization is?” “No, what?” “Annihilation. That’s the highest respect a civilization can receive. They would only feel threatened by a civilization they truly respect.

Some call them doomsday ships. These lightspeed ships have no destination at all. They turn their curvature engines to maximum and accelerate like crazy, infinitely approaching the speed of light. Their goal is to leap across time using relativity until they reach the heat death of the universe. By their calculations, ten years within their frame of reference would equal fifty billion years in ours. As a matter of fact, you don’t even need to plan for it. If some malfunction occurs after a ship has accelerated to lightspeed, preventing the ship from decelerating, then you’d also reach the end of the universe within your lifetime.