countdown
First appears in Book 1: The Three-Body Problem, chapter 6 (6)
Appearances
B1
B2
B3
What you know
Book 1: The Three-Body Problem
- Ch 6A ghostly countdown starting at 1,200 hours appears on Wang's photographs, even with the lens cap on, and tracks real elapsed time.
- Ch 6The numbers adapt to the background for contrast and appear only on photographs Wang himself takes, not on those taken by his wife or son.
- Ch 6Wang reasons that the numbers must be exposed by some penetrating ray, which would be supernatural given current technology.
- Ch 6The countdown stopped when Wang shut down the experiment, ending at 1174:10:07, then vanished after a few seconds.
- Ch 6Shen says the countdown will continue if Wang restarts the nanomaterial project in three days.
- Ch 9Wang decodes the flickering as Morse code: a countdown reading 1108:21:37, then 1108:21:36. Ninety-two hours have elapsed and 1,108 remain.
- Ch 9The flickering stops at five in the morning, and the countdown seems to follow Wang specifically.
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 6Countdown follows Wang
Wang wakes to find the countdown persists in his vision. An ophthalmologist at Tongren Hospital finds nothing wrong and blames stress.
- Book 1 · Ch 6Experiment halted
Wang orders the main reaction chamber shut down for maintenance; the countdown stops and vanishes.
- Book 1 · Ch 9The universe flickers
At Sha's lab, Wang watches COBE, WMAP, Planck and the Ürümqi observatory show synchronized CMB fluctuations. He decodes the Morse code into a countdown with about 1,108 hours remaining.