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Yang Dong
Though he is a respected physicist in his own right, Ding is known to most of the characters as Yang Dong’s boyfriend. Ding had hoped to settle down with Yang Dong, but she was always more interested in theory than in domestic life. After Yang’s death, Ding befriends Wang Miao, and the two men work together to balance abstract, scientific thinking with meaningful everyday experience.
Ding Yi Quotes in The Three-Body Problem
The The Three-Body Problem quotes below are all either spoken by Ding Yi or refer to Ding Yi . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 30 Quotes
If I tell you more, you really won't be able to sleep. Forget it. What's the point of worrying? We should learn to be as philosophical as Wei Cheng and Shi Qiang. Just do the best within your responsibility. Let's go drinking and then go back to sleep like good bugs.
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Chapter 34 Quotes
Look at them, the bugs. Humans have used everything in their power to extinguish them: every kind of poison, aerial sprays, introducing and cultivating their natural predators, searching for and destroying their eggs, using genetic modification to sterilize them, burning with fire, drowning with water. Every family has bug spray, every desk has a flyswatter under it…this long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs have not been eliminated. They so proudly live between the heavens and the earth, and their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of the humans.
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"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Ding Yi Character Timeline in The Three-Body Problem
The timeline below shows where the character Ding Yi appears in The Three-Body Problem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4. The Frontiers of Science
...the last two months; Yang Dong killed herself merely two days ago. Yang Dong’s boyfriend Ding Yi presents Wang with Yang’s suicide note, in which she laments that “physics has never...
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...provides for him, but rather than going home, Wang instructs the driver to drive to Ding Yi’s house.
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Chapter 5. A Game of Pool
When Wang arrives at Ding’s apartment, he sees that it is unfurnished other than a large pool table. A drunken...
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Ding invites Wang to play pool with him, and the two men discuss how the balls...
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...many scientists, including Yang Dong, to give up on work and life. Before Wang leaves, Ding gives him the address of Yang Dong’s mother. Ding explains that Yang’s mother lives alone,...
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Chapter 7. Three Body: King Wen of Zhou and the Long Night
To find a place where he can observe the cosmic microwave background, Wang calls Ding Yi for help. Ding again advises Wang to consult Yang Dong’s mother, who is herself...
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Chapter 8. Ye Wenjie
Wang arrives at Yang Dong’s mother’s apartment complex, per his conversation with Ding Yi. He sees an old woman struggling with her groceries and guesses correctly that this...
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Chapter 30. Two Protons
Having heard the interrogation, Wang Miao and Ding Yi debate whether or not they believe what Ye has said. Wang is confused about...
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Chapter 34. Bugs
Shi, Ding, and Wang all get drunk at Ding’s house together. Though Shi still has hope for...
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In an effort to cheer Wang and Ding up, Shi decides to bring them both to his hometown. When they arrive, Wang and...
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...never been able to do so; “the bugs have never truly been defeated.” Wang and Ding toast the bugs, and Wang realizes he has a lot of work to do—after all,...
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