The “great rip” is the term Trisolarans use to describe the traumatic destruction of their planet, which occurred during Trisolaris’s Civilization Number 191. During this civilization’s existence, the Trisolaran suns crashed into the planet, ripping it in two. All life on the smaller fraction of the torn planet ceased to exist, meaning that nearly high of the planet’s population had died. Though the remaining Trisolarans were eventually able to rebuild, their planet was now flanked by a giant moon—a reminder of the recent great rip and a promise that such a rip would almost certainly again. And indeed, after more research and discovery, the Trisolarans realized that many great rips had already occurred, reducing their planet to less than 10 percent of its original size.
The Great Rip Quotes in The Three-Body Problem
The The Three-Body Problem quotes below are all either spoken by The Great Rip or refer to The Great Rip. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 19
Quotes
“The big moon. When I was little it was still hot. When it rose to the middle of the sky, I could see the red glow from the central plains. But now it's cold…Haven't you heard about the great rip?”
“No. What's that?”
Einstein sighed and shook his head. “Let's not speak of it. Forget the past. My past, civilization’s past, the universe’s past—all of it too painful to recall.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Three-Body Problem LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Great Rip Term Timeline in The Three-Body Problem
The timeline below shows where the term The Great Rip appears in The Three-Body Problem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 19. Three Body: Einstein, the Pendulum Monument, and the Great Rip
...Einstein, and the two men begin to talk. Einstein hints at an event called “ the great rip ” in which the moon was created, but he cannot elaborate because it is “too...
(full context)
