I was recently introduced to a book called Pythagorean 2.013 by Liu Yang. It was originally published as a web novel before becoming incredibly popular, receiving millions of views daily. Now before you go “no math!” there’s quite an interesting point the author makes at the end! Plus, there’s very little math required. Here’s a brief summary of the book:
—
Several hundred years in the future, human astronauts had advanced to the edge of the galaxy. There, they discovered the remains of an alien spaceship. They entered the ship, and as human technology was incredibly advanced, managed to break into the ship computer. Inside, they found a diary — the diary of an alien.
In it, someone described his childhood. From a young age, he was taught that a2+b2=cs, with s being 2.013…a strange, irrational number.
He always wondered why s was necessary, since he loved math and thought that it should be easy and elegant, but his teachers only laughed at him when he questioned the concept. As he grew up, he saw that s was essential to countless formulas, making them extremely complicated. Eventually, he became an engineer and was so successful that he was chosen to be an astronaut.
During his mission, he entered human galaxy. As he did, though, his ship began to fall apart at an alarming rate. Cracks appeared in the walls and the computers began to malfunction. He knew that he probably wouldn’t survive, but he had to figure out what was wrong. After some time, he realized the problem.
The expression a2+b2 did equal c2! The variable s was completely unnecessary. However, his spaceship had been created following the concept of s, so it was going to fall apart. Even so, he had finally solved his childhood mystery. He died peacefully.
The humans, after studying the diary, figured out that the wormhole right outside the alien galaxy had warped space and time. As such, it was necessary in their galaxy for a special number “s” to balance out every equation.
One human astronaut scoffed at the diary. “The number 2.013 is so bizarre,“ he said. “Are we really supposed to believe that they never thought it could just be two?”
His captain sighed. “It really isn’t wise to judge other civilizations from our perspective. Some unknown force might be affecting Earth right now! Doesn’t the number 3.1415 strike you as equally strange?”
The astronaut was speechless.
—
So, who knows if there’s a countless number of galaxies out there? Imagine a galaxy in which we didn’t need pi! Think about other strange numbers we have too!
Are you interested in reading this book now? What do you think of these concepts? Let us know in the comments!
Click the link to watch an English subbed and animated summary!
Other Sources:
Awesome article and I love the summary of the book! I will definitely try to check out the book.
cool article and I really enjoy the background and summary provided. very interesting!
What an interesting article! This is a very intresting topic because when I think of chinese books I think of old texts coming from scroll and this shows that China is not only old fashion but modern. Thanks for the recomendation!
Thank you for yet another intriguing topic! Your article makes this book appealing to even a non sci-fi fan! Even after reading your summary I may just pick it up one day. Thank you for a great recommendation.
I thought this article was extremely informative. I really like to read books especially scifi. I am also in general interested in math, so I might read this book and see what it is about. I am also fascinated by how I can further advance my Chinese knowledge by reading this book. I also now want to see the movie. Great Article Joanne Li
This book seems very interesting. Is the whole book written in Chinese? How long is the book? The video was quite helpful in piecing the story together. Thanks for posting!
Interesting article! I’ve always wanted to read web novels, but I wasn’t sure if there are a lot that are translated into English. The summary sounds interesting and unique. I wonder if the web novel is complete…Thank you for writing this!
Great article! It’s interesting how this book was originally a web novel. The summary sounds very intriguing. The question of whether the math of other galaxies is the same as ours is very fascinating. I’m interested to read this book myself.
Great article, Joanne! I’ve heard of this book before, and I want to read it in the future! Because my Chinese is not that good, I’m very glad that the summary is translated into English! The premise of this novel is very interesting, even to someone who is not a huge fan of science fiction. I’ll definitely check this series out in the future! Thanks for sharing, and keep up the great work!
Great article, Joanne! I’ve heard of this book before, and I want to read it in the future! The summary sounds very intriguing. How long is the book? This is a very interesting topic because when I think of Chinese books I think of old texts coming from scroll and this shows that China is not only old fashion but modern.The video was quite helpful in piecing the story together. Thanks for posting!
Thank you for this interesting article, and I am glad that you have posted a book summary on the Daily China. I have never heard of this book before, but I am excited to read it in the future. I find it interesting that this mathematical concept of the theorem has been altered in other universes/ areas of the universe. It is an interesting concept that theorems can be altered depending on your position. It is also interesting how the number pi could be not needed in other galaxies. Thanks for also including a book summary and video, as it helped me to further understand the book. I wonder how long this book is, as it is something that I may want to read.
I’ve never heard of this book before but it sounds really interesting. After reading this summary I would like to read this book. I think a possible lesson that this story was trying to teach was to always be curious. The main character was the only one from his world that questioned the variable s. Without this questioning spirit, the humans from our world would have never knew that time and space was warped in another dimension and thus all of the formulas from that world would need the variable s. Thank you for this article!
Interesting article. I really like the story line of this book its so unique. The concept of whether math is diffent in other galaxies is very intriguing. I would love to read this book.
What an interesting article. I really liked the summary you gave of the book. It sounds very different from any other book i’ve read. Maybe I’ll pick it up someday and read it if I have time. Thanks for sharing!
This was a great article! I really liked how you described the summary. It made the book sound really interesting! I might try reading it someday. I find it interesting that this book is basically a new idea to me. I think it is weird that the book is in Chinese. This is because I am used to seeing only small stories or fables as Chinese stories and is one of the few stories I have seen that is actually modern.
Wow, just wow. Thank you so much, Joanne, for informing me about this book. Even though this movie contains math, it still seems very interesting and worthwhile to watch. I’ll be sure to read this book in the future. Nice job!
Great article, Joanne! I find it so interesting how a book from the internet could make such waves in China. However, the concept of the book is quite interesting. 2.013 sounds like an unnecessarily complicated way to create the Pythagorean theorem, no wonder why the alien’s ship broke. What a twist ending. Perhaps pi is a strange and complicated way to find the area of a circle. Perhaps aliens will find our spaceship centuries from now and wonder the same thing that we did. Thanks for keeping me thinking Joanne!
I love reading Chinese science fiction books! This one definitely seems extremely interesting! Another interesting one I’ve heard of and am reading right now is called The Three Body Problem. It’s set in the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution but also involves aliens and a theory about the universe. Chinese science fiction books are extremely interesting!
I’ve never heard of this book before but it sounds really interesting. After reading this summary I would like to read this book. This is a very interesting topic because when I think of chinese books I think of old texts coming from scroll and this shows that China is not only old fashion but modern. Your article makes this book appealing to even a non sci-fi fan! I’ll be sure to read this book in the future. Nice job!
I think that your article simplifies a great many problems we have across cultures and ways of life in our modern society. For example, this novel can confront these mantras and change them so we can become “better people” in the minds of this futuristic galaxy. It is also very interesting how we are able to see into a dark future and make decisions bout ourselves and the way that our society can go. This book seems to confront these issues, and I shall look forward to reading it in future, as I am an avid reader. Thank you very much, your article was excellent as well.
Cool article! This book sounds very interesting and I think I will read it in the future. This is the first time I’ve heard about this book and it has many good points for example, it’s not right to judge something else from our perspective only. I think it’s cool that it can make something like a math concept into a whole sci-fi story. Hopefully when my Chinese improves, I’ll be able to read the whole book in the future!
I’ve never seen an article like this before. The story summary was very interesting yet simple. I don’t ever see me reading this book because it seems too different and boring to me. But I like the idea behind in the book and it makes me question certain things I learn at school. The fact that the captain relates this situation back to Earth was the coolest part. A very unique article! Keep up the work!
That’s a very thought provoking novel! It would be very interesting indeed if we didn’t need pi. I think about alternate universes a lot, and the different factors that could make it the slightest bit different. However, the factor of changing math never occurred to me at all. That is such an interesting concept!
Very interesting article and book! I’m not one to read much but I think a story like this is something well worth the read. The concept of the book is pretty intriguing. This is definitely something I wasn’t expecting coming from a Chinese author but I’m glad because it really shows how different cultures are influenced by others.