Item from three-body-problem by
Sentient proton-sized supercomputers folded out of higher dimensions on Trisolaris and flung to Earth at light speed — the Trisolaran weapon designed to lock human science in place for four centuries.
A sophon does not destroy. It interrupts. Its primary mission is to invalidate every high-energy physics experiment on Earth — by substituting itself for the target particle in any operating accelerator, it ensures that human results contradict each other and yield no theory. Without high-energy physics there can be no breakthrough beyond what humanity already has. The Trisolaran fleet is four centuries away; the sophons are meant to ensure that when it arrives, humans are still using essentially the same toolkit. They can also write words and images directly onto a person's retina, see and read everything on Earth, and relay information back to Trisolaris in real time via quantum entanglement. To Wang Miao the sophon is the countdown over the cherry tree. To physics it is the lid on the coffin.
Invisible. A sophon is a single proton in which a Trisolaran civilization has etched, in eleven dimensions, a complete supercomputer. To human instruments they appear only as their effects: phantom luminous text traced directly onto a target's retina, particle accelerator results that refuse to be consistent, a countdown that shows up on developed photographs.
Also known as: Sophon, Zhizi, intelligent proton