> The trisolarans use a device that meddles with the results of particle experiments, to make the results super unexpected, so the scientists will commit suicid

> The trisolarans use a device that meddles with the results of particle experiments, to make the results super unexpected, so the scientists will commit suicide out of desperation. you are combining to different things here. One aspect is that they use the sophons to stimy research into particle physics so that humans can't advance into understanding higher dimensionality, etc. The second, unrelated aspect is using the sophons to effectively terrorize scientists in non particle physics fields into either submission or suicide by gaslighting them about the nature of the universe. The purpose of the countdown timer and blinking the universal background radiation from the main character's perspective was to make his life a living nightmare until he agreed to stop his nanoparticle research.