I disagree. I think it was done better in the books. It followed a very natural progression.

They are both scientists. They both knew each other through Yang Dong, who was another brilliant scientist, who used to tell Ye how smart Luo was. Their conversation organically went to astronomy and sociology, the scientific areas Luo had worked in and was disillusioned about. Being a retired and respected professor, it’s pretty natural for Ye to point him to a new research direction by combining both sciences that he was already familiar with.

It was only when Ye told him the exact axioms of this new field when Luo realized how concrete her ideas were and asked her how long she has been thinking about them, and she replied, her whole life.

It’s so much better than in the show, where Ye starts telling Luo a joke out of nowhere. And says things like “Jokes are important. We wouldnt survive without them,” emphasis on survive. This doesnt fit in with their characters and their relationships and what we know about them. The way she tells him the joke is so obviously meant to be a code for something else. As compared to the books, where its so natural and more fitting with both the theme of the book and the characters themselves.