(卡尔萨根语)我们曾是猎人和农民 We were hunters and foragers.
四处皆是边界 The frontier was everywhere.
我们曾被大地 海洋和天空所约束 We were bounded only by the earth and the ocean and the sky.
开阔的前路仍在轻柔地呼唤 像是几乎被遗忘的童谣 The open road still softly calls like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.
尽管我们有自身的限制和缺陷 For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities,
我们人类仍有能力创造伟大事业 we humans are capable of greatness.
我们这个游牧民族还会流浪到多远 How far will our nomadic species have wandered
到下个世纪末？ by the end of the next century?
或者下一个千年？ And the next millennium?
欢迎回到宇宙海洋的海岸 Welcome back to the shores of the cosmic ocean...
在浩瀚无边的时空中 An immensity of space and time,
仍有大量尚待探索的广阔天地 a vastness still mostly uncharted.
我们将驶向科学为我们揭示的潜在新世界 We're bound for the possible worlds revealed by science.
我们将乘坐无人知晓的地下全球网络 We'll take a ride on the underground worldwide network that no one knew was there.
我们将与外星生命第一次接触 I'm going to tell you a first contact story that's true.
我们会遇到一些有史以来最勇敢的人 We'll meet some of the most courageous people who ever lived.
我们将冒险进入我们仍有可能拥有的未来 And we're going to venture into the future we can still have,
去到我们遥远子孙的家园 to the homes of our distant descendants among the starts.
科学可以带领我们穿越浩瀚时空 Science can carry us across that vastness.
但若没有想象力 我们将寸步难行 But without imagination, we go nowhere.
我们的想象之船有一对船桨 Our Ship of the Imagination is propelled by twin engines
一边是怀疑 一边是好奇 of skepticism and wonder.
它遵循一套简单的规则 这些规则定义了科学 It's guided by the simple set of rules that define science
这使它如此强大 and make it so powerful.
通过实验和观测来检验想法 Test ideas by experiment and observation.
接受能够经受事实检验的理论 Build on those ideas that pass the test.
拒绝与事实相悖的 Reject the ones that fail.
无论证据指向何方 跟着它走 Follow the evidence wherever it leads.
永远不要停止发问 and question everything.
把这些规则牢记在心 宇宙就是你的 Take these rules to heart, and the cosmos is yours.
跟我来 Come with me...
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大千千 川大毕同学
重楼 子时雪
川大毕同学
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宇宙 潜在的新世界
我们的想象之船可以带我们 Our Ship of the Imagination can take us
去到任何时空 anywhere in space and time.
宇宙就在我们的窗外 The cosmos is right outside our front window.
如果你想看到过去 往下看 If you want to see the past, look down.
如果你想看到未来 抬头看 And if you want to see the future, look up.
在这次航行中 我们将前往一个遥远的星系 On this voyage, we are bound for a distant galaxy.
我们会发现人类是如何成为 And we'll discover how we as a species became
一个宇宙的探险家的 explorers of the cosmos.
那里 她来了 There. There she is.
NASA的旅行者一号 NASA's Voyager 1.
于1977年发射 Launched in 1977,
她是目前走的最远的人造探测器 she is the most distant object built by human hands.
自从我们上次相遇后她经历了一些艰难的旅行 She's done some hard traveling since our last encounter,
又走了十五亿英里 logged another billion and a half miles.
旅行者正向银河系的其他部分进发 Voyager's making for other parts of our Milky Way,
但我们还有另一个更遥远的目的地 but we have another, far more distant destination.
宇宙的海洋是由时间和空间组成的 The cosmic ocean is made of space and time.
移动不可能不消耗时间 You can't move in space without also moving in time.
我们的航程将使我们离家很远 Our voyage will take us a long way from home,
略高于十亿光年 a little more than a billion light-years.
我们正在穿越到十亿年前 We're also traveling a billion years into the past,
去感受一场能够撕碎时间的事件 to an event so violent it will even shatter time.
现在 我们离目的地越来越近了 Now, we're getting close to our destination.
这就是我们来的目的 This is what we came for.
这两个黑洞诞生于一对巨大的恒星 These two black holes were born from the collapse of a pair of massive stars.
之后的几百万年 他们一直在跳引力探戈 And they've been doing a gravitational tango ever since for millions of years.
我们为这舞蹈的高潮而来 We're here for the climax.
当这两个相撞 它们会引发一个时空海啸 When those two collide, they will set off a space-time
它将从四面八方拉伸和压缩空间 tsunami that will stretch and compress space in all directions.
时间本身也会减慢 And it will slow down time itself,
然后再次加快减慢 如此往复 before speeding it up and slowing it down again.
引力 Gravitational...
会减慢时间 and it will slow down time itself...
引发了时空海啸 Set off a space-time tsunami...
向各个方向拉伸和压缩空间 Stretch and compress space in all directions a billion
十亿光年之外 light-years away.
一个十亿光年外发生的事件 What does an event that took place more than a billion
与我们有什么关系？ light-years away have to do with us?
阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦是第一个明白 Albert Einstein was the first to understand that matter
物体会在时空中制造涟漪的人 could send ripples across space-time.
他认为物质大爆炸应该制造出比涟漪大得多的东西 He imagined that catastrophic explosions of matter should create something much bigger than ripples,
时空巨浪 引力波 great waves, gravitational waves.
你现在能看到我 听到我 无论是通过什么设备 You are seeing and hearing me right now,on whatever device you have,
是因为我们学会了操纵电磁波 because we figured out a way to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum.
如果我们能像驾驭电磁波那样 If we can learn to surf those gravitational waves the
学会如何利用这些引力波 way we know how to ride the electromagnetic ones,
谁知道呢 who knows?
就像19世纪进行电学实验的科学家 It's as impossible to foresee as our world was to the
无法预知我们现在这个世界一样 scientists who experimented with electricity back in the 19th century.
宇宙学家预言了黑洞的存在 Cosmologists predicted the existence of black holes.
引力波是第一个直接证明 Gravitational waves are the first direct evidence that
黑洞是真实存在的证据 black holes are real.
它们也许提供了一种新的方式来了解和探索宇宙 But they may also provide a new way of knowing and exploring the cosmos.
我们可以将它同科学发明的其他感官一起 We can add it to the other senses that science has
用于洞察黑暗的宇宙海洋 devised to penetrate the great dark ocean,
这些感官就是我们用到的光 伽马射线 all the kinds of light we use; gamma ray,
X射线 紫外线 X-ray, ultraviolet,
红外线 微波 infrared, microwave,
无线电波和可见光 radio wave and visible light.
这种搜索宇宙的新方法可以帮我们 This newest way to search the cosmos could help us to one
知道黑洞里面发生了什么 day know what's happening inside those black holes,
以及构成宇宙绝大部分的其他隐蔽之处 and the other hidden places that make up most of the universe.
假如我们能够检测到 What if we could detect the gravitational waves that were
盘古开天辟地时的引力波 caused by the first moment of creation,
宇宙大爆炸 the birth of the cosmos.
如果我们可以扩大视野 What if we could extend our vision to see the whole sweep
看到宇宙140亿年演化的全貌 of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution?
那么 我们是怎么如何拥有智慧的 So, how did we get so smart?
我们对我们物种的进化有所了解 We know something about the evolution of our species,
但是人类的智力是如何进化出来的呢 but how did the human mind evolve?
攀上梯子仰望星空宇宙的野心又从何而来 Where did that crazy ambition to climb the ladder to the stars come from?
我们又是如何成为宇宙认识自身的方式 How did we become a way for the universe to know itself?
一切从那里开始 It started over there.
宇宙日历是我们理解浩瀚时间的一种方法 The cosmos calendar is a way for us to grasp the vastness of time.
我们将整个时间 We've taken all of time,
从宇宙诞生到此时此刻 from the birth of the universe to this very moment,
压缩成一个日历年 and compressed it into a single calendar year.
在此比例上 On this scale,
每个月就代表了十亿余年 every month represents a little more than a billion years.
每一天代表近四千万年 Every day represents nearly 40 million years.
我们自己的故事要从这个世界上其他生命说起 Our own story begins with all the other life on our little world.
地球上的生命都有着共同的起源 Every living thing on Earth is descended from a single origin.
那发生在9月15日深海的黑暗之中 It happened in the deep ocean darkness on September 15,
约40亿年前 about four billion years ago.
在微小的单细胞有机体中 一种化学梯 Within this tiny single-celled organism was a kind of chemical ladder,
DNA双螺旋 the DNA double helix.
来自星星的元素 Star stuff...
氧 碳 氮 Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen...
遥远星球中心高温烘烤的元素 Elements cooked in the hearts of distant stars,
与宇宙大爆炸产生的氢结合 combined with hydrogen from the Big Bang
给地球带来生机 to become alive on this little world.
通过随机变化 基因突变 Through random changes, mutations in the genes,
其中一些造就了更成功的生命形式 some of which led to more successful life-forms,
我们称之为自然选择 what we call evolution by natural selection.
梯子不断延长 梯级越来越多 The ladder grew, adding more and more rungs.
又过了三十亿年 It took another three billion years for life
才进化到有肉眼可见的动植物 to evolve the complexity of the plants and animals that you could see with the naked eye.
如果宇宙日历上有节假日 If the Cosmic Calendar had holidays,
12月26日肯定是其中之一 surely December 26 would be one of them.
这天的某个时刻 约两亿年前 Some time on this day, about 200 million years ago,
进化出了最早的哺乳动物 the first mammals evolved.
他们为地球生命带来了一个新的特征： They brought a new feature to life on Earth:
新皮层 the neocortex.
*新皮层是哺乳动物大脑的一部分
回到三叠纪 Back in the Triassic,
与她的同类截然相反 the odds were against her kind,
但威胁哺乳动物的恐龙已经灭绝 but the dinosaurs that terrorized the mammals went extinct.
灵活的小型生物新皮层的进化 It was the evolution of the neocortex in small,
就像这个小家伙 furtive creatures such as this one,
使他们的后代占据了这个星球 that enabled their descendants to take over the planet.
哺乳动物带来了新的东西 Mammals brought something else that was new.
它们给幼崽喂奶 They suckled their young.
养育幼崽 They nurtured them.
也带来了爱 And there was love.
这是宇宙日历上的母亲节 Mother's Day on the Cosmic Calendar.
自然选择意味着那些 Evolution by natural selection means that those living things
能够更好地适应环境的生物更有可能 able to better adapt to their environment are more likely to
生存繁衍 survive and leave offspring.
智力是一个巨大的选择优势 Intelligence can be a huge selective advantage.
仅仅13个原子就永远改变了这个星球的命运 The fate of this planet was changed forever by an event involving just 13 atoms.
13个原子有多小 How small is 13 atoms?
一粒盐的千万亿分之一而已 It's a quadrillionth the size of a grain of salt.
只要我们一个祖先的DNA发生了突变 A mutation occurred in the DNA of just one of our ancestors.
我们所骄傲的一切 我们所学习和建造的一切 Every source of self-esteem, everything we've learned and built,
可能就仅此而已 might come down to nothing more than this.
一个基因的一个碱基对 One base pair of a single gene.
仅这一个梯级改变就能使新大脑皮层变得更大 Just a single rung programmed the neocortex to grow larger
同时折叠更深 still and fold more deeply.
可能是宇宙射线的随机撞击 Maybe it was a random zap from a cosmic ray,
或者是细胞分裂的一个小错误 or a simple error in transmission from one cell to another.
不管是什么 它导致我们物种的改变 Whatever it was, it led to a change in our species that
最终影响到地球上每一个物种 would ultimately affect every other species of life on Earth.
这发生在宇宙日历的除夕深夜 It happened late on New Year's Eve on this Cosmic Calendar of ours.
想一想 无论好坏 To think that, for good or evil,
我们对不断繁衍的人类的忠诚和关心的能力 our ability to feel loyalty and concern for increasingly larger groups,
我们对某种信仰体系的执着 our obsession with certain belief systems,
我们对未来的想象力 our capacity to imagine the future,
我们改变世界 our power to transform the world
探索宇宙寻找答案的力量 and to search the cosmos for answers...
我们给我们自己物种起的名字 The very name we gave to our own species,
智人 拉丁语中“聪明人”的意思 所有这些 homo sapiens, Latin for "wise persons" all of it
归根结底只是宇宙中DNA化学梯上的小小一级 comes down to nothing more than a single rung on our tiny DNA ladder to the stars.
在宇宙日历的最后一小时里 For much of the last hour on the Cosmic Calendar,
除了最后一分钟 for all but the last minute,
我们的祖先都只是猎人和农民 our ancestors were hunters and gatherers,
生活在世界一隅 living in small bands.
你知道 当人们只是耸耸肩说 You know, when people just shrug and say
“把它归因于人性” 这让我迷惑不解 "chalk it up to human nature," it puzzles me.
他们常常谈论人类的的贪婪 They're usually talking about our greed,
傲慢 暴力 our arrogance, our violence.
但我们已经成为人类至少十万年 But we've been human for at least a couple of hundred thousand years.
大多数时候我们并非如此 For most of that time we weren't that way at all.
我们怎么知道 How do we know?
这是根据探险家和人类学家 From the accounts of explorers and anthropologists
四个世纪以来对所接触过的狩猎采集原始社会人类的叙述 encountering surviving hunter-gatherer societies across four centuries.
当然 也有例外 特别是在 There are, of course, exceptions, especially in
物资极度稀缺的情况下 the circumstances of extreme scarcity.
但压倒性的共识描绘了 But the overwhelming consensus paints a picture of humans
一幅人类和谐共生画面 who lived in relative harmony with each other and the environment.
我们分享我们所拥有的一点 We shared the little we had
因为我们知道我们的生存依赖群体 because we knew that our survival depended on the group.
我们不看重超出我们需求的财富 We didn't prize wealth beyond our needs
因为当我们漫步时财富只会让步伐沉重 because possessions would just weigh us down as we wandered.
我们与非人类的灵长祖先不同 We were different from our non-human primate ancestors
他们的雄性首领用暴力来巩固统治 with their alpha-males bullying their way to dominance.
上帝在哪里 And where was God?
到处都是 Everywhere.
在岩石和河流中 In the rocks and in the rivers,
在树上 在鸟里 在万物中 in the trees, in the birds and every living thing.
这就是人类是万年来的本性 And that was human nature for a couple of hundred thousand years.
我正站在非洲南端 想象着 I'm standing on the southern tip of Africa and imagining
千万年前它是什么模样 what it was like some time in the last hundreds of thousands of years.
那时 世界上所有智人栖息非洲 Back then, Africa was home to all the world's homo sapiens...
共计一万余人 All 10,000 of them.
如果你是执行调查任务的外星人 If you were an extra-terrestrial on a survey mission,
你可能会认为我们是濒临灭绝的物种 you might have thought we were an endangered species.
但不久的某天 我们的人口将达到100亿 Someday soon there will be ten billion of us.
发生了什么 What happened?
我们如何成为今天这个遍迹全球 遨游太空的物种 How did we become the globe-girdling, space-traveling species that we are today?
欢迎来到地球上的第一个实验室 Welcome to the first laboratory on Earth.
这里是布隆伯斯洞窟 We're in Blombos Cave where the evolution of the mind
人类思想进化发生巨大飞跃的地方 made a great leap.
我们的祖先曾在这里进行化学实验 Our ancestors were conducting chemistry experiments here
用有一种富含铁的矿物 赭石 with a mineral rich in iron, ocher.
他们用它的红色来点缀物体 They used it to decorate objects with bits of red color,
但它也可能有其他用途 but it may have also had other uses,
保存动物皮毛或作为一种药物 to preserve animal hides or as a medicine,
或者去打磨工具 or as a way to sharpen their tools,
或是一种驱虫剂 or maybe as an insect repellent.
他们在赭石上刻上了符号 And they engraved the ocher with symbols.
地球上全新的事物诞生了: 艺术 Something completely new on the planet Earth, art.
不是为了果腹 Not to be eaten.
也不是为了庇护 Not to provide shelter.
而是象征一些东西 But to symbolize something...
或者只是随手画画 Or just to be.
它看起来有点像梯子 It looks a little bit like a ladder,
或者双螺旋 or a double helix.
不管它应该是什么 Whatever it was supposed to be,
这是人类文化最早的遗迹 it's the earliest remnant we have of human culture.
人类已经找到了一种方法来留下一些明显的人类痕迹 We had found a way to leave behind something distinctly human.
对十万年后的你我而言 A means to communicate, however enigmatically,
无论多么神秘 这也是一种交流方式 to you and me 100,000 years away.
在布隆伯斯洞窟里 人类发现了一种强大的力量 A great power was discovered here in Blombos Cave.
在宇宙日历离午夜最后25秒的时候 At 25 cosmic seconds-to-midnight,
在1到1.2万年前 between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago,
人类发现了另一种强大的力量 humans discovered another great power.
与采集食物不同 Instead of foraging for food,
我们学会了如何在土壤中种植它 we learned how to grow it in the earth.
这改变了一切 This changed everything.
我们的祖先做了 Our ancestors did something else they had
以前从没做过的事 never done before.
他们发明了新工具 新技术 They invented new tools, technology,
种植和收获食物 to plant and pull food out of the earth.
他们定居下来 开始在室内生活 They settled down and moved indoors.
我们与自然以及彼此之间的关系 Our relationship to nature, and to one another,
焕然一新 would never be the same.
这场农业革命 This agricultural revolution,
对动植物的驯化 the domestication of plants and animals,
是所有革命之母 is the mother of all revolutions
一切追根溯源都从这里开始 because all others trace back to it.
它的影响甚至远超 Its consequences reach far beyond even our
现在的我们 own moment in time.
像大多数革命一样 Like most revolutions,
这一次带来的变化既伟大 this one brought change that was both great,
又令人惊恐 and horrifying.
世界上有了一个新概念 “家” There was a new concept in the world, "Home."
地球上某个地方 你的祖先和你 A specific place on the planet where your ancestors, and you,
出生并生活在那里 were born and lived.
随着时间的推移 这些定居点变得越来越大 And over time these settlements grew larger,
直到大约20秒前或公元前7000年左右 until about 20 cosmic seconds ago or around 7000 BCE.
欢迎来到加泰土丘 Welcome to Çatalhöyük,
安纳托利亚平原上的一个聚居地 a community on the Anatolian plain.
这大约是9000年前的事了 晚上人们都安定下来 It's about 9,000 years ago and everyone has settled in for the evening.
今晚 这个原始城市居民 Tonight, roughly the same number of people who once populated all of Africa
几乎与曾经所有非洲居民数量相当 are living together in this proto-city.
城市是一个全新的概念 The city is such a new idea,
他们甚至还没有发明街道 they haven't invented the street yet,
和窗户 or the window.
所以你能进入公寓唯一的方法就是 So the only way you can get into your apartment is to walk
沿着屋顶走到住处门口 along the rooftops till you arrive at the opening to your dwelling.
比起街道和窗户 这里更明显缺少另一个东西 Çatalhöyük lacked something much more significant than streets and windows.
这里没有皇宫 There is no palace here.
这里的人们还尚未尝到 The bitter price that the invention of agriculture cost
农业发明给人类社会所带来的痛苦代价 human society had yet to be paid.
在这里 没有少数人对多数人的统治 Here, there was no dominance of the few over the many.
也没有1%的人掌握着绝大多数财富 There was no 1% attaining lavish wealth,
而其他大多数人只是勉强糊口 while most everyone else merely subsisted.
通过对女性 男性及儿童的法医分析 Forensic analysis of the women, men, and children
住在这里的人在饮食上极为相似 who lived here show a remarkable similarity in diet.
他们仍然珍视狩猎采集时代的分享精神 They still cherished the hunter-gatherer ethos of sharing.
加泰土丘是平等主义社会 Çatalhöyük was egalitarian.
弱者和强者吃同样的食物 The weakest ate the same food that the strongest did,
每个人都住在同样的房子里 and everyone lived in the same kind of home.
但是 哥们 那一点也不单调 But, man, it was anything but drab.
来吧 我带你看看 Come on. I'll show you.
这是最早的城市之一中的典型公寓 This was a typical apartment in one of the first cities,
现在土耳其的加泰土丘 Çatalhöyük, in what is now Turkey,
和它9000年前一样 as it looked about 9,000 years ago.
他们的生活方式和我们很像 They were a lot like us.
这块被叫做黑曜石的火山岩 This bit of volcanic glass called obsidian
被做成了一面不错的镜子 made an excellent mirror.
要是我们能找到一种方法 If we could only find a way
去看到镜子中出现过的事情就好了 to see all the things that were once reflected here.
这是一套家庭大公寓 This apartment was home for an extended family
可以住七到十个人 of seven to ten people.
每套公寓的布局都差不多 Every apartment had a similar floor plan.
卧室、客厅、厨房 Bedroom. Living room. Kitchen.
还有石膏牛头 Plaster auroch head.
加泰土丘的人们对装饰充满热情 The people of Çatalhöyük had a passion for decorating.
公寓布置得很华丽 Apartments were richly appointed
有兽牙、兽骨、兽皮 with the teeth and bones and skins of animals.
大约10万年前 The ocher that our ancestors picked up in Africa
我们的祖先在非洲捡到的赭石 about 100,000 years before,
成为了加泰土丘室内装饰师的首选 was now the medium of choice for the interior decorators of Çatalhöyük.
红色赭石还有另一个用途 And the red ocher had yet another profound application.
他们用它创造了一种全新的工具 They used it to create an entirely new art form:
地图 the map.
这是人类第一次 For the first time ever,
学会通过一个二维坐标 humans created a two-dimensional representation
来表示他们在时空中的位置 of their location in space and time.
“这幅图就是我家与火山的位置关系” "This is where my home is in relation to the volcano."
通过这幅奇妙的画 And with a few magical strokes,
这位艺术家传递了一条跨越9000年的信息... the artist sent a message across 9,000 years...
“我生活在火山苏醒之时” "I was here when the volcano awakened."
人们在加泰土丘的定居是成功的 The experiment at Çatalhöyük was a success,
在几千年的时间里 又出现了许多新的城市 and within a few thousand years there were cities everywhere.
不同的人们聚集在同一个城市 When different kinds of people congregate in a single place
汇聚不同的思想 迸发出新的希望 ideas are exchanged and new possibilities arise.
城市就像一个大脑 The city is a kind of brain,
创造新思想并实现它 creating and processing new ideas.
在17世纪的阿姆斯特丹 Here, in the city of Amsterdam, in the 17th century
新世界与旧世界的人民 citizens of the old and new worlds
以一种前所未有的方式融合在一起 mingled as they never had before
拥有了前所未有的思想自由 and there was an unprecedented freedom of thought.
这些条件造就了科学和艺术的黄金时代 These conditions produced a golden age of science and art.
在意大利 乔尔丹诺·布鲁诺因为支持日心说 In Italy, Giordano Bruno had proclaimed the existence of other worlds.
惨遭教会的迫害 For this he had been made to suffer.
但仅仅50年后的荷兰 But a mere 50 years later in Holland,
天文学家 克里斯蒂安·惠更斯 the astronomer Christiaan Huygens,
他和布鲁诺有着同样的信仰 who held the same belief
却被授予了荣誉 was showered with honors
光是这个时代的中心主题 Light was the central theme of the age
人们好奇心得到了释放 The enlightenment of human curiosity set free
那些未曾看到过的光芒 and the light shed by Europe's
开始照耀在欧洲大陆上 first look at the once hidden realms of the planet.
当时的绘画充满了绝妙的光影 The light that permeated the paintings of the time,
尤其是维米尔的作品 particularly the work of Vermeer.
光也变成了科学研究的对象 And light as an object of scientific inquiry.
几个世纪以来 For generations,
纺织商人一直使用放大镜 textile merchants had used a lens
来检查优秀纺织物的纱线密度 to examine the thread count of finely stitched fabrics.
在当时的阿姆斯特丹有三个年轻人 In the Amsterdam of that time, there lived three men
他们对光的热情 whose passion for light inspired them
激发了新的灵感 to use that ancient device in a completely new way.
他们把放大镜对准了 They aimed the textile merchants' lens at
人们从未注意过的物体 objects no one had ever thought to examine closely before.
它变成了一个窗口 It became a window,
一个探索新世界的窗口 an aperture for finding and exploring new worlds.
荷兰人列文虎克用一个透镜 Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek used a single lens
揭示了一滴水中充盈的微观世界 to reveal the teeming microcosm in a drop of water.
他的朋友 克里斯蒂安·惠更斯 His friend, Christiaan Huygens
使用两个透镜拉近了星星的距离 used two lenses to bring the stars, planets,
使月亮足够近来观察以揭示其特征 and moons close enough to reveal their features.
惠更斯成为第一个看到土星环的人 Huygens became the first to see that Saturn's rings did not touch the planet
并且弄清了他们是什么 and the first to understand what they really were.
他还发现了土星最大的卫星——泰坦星 He also discovered Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
惠更斯和布鲁诺一样 Huygens, like Bruno,
认为每个星星都和太阳一样 believed that the stars were other suns,
被他们自己的行星和卫星系统所环绕 orbited by their own systems of planets and moons.
但为什么圣经中没有记录其他的世界及其生命呢 But why was there no hint of those other worlds and their living things in the sacred books?
无论这个矛盾令人多么不安 Whatever disquiet this contradiction may have stirred
在启蒙运动的领导者中 in the hearts and minds of the leaders of the Enlightenment
只有一个人敢于正面面对这个问题 there was only one man who dared to address it head-on.
他就是另一个光明使者 He was another wizard of light.
巴鲁赫·斯宾诺莎在十几岁的时候 Baruch Spinoza had been a member of
就是阿姆斯特丹的犹太教徒 the Jewish congregation of Amsterdam through his teenage years.
在他20岁出头的时候 But in his early 20s
他开始公开谈论上帝的新形象 he began to speak publicly of a new vision of God.
斯宾诺莎的上帝是宇宙的物理法则 Spinoza's God was the physical laws of the universe.
是他的神圣之书 自然之书 His sacred text, the book of nature.
阿姆斯特丹的犹太人 The Jews of Amsterdam
大多是从西班牙和葡萄牙恶性宗教法庭逃出来的难民 were mostly refugees from the vicious Inquisitions in Spain and Portugal,
在那里的许多人被酷刑折磨甚至谋杀 where so many of them had been tortured and murdered.
阿姆斯特丹为犹太人提供了避难所 Amsterdam had offered the Jews a refuge,
他们认为斯宾诺莎的激进思想 and they must have seen Spinoza's radical ideas
对他们在荷兰的生存构成了威胁 as a threat to their hard-won security in Holland.
他们驱逐了这位“叛乱分子” They excommunicated the young rebel
并下令永远不让他回来 and decreed that he must be forever shunned.
斯宾诺莎有尊严地接受了惩罚 Spinoza accepted their punishment with dignity,
没有任何屈服的痕迹 but without a trace of submission.
他搬到了海牙附近 He moved nearby to The Hague.
在那里 他更加大胆 Where he went even further
认为圣经不是由上帝决定的 daring to write that the Bible was not dictated by God
而是由人类书写的 but written by human beings.
斯宾诺莎写道 Spinoza wrote
莫在神迹中寻找上帝 Do not look for God in miracles.
神迹违反了自然 Miracles are violations of the laws of nature.
在研究自然规律时 人类将成为上帝 God is best apprehended in the study of those laws."
以前从来没有人敢这样说 No one had ever said these things aloud before.
斯宾诺莎知道即使在荷兰 Spinoza knew that he was testing the
自己的言论也很危险 limits of free thought, even for Holland.
他认为 国教不仅仅是对 To him, an official state religion was more
个人的精神绑架 than spiritual coercion of the individual.
斯宾诺莎认为对神迹的崇拜 Spinoza regarded the miraculous events of
是有组织的迷信行为 the major religious traditions as organized superstition.
在他看来 宗教思想对一个 In his view, magical thinking posed
自由理性社会的未来公民构成了威胁 a danger to the future citizens of a rational, free society.
如果不能政教分离 There could be no such thing as democracy
就不可能有民主 without the separation of church and state.
他写了一本书 He wrote a book that
介绍了美国和其他地区革命的核心思想 introduced the ideas at the heart of the American and many another revolution.
但是有些人的利益 Then, as now, there were those who
受到了这些观点的威胁 were threatened by this view of God.
斯宾诺莎继续写书并谈论他对上帝的看法 Spinoza continued to write and speak about his revolutionary view of God,
总是披着被砍的披风作为荣誉徽章 always wearing the slashed cape as a badge of honor.
他去世时仅44岁 He died at 44
可能是因为他在磨制显微镜和望远镜 possibly from inhaling particles of dust during his years
的过程中吸入了太多的灰尘 of grinding lenses for microscopes and telescopes.
250年后 另一个热爱光的人 250 years later, another man with a passion for light
来到这个简陋的工作室朝圣 made a pilgrimage to the humble workroom
这个工作室被保存了下来 that had been preserved as a testament
以证明斯宾诺莎学说的巨大影响 to the vast influence of Spinoza's philosophy.
这个人 以发现相对论而闻名世界 This man, world famous for finding a new law of nature
他经常被问到是否相信上帝 was often asked if he believed in God.
阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦回答说 Albert Einstein replied
“我相信斯宾诺莎的上帝 他的上帝表现宇宙的和谐 不过问人世的祸福” "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists."
我们对自然法则的理解已经远远超过了 Our understanding of nature's laws has advanced far beyond
斯宾诺莎的 甚至是爱因斯坦的最疯狂的设想 Spinoza's, and even Einstein's wildest dreams.
但有一条自然规律我们似乎无法把握 But there is one law of nature we cannot seem to grasp.
在“自然之书”中刻有一个寓言 讲的是 Inscribed in the book of nature is a parable about an
两个王国之间的古老联盟 ancient alliance between two kingdoms.
还有那些想要破坏它的人 And those who would tear it apart.
很久以前 有两个王国 Long ago, there were two kingdoms.
他们之间结成了联盟 An alliance was formed between them,
一个能给他们带来巨额财富的联盟 one that would bring them both riches beyond measure.
一个持续时间超过一亿年的联盟 A partnership lasting more than a 100 million years.
但是其中的一个王国改变了 And then a new kind of being evolved in one of the two kingdoms.
它的后代掠夺财富 并破坏了联盟 Its descendants plundered the riches and violated the alliance.
他们的行为 使他们的国家和他们自身受到威胁 In their arrogance, they became a mortal danger to both kingdoms and to themselves.
这个寓言是真实的 This parable is true.
这是地球上两大生物界的故事 It's the story of two of the half dozen realms of life on Earth,
植物界和动物界 the plant and animal kingdoms.
做一株植物并不容易 It's not easy being green.
当你被固定在某处时 繁衍便充满挑战性 Sex is challenging when you're stuck in one place.
你无法约会 There's no dating.
你只能杵在那里 把种子随风挥洒 You just sit there and cast your seed to the winds.
字面意思 Literally.
你只能等待风来吹走它们 You just wait for the wind to blow.
如果你运气好 你的一部分花粉会 If you get lucky, some of your pollen will
被带走并落在另一株植物的生殖器官上 be carried away and land on the sexual reproductive part of another plant.
各种植物玩着这个或命中或错过的随机游戏 The plants played this hit-or-miss game of chance for
玩了几亿年 a couple of hundred million years,
直到昆虫逐渐扮演起丘比特的角色 until insects evolved to play cupid.
这导致众多协同进化的组合之一 What resulted was one of the great co-evolution marriages
出现在生命进化史上 in the history of life.
昆虫会在一朵花上逗留 饱餐一顿 The insect would visit a flower for a dinner of
富含蛋白质的花粉 protein-rich pollen.
一部分花粉会无可避免地粘在 Inevitably, some of the pollen would stick to the body
昆虫的身体上 of the insect.
这只昆虫会带着身上残存的花粉 The insect would visit another flower,
飞到另一朵花上 bringing along the leftovers on its body.
那些花粉使接下来的那朵花受精 That pollen fertilized the next flower,
使它能够繁衍生息 allowing it to reproduce.
这对于花和昆虫都是一项双赢的交易 It was a win-win deal for both the flowers and the insects,
引起了一系列可喜的进化发展 causing a series of delightful evolutionary developments.
一种新的植物出现了 它能产生甜甜的花蜜 A new plant arose that produced sugary nectar
而不仅仅是花粉 in addition to the pollen.
现在 昆虫来不仅仅为了用花粉果腹 Now, the insects came not just for their basic meal of pollen,
也为了享用甜点 but also for dessert.
昆虫变得胖乎乎的 进化出毛茸茸的身体 甚至 The insects got chubbier, evolved furry bodies and even
在腿上进化出小袋子 以便它们每日在花丛中流连时 little pouches on their legs to snag more pollen on their
能够携带更多的花粉 daily rounds in the flowers.
接着蜜蜂出现了 Now there were bees.
然而这是对于动物界的另一个物种来说 This was a bonus for yet another species of
是个意外收获... the animal kingdom...
我们人类 Us.
我们感谢蜜蜂和其他授粉者 We are indebted to the bees and their fellow pollinators
因为那些比我们的生存更重要的东西 for something even more vital to our survival.
你的一日三餐都是因为它们才成为可能 Every third bite of food you take-and this is even true for
即使对我们杂食者来说也是如此 those of us who are omnivores, was made possible by them.
世界上35%的农作物依赖于它们的合作 35% of the world's crops depend on their cooperation.
植物吸收光能 The plants eat starlight...
我们 以及动物 食用植物 And we, and the animals, we eat plants.
它们不仅仅增加了可用食物的数量 And they don't just increase the quantity of available food.
也在很大程度上造就了生物多样性 We owe them for much of the biodiversity that has made our
稳定了我们的食物来源 food supply so dependable.
但我们快把它们累死了 But we're working them to death.
而且有史以来第一次 And for the first time ever,
许多种类的蜜蜂都在濒危物种名单上 many kinds of bees are on the endangered species list.
我想你们知道目的地 I think you know where this is headed.
农业发明的福与祸 The blessing and the curse of the invention of agriculture
带我们来到了这里 灭绝宫 has brought us here, to the Halls of Extinction.
一座纪念在地球历史上众多灭绝事件中绝种生物的纪念馆 A memorial to all the living things lost in the mass extinction events in Earth's history.
这是给生命之树上那些折断的树枝的纪念碑 It's a monument to the broken branches on the tree of life.
在生命的历史上曾有五次 Five times in the history of life,
灾难性的地质和天文事件 cataclysmic geological, and astronomical events,
有着毁灭生命的威胁 have threatened to extinguish life itself.
第六次与众不同 The sixth one is different.
上次我们一同在这里时这条长廊还没有名字 The last time we were here together this hallway had no name.
为什么？ Why?
因为那时我们还没有达成这条科学共识： Because back then a scientific consensus had yet
我们正处于一场大规模的灭绝事件之中 to be reached that we were in the midst of a mass extinction event.
情况已经变了 That's changed.
现在 这条长廊有了名字 Now, this hallway has a name.
是我们的名字 It's ours.
人类纪 The Anthropocene.
“Anthropo”来自希腊语的“人类” "Anthropo" from the Greek word for "human"
而“Cene”来自希腊语中的“近来的” and "Cene." the Greek word for "recent."
这些就是我们还是游牧者时便猎杀到灭绝的物种 These are the species we hunted to extinction back when we were wanderers.
包括我们的远房亲戚 尼安德特人 Including our own cousins, the Neanderthals.
为什么我们人类这个物种无论走到哪里都会带来死亡呢 What is it about us, as a species, that wherever we go, we bring death?
这以外就是未来 Beyond here lies the future.
即便是现在 要阻止这条走廊继续变长也不算太晚 Even now it's not too late to keep this corridor from lengthening.
如果我们失败了... If we fail...
但如果我们成功了... But if we succeed...
跟我来 Come with me.
可能在几十年以后的未来 In a possible future only decades away,
星空计划 一个由1000艘宇宙飞船组成的舰队 project Starshot, a flotilla of 1,000 spacecraft,
将飞离地球 will depart from Earth.
安第斯山脉以西的这部分阿塔卡马沙漠如此干燥 This part of the Atacama Desert west of the Andes Mountains
甚至有记载以来从未有过降雨 is so dry that it hasn't rained in recorded history.
这对我们来说很好 因为我们需要 And that's great for us because we're going to need
最晴朗的天空 the clearest of skies.
没有目击者看见第一个离开水来到陆地的生命 There were no witnesses when the first life left the water for the land.
没有报告记载飞向天空的第一只鸟 There was nobody to file a report when the first birds took to the skies.
但这次巨大的飞跃将被人们用所有能想到的方式记录下来 But this is one great leap that will be documented in every conceivable way.
全世界都在注视着 The whole world is watching.
毕竟 我们正在将我们的第一艘飞船直接送往 We are, after all, sending our first craft directly to the
另一个太阳的行星：半人马座阿尔法星系 planets of another sun: the Alpha Centauri system.
这些就是将把我们的感官带到那里的飞船 These are the ships that will carry our senses there.
这些是由光驱动的星际飞船 These are interstellar sailing ships propelled by light.
它们的船体只有一克重 而且不比一粒豌豆大 Their hulls weigh but a gram, and they are no larger than a pea
但它们装备了NASA的旅行者号全部的设备 甚至更多 and yet they're equipped with all that NASA's Voyagers have and more.
当第一束光从激光相控阵中射出时 When the first light blasts forth from this phased array
航天器从零加速到20%光速只需几分钟 of lasers, the spacecraft will accelerate from zero to 20% of the speed of light in mere minutes.
在每个纳米飞行器内部都有执行 Inside each nanocraft is everything needed to perform
对另一颗星球进行初步侦察 the preliminary reconnaissance of the worlds of another star
并将视觉和科学信息返回地球所需的一切部件 and return that visual and scientific information back to Earth.
宇宙十分空旷 Space is mostly empty,
但其中有微小的尘埃颗粒 but there are tiny dust particles that could
如果与高速运作的纳米飞行器相撞 wreak havoc if they were to collide with nanocraft
就会造成严重的破坏 traveling at such high speeds.
这就是我们需要派出这么多飞行器的原因之一 That's one of the reasons we need to send so many of them.
旅行者一号正以每小时3.8万英里的速度飞行 Voyager 1 is traveling at 38,000 miles per hour.
它40多年前就离开了地球 It left home more than 40 years ago.
这些纳米飞行器只需要四天就能追上它 It will take these nanocraft only four days to overtake her.
这已经很快了 That's pretty fast,
但依然只有20%的光速 but still only 20% of the speed of light.
比邻星离我们四光年远 Proxima Centauri is four light-years away.
去那里的单程旅行需要20年 That's a 20 year one-way trip.
在比邻星周围 有一个我们认为 Orbiting Proxima Centauri, there is a world in the
可能有生命繁衍的宜居地带 habitable zone where we think life might flourish.
我们的机器人使者将从这些新世界发回讯息 Our robotic emissaries will send accounts from these new worlds.
他们的信息将通过无线电波以光速返给我们 Their messages will race back to us on radio waves at the speed of light.
它们需要四年才能抵达我们这里：二十年前去 四年返回 They'll take four years to reach us: 20 years one-way, four years back.
这是一个历时24年的往返旅程 That's a 24-year round-trip.
你们中的许多人将在那时阅读和书写 Many of you will be there then to read and to write those new
自然之书的新篇章 pages in the book of nature,
绘制我们未来的漫游之路 and to chart our future course of wandering...
不再受大地、海洋、或天空的束缚 No longer bounded by the earth, the ocean, or the sky.