Name: 【TED-Ed】Adam Savage-簡單的想法是如何變成重大科學發現 (How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries, Adam Savage)
Uploaded: 2012-12-30T09:18:29.000Z
Duration: 7 min 32 s

One of the funny things about owning a brain

is that you have no control over the things that it gathers and holds onto,

你無法控制大腦如何收集與保留

the facts and the stories. And as you get older, it only gets worse.

事實和故事。而當你越來越老, 事情只會變得更糟

有些事情會留在你的腦袋裡很多年

before you understand why you're interested in them,

你根本不知道為什麼會一直記著這些事

before you understand their import to you.

也不清楚到底是怎麼把它記起來的。

When Richard Feynman was a young boy in Queens,

當理查 · 費曼還是一個小男孩, 住在皇后區

he went for a walk with his dad and his wagon

有一次他和他的父親去散步, 拉著他的玩具拖車

and a ball. And he noticed that when he pulled the wagon,

上面放了一個球。他注意到，當他拉車的時候

And he asked his dad, "Why does the ball go to the back of the wagon?"

他問他的爸爸, "為什麼球會跑到拖車的後面呢？"

He said, "What's inertia?" And his dad said, "Ah.

他問說, "慣性是什麼？"  他的父親說, "啊。

to the phenomenon of the ball going to the back of the wagon.

用來描述球跑去拖車後面的這種現象。

但事實是, 沒有人真正知道這現象到底是怎麼一回事。"

at MIT, Princeton, he solved the Challenger disaster,

在麻省理工學院、 普林斯頓大學, 他還解決了挑戰者號太空梭爆炸的謎團,

he ended up winning the Nobel Prize in Physics

for his Feynman diagrams describing the movement of subatomic particles.

因為他在描述亞原子粒子的運動方面的成就

And he credits that conversation with his father

他把一切歸功於那次與他父親的對話

that the simplest questions could carry you out to the edge of human knowledge,

從最簡單的問題開始, 可以帶領你探索到人類知識的前鋒,

Now Eratosthenes was the third librarian at the great Library at Alexandria,

第二個例子, 艾拉托斯特尼是亞歷山大 一個偉大圖書館的第三任館長

and he made many contributions to science.

began in a letter that he received as the librarian,

是在他當圖書館館長時, 收到了一封信

from the town of Swenet, which was south of Alexandria.

寄自亞歷山大城南邊的斯威尼特鎮。

The letter included this fact that stuck in Eratosthenes' mind,

這封信提到的一件事, 一直在艾拉托斯特尼的心中揮之不去

and the fact was that the writer said at noon

寫信的人說, 當他在夏至的中午

on the solstice, when he looked down this deep well,

he could see his reflection at the bottom, and he could also see that his head

他可以看到井底的水面, 有陽光反射, 而且他的頭

Now, I should tell you -- the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered that the world is spherical

而我應該告訴你,  關於克里斯多夫 · 哥倫布 發現地球是球形的這回事

In fact, everyone who was educated understood that the world was spherical

事實上, 受過教育的人都知道地球是圓的

since Aristotle's time, and Aristotle had proved it

因為在亞里斯多德的年代, 他就已證明了這事

He noticed that every time you saw the Earth's shadow on the Moon

他注意到, 每次在月亮上看到地球的影子(月食)

and the only shape that constantly creates a circular shadow

而唯一能每次都造成圓影的形狀

就是一個球體, 所以證明地球是圓的。

until Eratosthenes got this letter with this fact.

直到艾拉托斯特尼有了這封信跟井的這回事。

So he understood that the sun was directly above the city of Swenet,

他想到太陽是斯威尼特鎮的正上方

because looking down a well, it was a straight line

因為向井下頭看, 這是一條直線

all the way down the well, right past the guy's head up to the sun.

從太陽經過寫信者的頭, 一路到井底。

艾拉托斯特尼知道另一個事實。

He knew that a stick stuck in the ground in Alexandria

他知道在亞歷山大城當地立了一根棍子

at the same time and the same day, at noon,

the sun cast a shadow that showed that it was 7.2 degrees off-axis.

陽光照出的棍子的陰影與鉛直線偏了 7.2 度。

Now, if you know the circumference of a circle,

現在, 如果你知道一個圓的圓心角

all you need to know is the distance between those two points,

and you can extrapolate the circumference.

Three hundred and sixty degrees divided by 7.2 equals 50.

I know it's a little bit of a round number, and it makes me suspicious of this story too,

我知道正好整除有些太巧了,  讓人有點懷疑這個故事的可信度

but it's a good story, so we'll continue with it.

但這是一個好故事, 所以我們會繼續談下去。

He needed to know the distance between Swenet and Alexandria,

他需要知道斯威尼特鎮 和亞歷山大城之間的距離

which is good because Eratosthenes was good at geography.

這是容易的, 因為艾拉托斯特尼很擅長地理學。

事實上, 地理學這個名詞就是他發明的。

斯威尼特鎮 和亞歷山大之間的道路

and commerce needed to know how long it took to get there.

It needed to know the exact distance, so he knew very precisely

所以實際的距離很重要, 所以他也非常精確地知道

that the distance between the two cities was 500 miles.

這兩個城市之間的距離是 500 英哩。

which is within one percent of the actual diameter of the Earth.

這跟地球實際的大小只有 1% 的誤差。

在二千二百年前, 他就能做到這樣的事。

multi-billion-dollar pieces of machinery are looking for the Higgs boson.

價值數十億元的設備正在尋找希格斯玻色子。

We're discovering particles that may travel faster than the speed of light,

我們發現可能比光速更快的粒子

and all of these discoveries are made possible

by technology that's been developed in the last few decades.

在過去幾十年中所發展出來的科技。

we had to discover these things using our eyes and our ears and our minds.

我們只能靠我們的眼睛和耳朵,  還有思考能力, 來發現新事物。

Armand Fizeau was an experimental physicist in Paris.

阿曼德斐索是在巴黎的實驗物理學家。

His speciality was actually refining and confirming other people's results,

他的專長是精煉和確認其他人的研究結果,

and this might sound like a bit of an also-ran,

because there is no such thing as a fact that cannot be independently corroborated.

因為若不能獨立的被重複驗證,  就不能被稱為科學事實。

And he was familiar with Galileo's experiments

in trying to determine whether or not light had a speed.

So, Galileo had worked out this really wonderful experiment

each one of them was holding a lamp. And Galileo would open his lamp, and his assistant would open his lamp.

當伽利略打開他的燈, 他的助手看到光後,  也同樣地打開燈。

And they got the timing down really good.

They just knew their timing. And then they stood at two hilltops,

他們只管自己的開燈時機。 然後他們站在兩個山頭

two miles distant, and they did the same thing, on the assumption

相距兩英里, 兩人做一樣的事情,

from Galileo that if light had a discernable speed,

伽利略的假設是, 如果光有一個特定的速度,

he'd notice a delay in the light coming back from his assistant's lamp.

他應該會注意到在從他的助手燈回來的光的延遲。

但光的速度對伽利略來說太快了。

He was off by several orders of magnitude when he assumed

他對光的速度的臆測差了好幾個數量級 (10的n次方)

that light was roughly 10 times as fast as the speed of sound.

他猜測光大概只比聲音的速度快 10 倍。

Fizeau was aware of this experiment. He lived in Paris,

斐索聽說了這個實驗。他住在巴黎,