Do you sometimes have difficulty remembering peoples' names.

有的時候，你覺得要記得人們的名字很困難。

But you're great at remembering their faces?

但你卻很會記他們的臉嗎？

Or maybe you're really good at moving odd-shaped furniture around the corners.

或者你很會在角落擺放奇特形狀的傢俱？

Or packing your car full with so much stuff everyone told you it was gonna be impossible.

或是把一堆其他人都說不可能放得下的東西塞進車子裡？

If so, you might just be a visual thinker.

如果是的話，你可能就是一位圖像思考者。

How about this?

那這個呢？

Try and remember an event from your past.

試著記起一件你以前發生過的事情。

What happens?

發生了什麼事？

Do you find yourself remembering something fuzzy like the significance or emotion or mood around that event?

你發現自己記得一些不是很清楚的事情，像是它的意義、帶給你的感受或情緒？

Or do you remember specific scenes and images?

或是你記得特定的場景和畫面？

For some people, it turns out that images and spatial relationships seem to dominate their thinking process.

對一些人而言，圖像和空間關係似乎主宰了他們的思考過程。

Basically, they think in pictures.

基本上，他們用圖像來思考。

It's thought that upwards of 60% of people are in this category.

高達 60% 以上的人被認為屬於這個類別。

And it's a continuum.

這是一個「非圖像思考者」與「圖像思考者」的連續體 (即介於這兩個端點之中，人們以哪種思考方式的比例不盡相同)。

Not all or none, some people just think this way more than others.

也就是說，這不是非黑即白，有些人就是以圖像思考的方式居多 (但不代表他們不會以其他方式思考)。

For example, for some people, and this might be you, a messy desk isn't a problem at all.

舉例而言，對有些人來說，可能就是你，一個亂七八糟的書桌根本不是問題。

You know where everything is.

你完全知道東西放在哪裡。

But you know where it is in relation to everything else.

但，你是根據東西之間的關聯而知道東西放在哪裡的。

So, when someone comes along and cleans that desk up, supposedly helping you organize, you completely feel lost and you can't find anything.

所以當有人來打掃你的桌子時，大概是想幫你整理吧，你會完全迷失而且找不到東西。

The same sort of spatial thinking that helps you navigate a messy desk can be incredibly powerful.

這種能幫你駕馭一張亂七八糟的桌子的空間思考的力量是不容小覷的。

The chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer said that he could see all of the pieces on the chess board even when it wasn't in front of him.

國際西洋棋大師 Bobby Fischer 說他能在西洋棋盤上看到所有的棋子，即使棋子並不在他眼前。

Which allowed him to practice and play in his head.

這使他能在腦中練習下棋。

Nikola Tesla, a pretty amazing inventor, took this one step further and said he was able to build and rebuild complicated machines in his mind.

Nikola Tesla，一位傑出的發明家，把這個概念更推進一步，說他能夠在腦中反覆建構出複雜的機械。

And then run them to see where the moving parts could potentially fail.

並讓這些機械運轉，看看哪個部分有可能會失敗。

When he was only 24 years old, the inventor Thomas Edison described his experience this way.

當發明家愛迪生只有 24 歲時，他曾這樣形容他的經驗。

"I have innumerable machines in my mind now, which I shall continue to illustrate and describe day by day when I have the spare time".

「現在我的腦海裡有無數個機械，我應該要每天有空就繼續描繪它們」。

But this kind of thinking, visual thinking, sometimes comes with a price.

但這種思考方式，圖像思考，有時候是需要付出代價的。

Namely, it can be hard to communicate, when you're thinking, to other people.

也就是說，當你在思考時，可能會很難和他人溝通。

Maybe you've had this experience.

也許你曾有過這個經驗。

Where you see something pretty clearly in your head, but you wind up needing to draw it to explain it to someone else.

你在腦中能清楚地看見一個東西，但最終你卻需要畫出來向其他人解釋。

Albert Einstein often said words failed him to describe the images in his head.

愛因斯坦常說文字無法形容他腦中的圖像。

But it turned out those images were the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe.

但結果那些圖像就是解開我們宇宙奧秘的關鍵。

It was after he envisioned a man riding the wave of light that he was able to construct his theory of relativity.

直到他想像著一個人追逐一道光的樣子，他才建構出他的相對論。

James Clerk Maxwell, the mathematical physicist, had a similar experience.

James Clerk Maxwell，一位數學物理學家，也有類似的經驗。

His colleagues urged him to show the relationship between energy entropy and volume using equations.

他的同事們慫恿他用等式來解釋能量亂度和體積之間的關係。

Which is how they best communicated ideas.

因為他們最擅長用等式來交流想法。

Instead, he used clay and plaster to show the relationship in the way that he understood it as a physical and visual form of thermodynamics.

取而代之的是，他用黏土和灰泥去呈現他所理解的物質的和視覺形式的熱力學的其中關係。

And that's the power of visual metaphors. They allow people to see complex relationships in new, relatively simple ways.

而這就是視覺隱喻的力量。它使人們能以新穎且相對簡單的方式，去理解複雜的關係。

And the history of invention and discoveries filled with those kind of stories.

發明史上充滿了這樣的故事。

For example, August Kekulé unlocked the new way of thinking about the structure of molecules when he envisioned a snake eating its own tail.

例如，當 August Kekulé 想像一隻蛇在咬自己的尾巴時，他開啟了一條思考分子結構的新路徑。

In that moment, he realized that the bonds in the molecules benzene formed a ring.

在那個當下，他瞭解到分子苯形成一個環狀。

And this led to a whole new way of understanding how molecules could be visualized.

而這引領至如何將分子視覺化的一個全新篇章。

And that's ultimately the challenge that visual thinkers face.

這就是圖像思考者所面臨的終極挑戰。

How do you get those images out of your head and into the real world as inventions or discoveries?

你要如何將你腦中的那些圖像，產出至真實世界中，成為發明或是發現？

It's also why right now is such an exciting time for people who think like this.

這也是為什麼現今對於圖像思考者來說，是一個令人興奮的時代。

The digital age has brought technology that allows visual thinkers to directly experiment with the forms that they're best at understanding.

數位時代帶來了科技，讓圖像思考者能以他們最能理解的方式直接進行實驗。

Visual thinkers can now fold complex proteins on the screen and use 3D printers to build almost any forms that they could imagine.

今天，圖像思考者可以把蛋白質複合體圖像呈現在螢幕上，以及用 3D 列印機產出幾乎想像得到的一切物品。

And they can invent and play in virtual reality spaces that just couldn't exist in the real world.

他們可以在虛擬實境的空間中盡情地發明和玩耍，這在真實世界中是無法辦到的。

It's a good time to be a visual thinker.

這是成為一位圖像思考者的好時機。

So next time you forget the names of streets on a route that you can navigate with ease.

所以下次當你在熟悉的路上忘記街道名稱時。

Don't beat yourself up. You might just be the next genius and inventor of our time.

不要自怨自艾。你可能就是我們這個時代的下一位天才或是發明家。

What kind of inventor are you?

你是哪一種發明家呢？