How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries

Ako vedú jednoduché myšlienky k vedeckým objavom

Translator: Jenny Zurawell

Translator: Igor Lalík Reviewer: Robert Staffen

(Hudba)

Vtipnejšou stránkou vlastnenia mozgu je,

One of the funny things about owning a brain

is that you have no control over the things

že vôbec neovládate jeho zber a uchovávanie

that it gathers and holds onto, the facts and the stories.

faktov či príbehov. A čím ste straší, tým je to horšie.

And as you get older, it only gets worse.

Niektoré veci ním niekedy roky poletujú,

Things stick around for years sometimes

before you understand why you're interested in them,

kým pochopíte, prečo vás vlastne zaujímajú,

kým pochopíte ich význam pre vás.

before you understand their import to you.

Tieto tri sa týkajú mňa.

Here's three of mine.

When Richard Feynman was a young boy in Queens,

Keď Richard Feynman ešte vyrastal v Queense,

he went for a walk with his dad and his wagon and a ball.

išiel na prechádzku spolu s otcom, káričkou

a loptou. Všimol si, že keď káričku potiahol,

He noticed that when he pulled the wagon, the ball went to the back of the wagon.

lopta sa presunula na jej koniec.

Preto sa otca opýtal: „Prečo sa lopta presunie na koniec?“

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

On mu odpovedal: „To je zotrvačnosť.“

And his dad said, "That's inertia."

Spýtal sa: „Čo je to zotrvačnosť?“ Otec na to: „No,

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

zotrvačnosť je názov, ktorým vedci

Inertia is the name that scientists give

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

pomenovali úkaz presunu lopty na koniec káričky.

(Laughter)

No popravde, nik naozaj nevie.“

"But in truth, nobody really knows."

Feyman neskôr získal diplomy

Feynman went on to earn degrees

na MIT a Princetone, vyriešil výbuch raketoplánu Challenger

at MIT, Princeton, he solved the Challenger disaster,

a nakoniec získal Nobelovu cenu za fyziku

he ended up winning the Nobel Prize in Physics

vďaka Feynmanovu diagramu, ktorý opisuje pohyb subatomárnych častíc.

for his Feynman diagrams, describing the movement of subatomic particles.

Všetko to prisudzuje rozhovoru s otcom,

And he credits that conversation with his father as giving him a sense

ktorý mu dal pocit,

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

že tie najjednoduchšie otázky vás môžu posunúť na okraj ľudských vedomostí,

kde to chcel prebádať.

and that that's where he wanted to play.

I tak sa stalo.

And play he did.

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

Eratosthenes bol tretím knihovníkom vo veľkej Alexandrijskej knižnici

and he made many contributions to science.

a tiež v mnohom prispel vede.

No najznámejší je vďaka listu,

But the one he is most remembered for

began in a letter that he received as the librarian,

ktorý ako knihovník dostal

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

z mesta Swenet, ktoré je na juh od Alexandrie.

Bola v ňom jedna vec, ktorá mu vŕtala v hlave.

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

Pisateľ tvrdil, že keď sa napoludnie

and the fact was that the writer said,

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

počas slnovratu pozrel do studne,

he could see his reflection at the bottom,

videl na jej dne svoj odraz a tiež to, že jeho hlava

and he could also see that his head was blocking the sun.

zatienila slnko.

I should tell you -- the idea that Christopher Columbus

Musím vám povedať, že myšlienka o tom, že Kolumbus zistil, že zem je guľatá,

discovered that the world is spherical is total bull.

je úplná blbosť. Nie je to pravda.

It's not true at all.

Vlastne každý, kto mal vzdelanie vedel, ze svet je guľatý,

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

už od čias Aristotela. Ten to dokázal

since Aristotle's time.

Aristotle had proved it with a simple observation.

jednoduchým pozorovaním.

Všimol si, že tieň Zeme na Mesiaci,

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

je vždy okrúhly

it was circular,

a jediný tvar, ktorý stále vytvára okrúhly tieň,

and the only shape that constantly creates a circular shadow

je guľa. Dôkaz - Zem je guľa.

is a sphere, Q.E.D. the Earth is round.

Ale nik nevedel, aká je veľká,

But nobody knew how big it was

until Eratosthenes got this letter with this fact.

až pokým Eratosthenes nedostal tento list.

Pochopil, že Slnko bolo presne nad mestom Swenet,

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

because looking down a well, it was a straight line

pretože pri pohľade do studne viedla priamka

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

z úplného dna studne popri mužovej hlave až k Slnku.

Eratosthenes vedel aj inú vec.

Eratosthenes knew another fact.

He knew that a stick stuck in the ground in Alexandria

Vďaka palici zapichnutej v alexandrijskej zemi

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

v rovnakom čase, v rovnaký deň, napoludnie,

the sun's zenith, on the solstice,

počas slnovratu vo svojom zenite

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

slnko vrhalo tieň, ktorý bol 7,2° mimo osi.

Ak viete obvod kruhu

If you know the circumference of a circle, and you have two points on it,

a máte na ňom dva body,

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

jediné, čo potrebujete vedieť, je ich vzdialenosť

and you can extrapolate the circumference.

a dokážete určiť priemer.

360 degrees divided by 7.2 equals 50.

360° delené 7,2 = 50.

Viem, že je to trochu okrúhle číslo a tiež sa mi to veľmi nezdá,

I know it's a little bit of a round number,

and it makes me suspicious of this story too,

ale je to dobrý príbeh, takže budeme pokračovať.

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

Potreboval vedieť vzdialenosť medzi Swenetom a Alexandriou,

He needed to know the distance between Swenet and Alexandria,

čo je dobré, pretože Eratosthenes bol dobrý v geografii.

which is good because Eratosthenes was good at geography.

Vlastne, slovo geografia vymyslel.

In fact, he invented the word geography.

(Laughter)

Cesta medzi Swenetom a Alexandriou

The road between Swenet and Alexandria was a road of commerce,

bola obchodnou cestou

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

a pre obchod bolo potrebné poznať vzdialenosti.

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

Potreboval presné vzdialenosti, takže veľmi presne vedel,

that the distance between the two cities was 500 miles.

že vzdialenosť medzi mestami bola 500 míľ (805 km).

Multiply that times 50, you get 25,000,

Keď to vynásobíte 50, dostanete 25 000,

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

čo je jedno percento skutočného priemeru Zeme.

Prišiel na to už pred 2 200 rokmi.

He did this 2,200 years ago.

Teraz žijeme vo veku,

Now, we live in an age where

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

kedy prístroje za miliardy dolárov hľadajú Higgsov bozón.

We're discovering particles

Objavujeme častice, ktoré sa dokážu pohybovať rýchlejšie ako svetlo

that may travel faster than the speed of light,

a všetky tieto objavy umožňuje technológia,

and all of these discoveries are made possible

ktorá bola vyvinutá len pred pár desiatkami rokov.

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

But for most of human history,

Počas takmer celej histórie ľudstva

sme museli tieto veci objavovať pomocou našich očí, uší a nášho rozumu.

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

Armand Fizeau bol parížsky experimentálny fyzik.

Armand Fizeau was an experimental physicist in Paris.

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

Jeho zameraním bolo vylepšovanie a potvrdzovanie výsledkov iných.

Môže tak trochu vyzerať ako neschopák,

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

but in fact, this is the soul of science,

ale v skutočnosti je to dušou vedy,

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

pretože neexistuje nič také ako fakt, ktorý nemôže byť nezávisle potvrdený.

Boli mu známe Galileove pokusy,

And he was familiar with Galileo's experiments

keď sa snažil zistiť, či svetlo má alebo nemá rýchlosť.

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

Takže Galileo pracoval na tomto úžasnom pokuse.

Galileo had worked out this really wonderful experiment

where he and his assistant had a lamp, each one of them was holding a lamp.

Spolu s asistentom mali lampy,

ktoré držali. Raz otvoril lampu Galileo a raz asistent.

Galileo would open his lamp, and his assistant would open his.

Celé načasovanie si dobre poznačili.

They got the timing down really good.

They just knew their timing.

Keď poznali načasovanie, postavili sa na dva kopce,

And then they stood at two hilltops,

two miles distant, and they did the same thing,

3 km vzdialené, a obaja robili to isté, na základe

on the assumption from Galileo that if light had a discernible speed,

Galileovho predpokladu, že ak má svetlo znateľnú rýchlosť,

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

všimne si oneskorenie svetla z lampy asistenta.

But light was too fast for Galileo.

Ale svetlo bolo pre Galilea príliš rýchle.

Keď sa už rádovo mýlil, začal predpokladať,

He was off by several orders of magnitude when he assumed

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

že svetlo bolo asi 10-krát rýchlejšie ako zvuk.

Fizeau was aware of this experiment.

Fizeau si bol vedomý tohto pokusu. Žil v Paríži,

He lived in Paris, and he set up two experimental stations,

kde zriadil dve pokusné stanice,

zhruba 8,5 km od seba.

roughly 5.5 miles distant, in Paris.

Vyriešil tento Galileov problém

And he solved this problem of Galileo's,

and he did it with a really relatively trivial piece of equipment.

pomocou relatívne jednoduchého zariadenia.

Pomocou tohto.

He did it with one of these.

Nachvíľu odložím ovládač,

I'm going to put away the clicker for a second

because I want to engage your brains in this.

pretože chcem, aby ste sa sústredili na toto.

So this is a toothed wheel.

Toto je ozubené koleso. Má kopu zárezov

It's got a bunch of notches and it's got a bunch of teeth.

a kopu zubov.

This was Fizeau's solution to sending discrete pulses of light.

Je to Fizeauove riešenie vysielania nespojitých zábleskov svetla.

He put a beam behind one of these notches.

Lúč umiestnil za jeden zo zárezov.

If I point a beam through this notch at a mirror,

Keď namierim cez zárez lúč na zrkadlo

vzdialené 9 km, tak sa lúč od zrkadla odrazí

five miles away, that beam is bouncing off the mirror

and coming back to me through this notch.

a vracia sa späť cez zárez.

Ale keď roztočil koleso, stalo sa niečo zaujímavé.

But something interesting happens as he spins the wheel faster.

Všimol si, že to vyzeralo, akoby sa na vracajúcom sa

He notices that it seems like a door is starting to close

on the light beam that's coming back to his eye.

lúči začali zatvárať dvere.

Why is that?

Prečo?

Pretože svetelný impulz sa nevracia

It's because the pulse of light is not coming back

through the same notch.

cez rovnaký zárez. A vlastne naráža aj do zuba.

It's actually hitting a tooth.

And he spins the wheel fast enough and he fully occludes the light.

Kolesom točil dostatočne rýchlo

a úplne zabránil svetlu v priechode.

And then, based on the distance between the two stations

Na základe vzdialenosti medzi dvomi miestami,

and the speed of his wheel and the number of notches in the wheel,

rýchlosti kolesa a počtu zárezov v kolese

he calculates the speed of light to within two percent of its actual value.

vypočítal rýchlosť svetla s odchýlkou 2% jej skutočnej hodnoty.

Dokázal to už v roku 1849.

And he does this in 1849.

Práve kvôli tomu sa zaoberám vedou.

This is what really gets me going about science.

Whenever I'm having trouble understanding a concept,

Kedykoľvek mám problém pochopiť nejakú myšlienku, spätne skúmam ľudí, ktorí s ňou prišli.

I go back and I research the people that discovered that concept.

Sledujem príbeh, ako ju pochopili.

I look at the story of how they came to understand it.

What happens when you look

A potom, keď budete skúmať, ako vedci rozmýšľali,

at what the discoverers were thinking about

when they made their discoveries,

keď prišli so svojimi objavmi, pochopíte,

is you understand that they are not so different from us.

že nie sú až takí iní ako my.

Všetci sme z mäsa a kostí. Začíname s rovnakými nástrojmi.

We are all bags of meat and water. We all start with the same tools.

Páči sa mi myšlienka nazývať rozličné odvetvia vedy ako „polia".

I love the idea that different branches of science are called fields of study.

Mnoho ľudí si predstavuje vedu ako uzavretú čiernu skrinku,

Most people think of science as a closed, black box,

when in fact it is an open field.

avšak v skutočnosti je to otvorené pole.

And we are all explorers.

Všetci sme bádatelia.

Ľudia, ktorí niečo objavili, len viac premýšľali o tom,

The people that made these discoveries just thought a little bit harder

about what they were looking at, and they were a little bit more curious.

čo skúmali a boli zvedavejší.

And their curiosity changed the way people thought about the world,

A ich zvedavosť zmenila zmýšľanie ľudí o svete,

and thus it changed the world.

a teda zmenili aj svet.

They changed the world, and so can you.

Zmenili svet a vy môžete tiež.

Ďakujem.

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Potlesk)