Where good ideas come from | Steven Johnson

翻译人员: Jiqun Wang 校对人员: Tony Yet

Fifty-two minutes ago, I took this picture about 10 blocks from here.

就在几分钟前，我在离这里大约十条街的地方

拍了这张照片。

This is the Grand Café here in Oxford.

这是牛津这里的大咖啡馆。

I took this picture

我拍这张照片是因为它年代久远

because this turns out to be the first coffeehouse to open in England,

始建于1650年，是英国第一个

咖啡馆

in 1650.

That's its great claim to fame.

相当有名。

And I wanted to show it to you,

我想展示给你照片，

not because I want to give you the Starbucks tour

不是因为我想给你星巴克式的

of historic England --

英国历史回顾，

(Laughter)

而是因为

but rather because the English coffeehouse was crucial

在过去500年间， 英国咖啡馆对

to the development and spread of one of the great intellectual flowerings

所谓的启蒙运动

发展和传播

of the last 500 years,

起到至关

what we now call the Enlightenment.

And the coffeehouse played such a big role in the birth of the Enlightenment

重要的

作用。

in part because of what people were drinking there.

究其原因，部分是因为人在那里喝的东西。

因为，在咖啡和茶在英国文化中

Because, before the spread of coffee and tea through British culture,

广泛传播前，

what people drank -- both elite and mass folks drank --

无论是精英与大众

day in and day out, from dawn until dusk,

每天从黎明到黄昏

was alcohol.

人们喝的是酒

Alcohol was the daytime beverage of choice.

酒是白天的首选饮料。

You would drink a little beer with breakfast

在1650年左右，早餐你会喝一点啤酒，午餐喝一点葡萄酒，

and have a little wine at lunch,

a little gin, particularly around 1650,

晚上来一点杜松子酒，

and top it off with a little beer and wine at the end of the day.

并在这一天结束时喝啤酒和葡萄酒。

那时水是不能饮用的，

That was the healthy choice, because the water wasn't safe to drink.

因此酒是健康的选择。

And so, effectively, until the rise of the coffeehouse,

基本上，在咖啡馆的兴起前，

you had an entire population that was effectively drunk all day.

所有人整天

都醉醺醺的。

(Laughter)

And you can imagine what that would be like in your own life --

而你能想象你的生活会是什么样子，

我知道对于你们中的一些是真的 -

and I know this is true of some of you -- if you were drinking all day --

如果你喝了一整天，

(Laughter)

and then you switched from a depressant to a stimulant in your life.

然后放下这个抑制剂，改成别的使你兴奋的饮料

你会更好的想法。

You would have better ideas.

You would be sharper and more alert.

你会更清晰，更警觉。

So it's not an accident that a great flowering of innovation happened

所以当英格兰人改喝茶和咖啡后

创新的兴起就不是一个意外了

as England switched to tea and coffee.

But the other thing that makes the coffeehouse important

但是，其他的东西如咖啡馆

is the architecture of the space.

空间结构也很重要。

It was a space where people would get together,

在这里，来自不同背景

from different backgrounds, different fields of expertise,

不同专业领域的人们

分享想法。

and share.

It was a space, as Matt Ridley talked about, where ideas could have sex.

如马特雷德利谈到， 在这里，想法交织在一起。

在一定意义上，这是它们的夫妻床。

This was their conjugal bed, in a sense; ideas would get together there.

想法将聚在一起。

And an astonishing number of innovations from this period

而这一时期的数量惊人的创新

have a coffeehouse somewhere in their story.

发源于咖啡馆。

在过去的五年我花了很多

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about coffeehouses

for the last five years

时间思考咖啡馆，

because I've been kind of on this quest

因为我一直

试图

to investigate this question of where good ideas come from.

找到好点子的来源。

What are the environments that lead to unusual levels of innovation,

哪些环境因素

导致不寻常水平的创新，

不寻常水平的创造？

unusual levels of creativity?

What's the kind of environmental -- what is the space of creativity?

有什么样的环境

什么是创造力的空间？

And what I've done is,

而我所做的就是

I've looked at both environments like the coffeehouse,

我观察环境，如咖啡馆;

媒体环境，如万维网

I've looked at media environments like the World Wide Web,

已经非常有创新性;

that have been extraordinarily innovative;

我又回过头来看早期城市的历史;

I've gone back to the history of the first cities;

我还观察了生物环境

I've even gone to biological environments, like coral reefs and rain forests,

如珊瑚礁和热带雨林，

那里有超凡的生物创新;

that involve unusual levels of biological innovation.

And what I've been looking for is shared patterns,

我一直在寻找的是它们共通的模式

signature behavior that shows up again and again

一种标志性的行为

一次又一次显示在这些环境中。

in all of these environments.

Are there recurring patterns that we can learn from,

是否我们可以从这些不断重复的模式中学到东西

that we can take and apply to our own lives

进而可以应用于我们自己的生活，

or our own organizations or our own environments

或组织，

或环境，使他们更具有创造力和创新力？

to make them more creative and innovative?

我想我已经找到了一些。

And I think I've found a few.

But what you have to do to make sense of this

但是你为了

and to really understand these principles is,

真正理解这些原则，

you have to do away with

你必须做的是远离

the way in which our conventional metaphors and language steers us

我们传统的方式的隐喻和语言

引导我们

towards certain concepts of idea creation.

到某些想法产生的概念。

We have this very rich vocabulary to describe moments of inspiration.

我们已有非常丰富的词汇

来形容的灵感瞬间。

比如我们有闪光

We have the "flash" of insight,

the "stroke" of insight,

洞悉，

we have "epiphanies,"

顿悟，“我发现了！”瞬间，

we have eureka moments,

we have the "light bulb" moments, right?

我们有灯泡时刻，对吗？

All of these concepts, as rhetorically florid as they are,

所有这些概念，

作为一种华丽修辞，

share this basic assumption,

分享一个基本假设，

which is that an idea is a single thing.

那就是一想法是一个单一的事情，

It's something that happens often in a wonderful, illuminating moment.

灵感经常发生在

一个美妙的照亮时刻。

But, in fact, what I would argue and what you really need to begin with

但事实上，我会说，首先你得理解

想法是一个网络

is this idea that an idea is a network on the most elemental level.

最基本的就是一个网络

I mean, this is what is happening inside your brain.

它就是在你的大脑里发生的事情。

An idea -- a new idea -- is a new network of neurons

一个想法，一个新的想法，是一种新的大脑神经元

firing in sync with each other inside your brain.

互相同步放电的网络

It's a new configuration that has never formed before.

一个从来没有形成过的新的配置。

And the question is: How do you get your brain into environments

而问题是：你如何将要你的大脑进入环境中，

where these new networks are going to be more likely to form?

更可能的形成这些新的网络？

And it turns out that, in fact, the network patterns of the outside world

而事实证明，对外部世界的网络模式，

模仿了很多人脑的

mimic a lot of the network patterns of the internal world of a human brain.

内部世界的网络。

So the metaphor I'd like to use,

所以，我想用一个伟大想法的

故事举例，

I can take from a story of a great idea that's quite recent --

是相当近期的-

a lot more recent than the 1650s.

比1650年代近得多。

A wonderful guy named Timothy Prestero

有个人叫提摩太·普莱斯泰罗的人

has an organization called Design That Matters.

他拥有一家名为设计关键的公司。

They decided to tackle this really pressing problem

他们有一个非常迫切的问题来解决，

of the terrible problems we have with infant mortality rates

即发展中世界的婴儿死亡率

in the developing world.

较高的问题。

One of the things that's very frustrating about this

其中令人沮丧的东西是，

is that we know by getting modern neonatal incubators into any context,

我们知道在任何情况下，

现代新生儿恒温箱

if we can keep premature babies warm, basically -- it's very simple --

保持早产儿温暖，基本上 - 非常简单地，

we can halve infant mortality rates in those environments.

我们可以在这些环境里使婴儿死亡率减半。

So the technology is there.

因此，技术上是可行的。

These are standard in all the industrialized worlds.

这些是所有工业化世界的标准。

The problem is, if you buy a $40,000 incubator,

问题是，如果你买了4万美元的保温箱，

and you send it off to a midsized village in Africa,

你把它送到

非洲的中型村庄，

it will work great for a year or two years,

它能正常工作一年，或两年，

and then something will go wrong and it will break,

然后某件东西会出问题，机器将破损，

and it will remain broken forever,

因为你没有整个系统的备件，

because you don't have a whole system of spare parts,

它将永久破损，

and you don't have the on-the-ground expertise

并且你没有当地专业人员来维修

to fix this $40,000 piece of equipment.

这种4万美元的设备。

So you end up having this problem where you spend all this money

所以你最终有这个问题，你把所有钱

用于获得援助和运送这些先进的电子设备的钱到这些国家，

getting aid and all these advanced electronics to these countries,

而它最终失去使用价值。

and it ends up being useless.

那么莱斯泰罗和他的团队决定做的是研究：

So what Prestero and his team decided to do

在这些发展中世界的背景下，什么资源

was to look around and see: What are the abundant resources

是丰富的？

in these developing world contexts?

And what they noticed was,

他们注意到的是那里没有很多的数字录像机

they don't have a lot of DVRs, they don't have a lot of microwaves,

没有很多的微波炉，

but they seem to do a pretty good job of keeping their cars on the road.

但似乎他们的汽车保养得很好。

There's a Toyota 4Runner on the street in all these places.

在这些地方，到处都有丰田的

越野车。

They seem to have the expertise to keep cars working.

他们有养汽车的专业技能。

So they started to think,

于是他们开始思考，

"Could we build a neonatal incubator

“我们能不能做一个完全

that's built entirely out of automobile parts?"

是用汽车零部件组装的新生儿恒温箱？”

And this is what they came up with.

而这是他们最后想出的。

It's called the NeoNurture device.

这就是霓虹育儿设备。

From the outside, it looks like a normal little thing

从外面看，它就像一个会在一个

you'd find in a modern Western hospital.

现代化西方医院找到的普通小东西。

在它里面，全由汽车零部件组成。

In the inside, it's all car parts.

It's got a fan, it's got headlights for warmth,

它有一个风扇，有取暖灯，

有门报警钟。

it's got door chimes for alarm,

it runs off a car battery.

它靠一个汽车电池运行。

And so all you need is the spare parts from your Toyota

因此只要你有丰田汽车的零部件，

和修复大灯的技术，

and the ability to fix a headlight,

你就可以修复它。

and you can repair this thing.

Now that's a great idea,

现在，这是一个好主意，但我想说的是，事实上，

but I'd like to say that, in fact,

this is a great metaphor for the way ideas happen.

它很好地隐喻了想法发生的方式。

We like to think our breakthrough ideas, you know,

我们喜欢认为我们突破性的想法，你知道，

就是这样的4万美元，全新的育儿箱，

are like that $40,000, brand-new incubator,

有最先进的技术，

state-of-the-art technology.

But more often than not, they're cobbled together

但往往不是，它们是由周围

from whatever parts that happen to be around nearby.

随便什么地方的零件拼凑起来的。

我们从别人获取想法，

We take ideas from other people,

从我们所研究的人身上，从我们在咖啡厅里碰到的人

people we've learned from, people we run into in the coffee shop,

然后我们把它们融合成新的形式，来创造新的东西。

and we stitch them together into new forms and we create something new.

这才是创新发生的地方。

That's really where innovation happens.

And that means we have to change some of our models

这意味着我们必须改变目前的真正的创新

of what innovation and deep thinking really looks like, right?

和深入思考某些机制，是的。

I mean, this is one vision of it.

我的意思是，这是一种观念。

Another is Newton and the apple, when Newton was at Cambridge.

另一例子是在剑桥的牛顿和苹果的故事。

This is a statue from Oxford.

这是在牛津的一座雕像。

You know, you're sitting there, thinking a deep thought,

你知道，当你坐在那里深刻地思考，

这时苹果从树上坠落，于是你发现了重力理论。

the apple falls from the tree, and you have the theory of gravity.

事实上，曾经在历史上产生创新发展的空间

In fact, the spaces that have historically led to innovation tend to look like this.

往往是这样的，没错。

This is Hogarth's famous painting of a kind of political dinner at a tavern,

这是荷加斯的一张酒馆吃饭那种政治名画，

但是这就是当时的咖啡馆的样子

but this is what the coffee shops looked like back then.

This is the kind of chaotic environment where ideas were likely to come together,

在混乱的环境中，

想法有可能走到一起

where people were likely to have new, interesting, unpredictable collisions,

来自不同背景的人很可能有

新的，有趣的，不可预测的碰撞。

people from different backgrounds.

So if we're trying to build organizations that are more innovative,

因此，如果我们试图建立更具有创意的组织，

我们要建设的空间，奇怪的是，看起来有点像这一点。

we have to build spaces that, strangely enough, look a bit more like this.

你的办公室应是这样子

This is what your office should look like, it's part of my message here.

这是我想表达的。

当你研究这个领域，

And one of the problems with this is that, when you research this field,

而与此的问题之一是，

people are notoriously unreliable

人们实际上是 众所周知的不可靠，

when they actually self-report on where they have their own good ideas,

他们有自己的好想法，

或者其历史上的最好的想法，他们真正的

or their history of their best ideas.

自我报告。

And a few years ago, a wonderful researcher named Kevin Dunbar

而在几年前，一个研究员叫凯文·邓巴

决定去

decided to go around and basically do the Big Brother approach

用大兄弟的方法找寻出

to figuring out where good ideas come from.

好主意的来源

He went to a bunch of science labs around the world

他去了世界各地的科学实验室，

and videotaped everyone as they were doing every little bit of their job:

给工作人员的

日常工作录像。

when they were sitting in front of the microscope,

当他们坐在显微镜前，

when they were talking to colleagues at the watercooler ...

当他们和同事谈论水冷却器，以及其他东西。

他记录了所有这些谈话，

And he recorded all these conversations

试图找出在哪里产生

and tried to figure out where the most important ideas happened.

最重要的想法。

And when we think about the classic image of the scientist in the lab,

在实验室的科学家经典形象是，

we have this image -- you know, they're poring over the microscope,

他们是专注于显微镜，

and they see something in the tissue sample,

观察一些组织样本。

and -- "Eureka!" -- they've got the idea.

“噢，我发现了！”他们有这个想法。

What happened, actually, when Dunbar looked at the tape,

实际上，邓巴在磁带观察到，

is that, in fact, almost all of the important breakthrough ideas

几乎所有的重要突破性的想法

did not happen alone in the lab, in front of the microscope.

并不仅仅发生在实验室的显微镜的前面。

They happened at the conference table at the weekly lab meeting,

它们发生在每周的实验室

会议桌上，

when everybody got together and shared their latest data and findings,

当大家聚在一起，分享他们的最新的数据和调查结果，

oftentimes when people shared the mistakes they were having,

分享他们的错误，

偏差，他们发现信号的噪音。

the error, the noise in the signal they were discovering.

还有环境的一些因素

And something about that environment --

and I've started calling it the "liquid network,"

我已经开始将其称为“液态网络”

where you have lots of different ideas that are together,

当很多不同的想法在一起的时候

different backgrounds, different interests,

不同背景，不同的利益，

jostling with each other, bouncing off each other --

互相冲撞，互相反弹

其实，

that environment is, in fact, the environment that leads to innovation.

是环境导致创新。

The other problem that people have is,

另外一个问题是，

they like to condense their stories of innovation

人们喜欢把他们的创新故事浓缩到

down to shorter time frames.

较短的时间框架。

So they want to tell the story of the eureka moment.

因此，他们想告诉这个故事的“发现了！”时刻。

They want to say, "There I was, I was standing there,

他们想说的是：“我站在那里，

and I had it all, suddenly, clear in my head."

在我的脑子里突然清楚有了它。”

But, in fact, if you go back and look at the historical record,

但事实上，如果你回去看看历史纪录

it turns out that a lot of important ideas have very long incubation periods.

事实证明，大量的重要思想

有很长的孕育期。

I call this the "slow hunch."

我称它为“慢的预感”。

We've heard a lot recently about hunch and instinct

我们已经听到了

很多关于最近预感和本能

and blink-like sudden moments of clarity,

明晰闪烁，像突然的时刻，

但事实上，有许多伟大的想法

but, in fact, a lot of great ideas linger on, sometimes for decades,

挥之不去，有时在人们的心中

长达几十年。

in the back of people's minds.

They have a feeling that there's an interesting problem,

他们花这么长的时间对某些问题的工作，

但还有另一个

but they don't quite have the tools yet to discover them.

挥之不去

They spend all this time working on certain problems,

but there's another thing lingering there that they're interested in,

的东西，

他们感兴趣，但他们不能完全解决。

but can't quite solve.

达尔文是一个很好的例子。

Darwin is a great example of this.

Darwin himself, in his autobiography,

在他的自传里，

tells the story of coming up with the idea for natural selection

达尔文讲述了

自然选择的产生，

as a classic eureka moment.

作为一个典型的“发现！”时刻。

He's in his study, it's October of 1838,

1838年十月份的，

他在他的书房里，

and he's reading Malthus, actually, on population.

阅读马尔萨斯的人口论。

And all of a sudden,

突然间，

the basic algorithm of natural selection kind of pops into his head,

自然选择的基本算法在他脑海里浮现，

and he says, "Ah, at last, I had a theory with which to work."

他说：“哦，我终于有一个合理的理论了“。

That's in his autobiography.

这就是他的自传中描述的。

About a decade or two ago,

大约十年或二十年前，

a wonderful scholar named Howard Gruber

有个学者叫霍华德·格鲁伯

went back and looked at Darwin's notebooks from this period.

他在流览达尔文这一时期的笔记本

Darwin kept these copious notebooks,

达尔文保留下丰富的笔记，

where he wrote down every little idea he had, every little hunch.

他写下了他的每一点想法，每个小预感。

And what Gruber found was that Darwin had the full theory of natural selection

格鲁伯发现，1838年10月

达尔文在阅读马尔萨斯著作

for months and months and months

并顿悟数月之前，

before he had his alleged epiphany reading Malthus in October of 1838.

已有了自然选择的

充分理论。

There are passages where you can read it,

你可以阅读段落，

and you think you're reading from a Darwin textbook,

你以为你是从达尔文教科书阅读，

from the period before he has his epiphany.

从他有这个顿悟之前的一段期间。

And so what you realize is that Darwin, in a sense,

你了解到，在某种意义上说，

had the idea, he had the concept,

达尔文有了想法，他有了概念，

but was unable to fully think it yet.

但尚未完全思考透澈。

And that is, actually, how great ideas often happen --

这实际上是伟大的思想经常发生，

they fade into view over long periods of time.

它们进入视野消失了很长一段时间。

Now the challenge for all of us is:

现在我们所有人面临的挑战是：

How do you create environments

你怎么创造环境

that allow these ideas to have this long half-life?

允许这些想法有这样长的半衰期，是吧？

It's hard to go to your boss and say,

很难去跟你的老板说，

"I have an excellent idea for our organization.

“我有一个好主意给我们机构。

It will be useful in 2020."

它在2020年将见效益。

(Laughter)

"Could you just give me some time to do that?"

你能不能给我一些时间做它呢？“

现在，有几家公司，如谷歌，

Now a couple of companies like Google have innovation time off, 20 percent time.

们有创新的休息时间，百分之二十的时间，

In a sense, those are hunch-cultivating mechanisms in an organization.

其中，在某种意义上，这些都是直觉的培养机制。

但是，这里有一个关键环节。

But that's a key thing.

And the other thing is to allow those hunches

而其他的是让那些预感

to connect with other people's hunches;

可以与其他人的预感联系，这是经常发生的事情。

that's what often happens.

You have half of an idea, somebody else has the other half,

你有一个想法的一半，别人有另一半，

如果你们在合适的环境，

and if you're in the right environment,

它们变成自己的东西比部分的总和更大。

they turn into something larger than the sum of their parts.

因此，从某种意义上说，

So in a sense,

我们经常谈论

we often talk about the value of protecting intellectual property --

知识产权的保护，

you know, building barricades,

我们去设置障碍

having secretive R and D labs, patenting everything that we have

搞秘密的

so that those ideas will remain valuable,

研发实验室

and people will be incentivized to come up with more ideas,

并且去申请专利，保存这些想法的价值，

我们认为这样做人们会更有动力去创新

and the culture will be more innovative.

But I think there's a case to be made

不过，我觉得我们应该至少

that we should spend at least as much time, if not more,

花相同多时间，甚至是更多时间

valuing the premise of connecting ideas

去将一些人们已有的想法连接起来

and not just protecting them.

而不仅仅是保护它们，但它们相互不得个沟通。

And I'll leave you with this story,

我给你们讲个故事

which I think captures a lot of these values.

我认为它体现了很多个我要表达的理念

It's just a wonderful tale of innovation, and how it happens in unlikely ways.

并且它是一个美妙创新的故事

还有它是以不可能的方式发生的。

It's October of 1957,

1957年10月

and Sputnik has just launched.

人造卫星刚刚上天，

And we're in Laurel, Maryland,

在马里兰州劳雷尔的

at the Applied Physics Lab associated with Johns Hopkins University.

应用物理实验室(APL)，

约翰霍普金斯大学参予其中。

一个星期一早上，

It's Monday morning,

and the news has just broken about this satellite

卫星环绕地球飞行的

消息刚传开。

that's now orbiting the planet.

And, of course, this is nerd heaven, right?

当然，这是书呆子的天堂，对不对？

There are all these physics geeks who are there,

所有这些物理怪才在那里想：

thinking, "Oh my gosh! This is incredible. I can't believe this has happened."

“噢，我的天哪！这是难以置信的。我无法相信这真发生了。“

他们中的两个

And two of them, two twentysomething researchers at the APL,

二十多岁的

are there at the cafeteria table,

研究人员

having an informal conversation with a bunch of their colleagues.

在食堂闲聊。

And these two guys are named Guier and Weiffenbach.

他们是圭尔和维芬巴赫。

They start talking, and one of them says,

他们开始交谈，其中一个人说，

"Hey, has anybody tried to listen for this thing?

“嘿，有谁试图监听这个东西吗？

There's this, you know, man-made satellite up there in outer space

你知道，人造地球卫星在太空，

显然在广播某种信号。

that's obviously broadcasting some kind of signal.

如果我们调对频率，我们也许可以听到它 “

We could probably hear it, if we tune in."

So they ask around to a couple of their colleagues,

于是，他们四处向他们的同事打听，

大家都说，“不，我没想到这样做。

and everybody's like, "No, I hadn't thought of doing that.

这是一个有趣的想法。“

That's an interesting idea."

恰巧，维芬巴赫是一个

And it turns out Weiffenbach is kind of an expert in microwave reception,

微波接收专家，

and he's got a little antenna set up with an amplifier in his office.

在他的办公室设了

小天线与放大器。

So Guier and Weiffenbach go back to Weiffenbach's office,

因此圭尔和维芬巴赫回到维芬巴赫的办公室，

and they start noodling around -- "hacking," as we might call it now.

开始试着与卫星联接 - 像我们现在称作黑客。

过了几个小时，他们真的开始找到信号

And after a couple of hours, they start picking up the signal,

因为苏联的人造卫星

because the Soviets made Sputnik very easy to track;

很容易被追踪。

it was right at 20 MHz, so you could pick it up really easily,

就是在20兆赫，你可以真的很容易把它接受到，

because they were afraid people would think it was a hoax, basically,

因为他们害怕人们会觉得基本上是一个骗局。

因此，他们把它真的很容易找到它

so they made it really easy to find.

当这两个家伙正坐在那里听来这个信号，

So these guys are sitting there, listening to this signal,

人们开始到他们的办公室参观，

and people start coming into the office and saying,

说， “哇，这很酷。我能听听吗？哇，太好了。”

"That's pretty cool. Can I hear?"

And before long, they think, "Jeez, this is kind of historic.

不久之后，他们认为，“嗯呀，这是历史性的一刻。

We may be the first people in the United States listening to this.

我们可能会是在美国的听到它的第一批人。

我们应该记录下来。“

We should record it."

So they bring in this big, clunky analog tape recorder

于是他们用一个大而笨重的模拟磁带录音机，

开始录制这些讯号。

and start recording these little bleep, bleeps.

And they start writing down the date stamp, time stamps

他们开始写下每个小信号的

for each little bleep that they record.

日期和时间。

And then they start thinking,

他们便开始想，“好吧天哪，你知道，我们注意到

"Well, gosh, we're noticing small little frequency variations here.

频率变化很小。

We could probably calculate the speed that the satellite is traveling

如果我们利用多普勒效应，

做一些基本的数学计算，

if we do a little basic math here using the Doppler effect."

我们也许可以计算出

卫星的旅行速度。

And they played around with it a little bit more

然后他们还做了别的一些尝试

而且和有其他专长的

and talked to a couple of their colleagues who had other specialties.

同事交谈。

他们说：“哎呀，你知道，

And they said, "You know,

we could actually look at the slope of the Doppler effect

我们觉得我们其实可以用多普勒效应的斜率，

to figure out the points at which the satellite is closest to our antenna

算出卫星离我们的天线

最接近和

and the points at which it's furthest away.

最远的位置。

That's pretty cool."

这是非常酷的想法。

Eventually, they get permission -- this is all a little side project

“最终，他们得到许可

这是一个小的副业项目，不是正式工作的一部分。

that hadn't been officially part of their job description --

they get permission to use the new UNIVAC computer

他们得到使用新UNIVAC计算机的许可，

that takes up an entire room that they'd just gotten at the APL.

它占用整个房间，APL刚刚引进。

And they run some more of the numbers,

他们进行更多的运算，并在大约三，四个星期后，

and at the end of about three or four weeks,

基于在午餐时的

turns out they have mapped the exact trajectory

of this satellite around the Earth,

启发，

just from listening to this one little signal,

仅凭监听卫星信号，

going off on this little side hunch that they'd been inspired to do

他们已制订了卫星的

over lunch one morning.

精确轨迹。

A couple weeks later, their boss, Frank McClure,

几个星期后他们的老板，弗兰克麦克卢尔，

pulls them into the room and says,

把他们拉进了房间，说：

"Hey, you guys, I have to ask you something

“嘿，你们这些家伙，

about that project you were working on.

关于该项目我有些东西要问你们。

You've figured out an unknown location

你们已经从地面上的已知位置

找到了卫星

of a satellite orbiting the planet from a known location on the ground.

未知地点。

你们能反方向去做吗？

Could you go the other way?

Could you figure out an unknown location on the ground

如果你知道卫星的位置，

能找出一地面上不明地点吗？“

if you knew the location of the satellite?"

And they thought about it and they said,

他们想了想，说，

"Well, I guess maybe you could. Let's run the numbers here."

“嗯，我想也许可以。让我们算一下。”

So they went back and thought about it

所以他们回去，他们研究此事。

and came back and said, "Actually, it'll be easier."

他们回来说，“其实，它会更简单些。”

弗兰克说，“哦，太棒了。

And he said, "Oh, that's great,

because, see, I have these new nuclear submarines"

因为，这些新建造的

(Laughter)

核潜艇。

"that I'm building.

And it's really hard to figure out how to get your missile

如果你不知道潜艇在太平洋中部的位置，

so that it will land right on top of Moscow

真的很难找出如何让你的导弹

if you don't know where the submarine is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

准确降落在莫斯科的上方。

因此，我们在想，我们可以发射一些的卫星，

So we're thinking we could throw up a bunch of satellites

and use it to track our submarines

并用它来跟踪我们的潜艇并找出

and figure out their location in the middle of the ocean.

它们在海洋中的位置。

请问你们能解决这个问题吗？“

Could you work on that problem?"

And that's how GPS was born.

这就是全球定位系统是如何诞生的。

30年后

Thirty years later,

Ronald Reagan, actually, opened it up and made it an open platform

罗纳德。里根把它公开，并使其成为一个开放式平台，

that anybody could build upon,

任何人借此都创造和革新，

and anybody could come along and build new technology

建立新的技术，

that would create and innovate on top of this open platform,

并向任何人

开放，

left it open for anyone to do pretty much anything they wanted with it.

做他们

想要的。

And now, I guarantee you, certainly half of this room, if not more,

而现在，我保证

这个房间的有一半人，如果不是更多，

在他们的口袋里有一个设备现在

has a device sitting in their pocket right now

正和外层空间这些卫星中的一个在联络。

that is talking to one of these satellites in outer space.

我敢打赌，你们中的一个，如果不是更多，

And I bet you one of you, if not more,

has used said device and said satellite system

在昨天或上周使用了那些设备和卫星，

to locate a nearby coffeehouse somewhere in the last --

以找出附近的咖啡馆

（众笑）

(Laughter)

in the last day or last week, right?

对不对？

(Applause)

（鼓掌）

我想

And that, I think,

is a great case study, a great lesson

这是极好的一个案例

in the power -- the marvelous, unplanned, emergent, unpredictable power --

它显示出了开放的创新体系

所蕴含的潜在的

of open innovative systems.

非常惊人同时又不可预测的力量

When you build them right,

当你把这些系统完善，它们将把创造者指引到

they will be led to completely new directions

甚至从未梦想的崭新的方向。

the creators never even dreamed of.

我的意思是，这些家伙基本上

I mean, here you have these guys

who basically thought they were just following this hunch,

只是跟着这个预感，

这个小激情，

this little passion that had developed,

那时候他们在想他们是在打冷战，

then they thought they were fighting the Cold War,

到今天，他们的发明就被用来

and then, it turns out, they're just helping somebody find a soy latte.

帮助你们找到一杯大豆拿铁

（众笑）

(Laughter)

That is how innovation happens.

创新就是这么发生的！

Chance favors the connected mind.

机会垂青相互联系的脑袋

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）