Rives: Reinventing the encyclopedia game

Translator: Morton Bast Reviewer: Thu-Huong Ha

翻译人员: Dennis Guo 校对人员: Hom Liu

So, last month, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced

上个月，大英百科全书宣布，

that it is going out of print

在墨印了244年后，

after 244 years, which made me nostalgic,

它即将停止继续印刷。 这让我变得很怀旧，

because I remember playing a game with the colossal encyclopedia set in my hometown library

因为我想起了一个我小时候在我家乡的

back when I was a kid,

图书馆中用一本巨大的百科全书所玩的游戏，

maybe 12 years old.

那时我大概12岁左右吧。

And I wondered if I could update that game,

而我想我是否可以将那个游戏升级，

not just for modern methods,

不仅用现代化了的方式，

but for the modern me.

也是为了今天的我。

So I tried.

所以我尝试了。

I went to an online encyclopedia,

我上了一个在线百科全书，

Wikipedia, and I entered the term "Earth."

维基百科，然后输入了“地球”。

You can start anywhere, this time I chose Earth.

你可以从任何地方开始，这次我选了地球。

And the first rule of the game is pretty simple.

游戏的第一个规则很简单。

You just have to read the article

你只需要阅读这篇文章，

until you find something you don't know,

直到你找到一个你不知道的东西，

and preferably something your dad doesn't even know.

最好是连你父亲都不知道的东西。

And in this case, I quickly found this:

而这次，我很快的找到了这个：

The furthest point from the center of the Earth

离地球中心最远的点

is not the tip of Mount Everest, like I might have thought,

并不是珠穆朗玛峰的顶端，像我想的那样，

it's the tip of this mountain: Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.

而是这个山脉的顶端： 厄瓜多尔的钦博拉索山。

The Earth spins, of course, as it travels around the sun,

地球会自转，同时也在绕着太阳公转，

so the Earth bulges a little bit around the middle,

所以地球的中线部分有些突出，

like some Earthlings.

像一些的地球人一样。

And even though Mount Chimborazo isn't the tallest mountain in the Andes,

而虽然钦博拉索山不是安第斯山脉最高的山峰，

it's one degree away from the equator,

它离赤道只有一个度的差距，

it's riding that bulge, and so the summit of Chimborazo

它就在那突出的上方，所以钦博拉索山的巅峰

is the farthest point on Earth from the center of the Earth.

是地球上离地球中心最远的地方。

And it is really fun to say.

它的名字读起来也很有意思。

So I immediately decided,

所以我立刻就决定了，

this is going to be the name of the game,

它将是我的游戏的名字，

or my new exclamation.

或者我新的惊叹词。

You can use it at TED.

你也可以在TED这里使用。

Chimborazo, right?

钦博拉索，是吧？

It's like "eureka" and "bingo" had a baby.

它就像“尤里卡（找到了）”和“宾果（中了）”的孩子。

I didn't know that;

这我之前不知道，

that's pretty cool.

而它也挺有意思的。

Chimborazo!

钦博拉索！

So the next rule of the game is also pretty simple.

而游戏的下一个规则同样简单。

You just have to find another term and look that up.

你只需要找到下一个词汇，然后搜索它。

Now in the old days, that meant getting out a volume

在以前，这意味着拿出一本书

and browsing through it alphabetically,

然后按字母顺序搜索。

maybe getting sidetracked,

中间你可能会被其他的吸引，

that was fun.

Nowadays there are hundreds of links to choose from.

而它很好玩。

现在你有上百个链接可以选择。

I can go literally anywhere in the world,

我可以去世界上的任何地方，

I think since I was already in Ecuador,

我想，既然我已经在了厄瓜多尔，

I just decided to click on the word "tropical."

我决定选择“热带”这个词汇。

That took me to this wet and warm band of the tropics

它将我带到了围绕着地球的一个潮湿并

that encircles the Earth.

温暖的热带雨林中。

Now that's the Tropic of Cancer in the north

那是北面的北回归线

and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south,

以及南面的南回归线，

that much I knew,

这些是我知道的。

but I was surprised to learn this little fact:

但我很惊讶的学到了这一小个事实：

Those are not cartographers' lines,

这些不是制图者的线，

like latitude or the borders between nations,

像纬度或国家的边界，

they are astronomical phenomena caused by the Earth's tilt,

它们代表着地球倾斜造成的天文现象，

and they change.

而它们一直在改变。

They move; they go up, they go down.

它们会动；有时上，有时下。

In fact, for years, the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn

事实上，在很长的时间中，北回归线和南回归线

have been steadily drifting towards the equator

在稳定的以每年15米的速度

at the rate of about 15 meters per year,

朝着赤道移动。

and nobody told me that.

而没人告诉过我这点。

I didn't know it.

我之前并不知道。

Chimborazo!

钦博拉索！

So to keep the game going, I just have to find another term and look that one up.

为了让游戏继续，我只需要再找一个词来搜索。

Since I'm already in the tropics, I chose "Tropical rainforest."

既然我已经在热带区域了，我选择了“热带雨林”。

Famous for its diversity, human diversity.

它因为它的人类的多样化而闻名。

There are still dozens and dozens of uncontacted tribes living on this planet.

在这个星球上仍然有着很多没有接触过的人类部落，

They're all over the globe, but virtually all of them live in tropical rainforests.

他们散步在全球各地，但基本上所有都住在热带雨林中。

This is the only place you can go nowadays and not get "friended."

这是地球上唯一一个你不会被在脸书上加为好友的地方。

The link that I clicked on here was exotic in the beginning and then absolutely mysterious at the very end.

我点的这个链接在开头时很奇异，而在后面变的越来越神秘。

It mentioned leopards and ring-tailed coatis and poison dart frogs and boa constrictors and then

它提到了豹子和环尾长鼻浣熊和毒箭娃和蟒蛇以及

coleoptera,

甲虫类，

which turn out to be beetles.

也就是甲虫。

Now I clicked on this on purpose,

我是有意的点了这个的，

but if I'd somehow gotten here by mistake,

但假如我因为某种原因搞错了，

it does remind me, for the band, see "The Beatles,"

它会提醒我，如果找到的乐队，看“甲壳虫乐队”，

for the car see "Volkswagon Beetle,"

找的是车，那看“大众甲壳虫”，

but I am here for beetle beetles.

但我是来看真的甲虫的。

This is the most successful order on the planet by far.

它是地球上最成功的物种。

Something between 20 and 25 percent of all life forms on the planet,

地球上所有的生命中，包括植物在内，有

including plants, are beetles.

百分之二十到二十五都是甲壳虫。

That means the next time you are in the grocery store,

这意味着，下一次你在杂货店的时候，

take a look at the four people ahead of you in line.

看看你队伍前方的四个人。

Statistically, one of you is a beetle.

统计上来说，你们其中有一个是甲壳虫。

And if it is you, you are astonishingly well adapted.

而如果这是你，你适应得非常好。

There are scavenger beetles that pick the skin and flesh off of bones in museums.

有在博物馆吃骨头上的皮肤和肉的拾荒者甲壳虫。

There are predator beetles, that attack other insects

有攻击其他昆虫但

and still look pretty cute to us.

任然看起来很可爱的捕食者甲壳虫。

There are beetles that roll little balls of dung

有甲壳虫将粪便滚成小球

great distances across the desert floor to feed to their hatchlings.

并将它滚过沙漠上很长的距离来喂养它的后代。

This reminded the ancient Egyptians of their god Khepri,

这让古代的埃及人想起了它们的神赫普里，

who renews the ball of the sun every morning,

他在每天早上都重新点燃太阳的火球。

which is how that dung-rolling scarab

这就是为什么滚粪便的圣甲虫

became that sacred scarab on the breastplate of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

变成了图坦卡蒙法老胸甲上的圣甲虫。

Beetles, I was reminded, have the most romantic flirtation in the animal kingdom.

甲壳虫们，提醒了我，它们有着动物界中最浪漫的调情手段。

Fireflies are not flies, fireflies are beetles.

萤火虫不是像苍蝇，萤火虫是甲虫。

Fireflies are coleoptera, and coleoptera communicate in other ways as well.

萤火虫是甲虫类的，而甲虫类也会用很多其他的方法来交流。

Like my next link:

就像我下一个连接：

The chemical language of pheromones.

信息素的化学语言。

Now the pheromone page took me to a video of a sea urchin having sex.

这信息素的网页带我到了一个海胆交配的视频。

Yeah.

嗯。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And the link to aphrodisiac.

以及一个催情剂的链接。

Now that's something that increases sexual desire,

它提高性欲，

possibly chocolate.

像巧克力。

There is a compound in chocolate called phenethylamine

巧克力中有一种东西叫苯乙胺，

that might be an aphrodisiac.

它很有可能是一种催情剂。

But as the article mentions,

但这篇文章说，

because of enzyme breakdown,

因为酶的作用，

it's unlikely that phenethylamine will reach your brain if taken orally.

如果口服的话，苯乙胺很有可能不会到达你的大脑。

So those of you who only eat your chocolate, you might have to experiment.

所以在座的只吃你们的巧克力的，你可能需要尝试一下。

The link I clicked on here,

在这里点的链接叫

"sympathetic magic," mostly because I understand what both of those words mean.

"感应巫术"，因为我明白这两个词的意思，

But not when they're together like that.

但不明白它们的组合。

I do like sympathy. I do like magic.

我喜欢同情，我也喜欢魔术。

So when I click on "sympathetic magic,"

所以当我点了“感应魔术”时，

I get sympathetic magic and voodoo dolls.

我看到了感应魔术和巫毒娃娃。

This is the boy in me getting lucky again.

我的童心又被挑起了。

Sympathetic magic is imitation.

感应魔术的基础是模仿。

If you imitate something, maybe you can have an effect on it.

如果你模仿一样事物，或许你也可以影响到它。

That's the idea behind voodoo dolls, and possibly also cave paintings.

这是巫毒娃娃的原理，也有可能关联到石洞壁画。

The link to cave paintings takes me to some of the oldest art known to humankind.

石洞壁画的链接带我到了一些人类最古老的艺术。

I would love to see Google maps inside some of these caves.

我很想看用谷歌地图看看这些洞穴的内部。

We've got tens-of-thousands-years-old artwork.

我们有万年之前的艺术品。

Common themes around the globe include large wild animals and tracings of human hands,

全球的一些共同主题包括巨型动物以及人类手掌的轮廓描绘，

usually the left hand.

通常是左手。

We have been a dominantly right-handed tribe for millenia,

我们从千年前便是主右手的部落，

so even though I don't know why a paleolithic person would trace his hand

所以虽然我不知道为什么一个旧石器时代的人会描画他的手，

or blow pigment on it from a tube,

又或往它上面（从管子中）吹出色素，

I can easily picture how he did it.

我可以很容易的想象出他是怎么做到的。

And I really don't think it's that different form our own little dominant hand avatar

而我也不觉得它和在我们这里用的手型光标有什么区别

right there that I'm going to use now to click on the term for "hand,"

我将用它点击“手”这个词汇的链接。

go to the page for "hand," where I found the most fun and possibly embarrassing bit of trivia

在“手”的页面上，我找到了在很长时间内都是最好玩但也让我羞愧的

I've found in a long time. It's simply this:

一个细节。它很简单：

The back of the hand is formally called the opisthenar.

手的背面正式的被叫做 Opisthenar （手背）。

Now that's embarrassing, because up until now,

这有些尴尬，因为知道现在，

every time I've said, "I know it like the back of my hand,"

每次当我说，“我熟悉它就像我熟悉我的手背一样“，

I've really been saying, "I'm totally familiar with that,

我其实都在说，”我非常的熟悉它，

I just don't know it's freaking name, right?"

我只是不知道它的名字（那个复杂的单词）而已？”

And the link I clicked on here,

我点击的这个链接，

well, lemurs, monkeys and chimpanzees have the little opisthenar.

说狐猴，猴子和黑猩猩都有小的手背。

I click on chimpanzee, and I get our closest genetic relative.

我点了黑猩猩，然后我被带到了和我们的基因最近的亲戚。

Pan troglodytes, the name we give him, means "cave dweller."

Pan troglodytes （黑猩猩）这个给它的名字，意思是“穴居者”。

He doesn't.

他其实不住在穴内。

He lives in rainforests and savannas.

他住在雨林和大草原上。

It's just that we're always thinking of this guy as lagging behind us,

只是我们总是觉得它被我们甩在身后，

evolutionarily or somehow uncannily creeping up on us,

奇怪的在进化的过程中尾随着我们，

and in some cases, he gets places before us.

而在某些情况下，他在我们的之前到达一些地方。

Like my next link, the almost irresistible link, Ham the Astrochimp.

像我的下一个链接，一个几乎无法抗拒的链接，太空猩猩汉姆。

I click on him, and I really thought he was going to bring me full circle twice, in fact.

我点击了他，以为他会带我两次回到游戏的原点。

He's born in Cameroon,

他在喀麦隆出生，

which is smack in the middle of my tropics map,

喀麦隆就在我的热带地图的中央，

and more specifically his skeleton wound up in the Smithsonian museum getting picked clean by beetles.

而更特别的，它的骨骼在史密斯森协会博物馆中被甲虫清理的很干净。

In between those two landmarks in Ham's life,

在这两件汉姆的里程碑中，

he flew into space.

他飞入了外太空。

He experienced weightlessness and re-entry

他比第一个人类太空员，

months before the first human being to do it,

苏联宇航员尤里·加加林，早几个月

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

经历失重并重返地球。

When I click on Yuri Gagarin's page,

当我点击了尤里·加加林的网页，

I get this guy who was surprisingly short in stature,

我看到了这个身材让人惊讶的短小，但

huge in heroism.

异常英雄的一个人物。

Top estimates, Soviet estimates, put this guy at 1.65 meters,

最高的估计，苏联的估计，说他有1米65，

that is less than five and a half feet tall max,

而这最多只有5个半英尺高，

possibly because he was malnourished as a child.

有可能因为当他是孩子的时候他有过营养不良。

Germans occupied Russia.

当时德国人侵入了俄罗斯。

A Nazi officer took over the Gagarin household,

一个纳粹军官抢了加加林家的房子，

and he and his family built and lived in a mud hut.

然后他和他的家人造了一个泥房居住。

Years later, the boy from that cramped mud hut

很多年后，那个拥挤的泥房中的小男孩

would grow up to be the man in that cramped capsule

会长成为那个在火箭顶端的

on the tip of a rocket

拥挤的航天仓中的，

who volunteered to be launched into outer space,

自告奋勇的被发射出外太空的男人，

the first one of any of us to really physically leave this planet.

我们之中第一个来真正地离开这个星球。

And he didn't just leave it,

而他不仅仅离开了它。

he circled it once.

他围绕着它转了一圈。

Fifty years later, as a tribute,

五十年后，为了向他致敬，

the International Space Station, which is still up there tonight,

至今还在上面的国际太空站

synced its orbit with Gagarin's orbit,

将它的轨道与加加林的轨道在一天中

at the exact same time of day,

同样的时间时重叠，

and filmed it,

并拍了下来。

so you can go online and you can watch over 100 minutes

你可以上网看这个大概100多分钟的

of what must have been an absolutely mesmerizing ride,

迷人的旅行，

possibly a lonely one,

一个孤独的旅行，

the first person to ever see such a thing.

作为第一个看到它的人类。

And then when you've had your fill of that,

当你看完了它后，

you can click on one more link.

你可以再点击一个连接，

You can come back to Earth.

并回到地球。

You return to where you started.

你回到你开始的地方。

You can finish your game.

你可以完成你的游戏。

You just need to find one more fact that you didn't know.

你只需要在找一个你不知道事实。

And for me, I quickly landed on this one:

对我来说，我很快的看到了它：

The Earth has a tolerance of about .17 percent from the reference spheroid,

地球离参考椭球有着大概百分之0.17的公差，

which is less than the .22 percent allowed in billiard balls.

比桌球的百分之0.22标准更小。

This is the kind of fact I would have loved as a boy.

我小的时候非常喜欢这种事情。

I found it myself.

我自己找到了它。

It's got some math that I can do.

它有着一些我可以做的数学。

I'm pretty sure my dad doesn't know it.

我很确定我爸爸也不知道。

What this means is that if you could shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball,

这个的意思是，你可以将地球缩小到一个桌球的大小，

if you could take planet Earth, with all its mountain tops and caves

如果你可以将地球，以及它上面的高山和洞穴

and rainforests, astronauts and uncontacted tribes and chimpanzees, voodoo dolls,

和雨林，航空员和未接触部落和黑猩猩，巫毒娃娃们，

fireflies, chocolate, sea creatures making love in the deep blue sea,

萤火虫，巧克力，在海洋内交配的海生物们，

you just shrink that to the size of a billiard ball,

你将它缩小的一个桌球的大小，

it would be as smooth as a billiard ball,

它会想桌球一样的光滑，

presumably a billiard ball with a slight bulge around the middle.

大概就像一个中间稍微有些突出的桌球。

That's pretty cool.

这很有意思。

I didn't know that.

我以前也不知道。

Chimborazo!

钦博拉索！

Thank you.

(Applause)

谢谢。

（掌声）