Humanity's Search for Cosmic Truth and Poetic Beauty | Maria Popova | TED

翻译人员: Yip Yan Yeung 校对人员: Yanyan Hong

[The Universe in Verse]

【诗歌中的宇宙】

[Prelude]

【序言】

In 1908,

1908 年，

Henrietta Swan Leavitt,

亨丽爱塔·勒维特 （Henrietta Swan Leavitt）,

one of the women known as the Harvard Computers,

作为“哈佛计算员” （Harvard Computers）的

一位女性成员，

who changed our understanding of the universe

她在女性获得投票权的许久之前

long before they could vote,

就改变了我们对宇宙的认识，

was cataloging photographic plates at the Harvard College Observatory,

她的工作是在哈佛天文台 整理编目摄取的底片，

single-handedly analyzing 2,000 variable stars --

凭一己之力分析了两千颗变星——

stars with fluctuating brightness,

变星指的是 亮度有起伏变化的恒星，

kind of like a lighthouse beacon --

类似灯塔的信号灯，

when she began noticing a distinct correlation

她由此发现了变星

between their brightness and their blinking pattern.

亮度和闪烁规律的独特关联。

That correlation made it possible to measure the distance of stars

这个关联让人们首次可以

for the very first time,

测量恒星的距离，

furnishing the yardstick of the universe.

提供了宇宙的标尺。

Meanwhile, a dutiful teenage boy in the Midwest

与此同时， 中西部有一位孝顺的少年

was repressing his childhood love of astronomy

为了满足年父亲生前的愿望， 寻求安稳、有尊严的生活，

and beginning his legal studies to fulfill his dying father's demand

他压抑了从小对天文的热爱，

for an ordinary, reputable life.

开始学习法律。

When his father died,

他的父亲过世以后，

Edwin Hubble turned that passion for the stars into formal study

爱德文·哈勃（Edwin Hubble）

怀揣对星星的热爱 投入了专业的学习，

and discovered two revolutionary facts about the universe:

并发现了两个 关于宇宙的革命性事实：

that it is tremendously bigger than we thought

第一，宇宙比我们想象的大得多，

and that it's getting bigger and bigger by the blink.

第二，宇宙时刻都在越变越大。

One October evening in 1923,

1923 年 10 月的一个夜晚，

perched at the foot of the largest telescope in the world,

哈勃坐在离这里不远的 威尔逊山天文台里

at Mount Wilson Observatory, not far from here,

世界上最大的望远镜下面，

Hubble took a 45-minute exposure of Andromeda,

对仙女座大星云进行了 45 分钟曝光拍摄，

which was then thought to be one of many spiral nebulae in our Milky Way.

仙女座大星云后来被认为是 银河系中众多螺旋星云中的一个。

The notion of a galaxy,

当时，对银河系的认知——

a gravitationally bound cluster of stars and dust and dark matter,

一个由重力聚拢的星体、 尘埃和暗物质群，

didn't exist at the time.

尚不存在。

The Milky Way, which, by the way, was coined as a term

顺带一提，“银河系” （Milky Way）一词

by Chaucer in the 14th century,

由乔叟（Chaucer）在 14 世纪创造，

was thought to be what was called an "island universe"

银河系是指跨越寒冷、

beyond the edge of which lay cold, dark nothingness.

黑暗、虚无边界的一个“岛宇宙”。

But when Hubble looked at the photograph the next morning

但是当哈勃第二天早晨观察照片

and compared it to previous ones,

并与之前的照片对比时，

he furrowed his brow

他皱起了眉头，

and with a gasp of revelation scribbled right on top of the plate "VAR"

灵光一现，倒吸了一口气， 并开始在“VAR”

and then drew an exclamation point

星盘上涂写， 还写上了一个感叹号，

because he had realized that a tiny fleck in Andromeda

因为他发现仙女座星系里

previously thought to be a nova

一个之前被当作是新星的小斑点，

could not possibly be a nova,

鉴于不同照片里的闪烁规律，

given its blinking pattern across these different photographs.

可能并不是一颗新星，

And it was, in fact, a variable star.

实际上它是一颗变星。

Which meant, given Henrietta Leavitt's data,

这意味着，根据 亨丽爱塔·勒维特的数据，

that it was very, very far away,

这颗变星非常非常遥远，

farther than the edge of the Milky Way.

比银河系的边缘更远。

Which meant that Andromeda was not a nebula in our own galaxy,

这意味着，仙女座星系不是 我们银河系的一个星云，

but a whole other galaxy,

而是完全另一个星系，

out there, in the cold, dark nothingness.

在寒冷、黑暗、虚无中的星系。

Suddenly, the universe was a garden, blooming with galaxies,

突然间，宇宙变成了一个花园， 星系百花齐放，

with ours but a single bloom.

而我们的银河系只是其中一朵。

That same year, in another country,

同年，在另一个国家，

suspended between two World Wars,

两次世界大战之间，

another young scientist came up with the radical idea

另一位年轻的科学家 有了一个疯狂的想法，

of using rocket technology,

利用火箭技术——

this deadly military technology,

这个恐怖的军事技术，

to mount an enormous telescope and launch it into Earth's orbit.

搭载巨大的望远镜， 发射至地球运行轨道。

Not only closer to the stars, but bypassing the atmosphere

这样不仅离其他星体更近，还穿过了

that occludes our terrestrial instruments.

会挡住陆上仪器设备的大气层。

It would take another two generations of scientists

让这台望远镜成真又花了

to make that telescope a reality:

两代科学家的努力：

a shimmering poem of metal, physics and perseverance

带着哈勃之名，承载着金属、 物理和坚持不懈的

bearing Hubble's name.

闪耀诗篇。

But when the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990,

但是在 1990 年 哈勃太空望远镜发射之际，

our human fallibility had slipped into the precision of the instrument,

人类的不可靠性 影响了设备的精确性，

and it turned out that its primary mirror

它的主镜面

was ground into the wrong spherical shape,

被制造成了错误的弧形，

warping these long-awaited images of the unfathomed universe.

扭曲了人们翘首以盼的 未知宇宙的照片。

Up the coast from Mount Wilson Observatory,

在威尔逊山天文台附近的海边，

a teenage girl watched her father, who had worked on the Hubble,

一个少女看着她的父亲 垂头丧气地回到家，

one of NASA's first Black engineers, come home brokenhearted.

她的父亲是NASA的首批黑人工程师之一， 参与哈勃望远镜的工作。

He didn't know that his observant daughter

他没有意识到他善于观察的女儿

would become poet laureate of his country

之后会成为美国桂冠诗人，

and would commemorate him in the tenderest tribute

会用细腻的颂词纪念他，

that an artist's daughter has ever composed for a scientist father,

这是艺术家女儿为 科学家父亲送上的作品，

which would win her the Pulitzer Prize

这个作品为她赢得了普利策奖，

the year the Hubble's corrected optics captured that revolutionary,

同年，哈勃望远镜 修正后的光学设备捕捉了

ultra-deep field image of the observable universe,

可观测宇宙的革命性超深空图像，

revealing what neither Hubble

展示了哈勃

nor Henrietta Leavitt could have imagined.

或者亨丽爱塔·勒维特 都无法想象的图像。

That ours is not just one of several galaxies,

我们的银河系不只是 许多星系中的一个，

but that there are 100 billion galaxies out there,

外面还有数千亿个星系，

each containing 100 billion stars.

每个星系都有数千亿个星体。

Narrator: From “My God, It’s Full of Stars.”

旁白：选自《天哪，满天繁星》 (My God, It’s Full of Stars)。

When my father worked on the Hubble Telescope, he said

我父亲在研究哈勃望远镜时说道，

They operated like surgeons: scrubbed and sheathed

他们好似外科医生：“擦拭”又“包扎”，

In papery green, the room a clean, cold and bright white.

身着薄薄的绿色手术服， 房间干净、冰冷又洁白。

He’d read Larry Niven at home, and drink scotch on the rocks,

他更想在家阅读拉里·尼文 （Larry Niven）的作品，

喝着加冰的威士忌。

His eyes exhausted and pink. These were the Reagan years,

他的眼睛疲倦泛红。 那是里根的任期。

When we lived with our finger on The Button and struggled

我们的生活如同惊弓之鸟， 挣扎着——

To view our enemies as children. My father spent whole seasons

把我们的敌人看作孩子。 我的父亲日日夜夜

Bowing before the oracle-eye, hungry for what it would find.

在预言之眼前翘首以盼， 热切盼望着它的发现。

His face lit-up whenever anyone asked, and his arms would rise

有人向他问起时， 他会面露喜色，

As if he were weightless, perfectly at ease in the never-ending

像失重似举起他的双臂， 在这无尽的太空之夜中。

Night of space. On the ground, we tied postcards to balloons

我们站在大地上， 将明信片拴在气球上。

For peace. Prince Charles married Lady Di.

祈愿和平， 查尔斯王子和戴安娜王妃结婚了。

Rock Hudson died.

而后，罗克·赫德森 （Rock Hudson）去世了，

We learned new words for things. The decade changed.

新词诞生，时代更替。

The first few pictures came back blurred, and I felt ashamed

早前的影像传输回来了， 可惜却非常模糊，

For all the cheerful engineers, my father and his tribe. The second time,

我很惋惜，为所有兴高采烈的工程师、 为我的父亲，为他的同伴们。

The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is --

第二次，终于有了清晰的画面。 我们看见万物之边缘——

So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.

如此残酷又鲜活， 它似乎让我们重新顿悟。