Katie Mack: The death of the universe -- and what it means for life | TED Fellows

譯者: Amanda Zhu 審譯者: Helen Chang

[SHAPE YOUR FUTURE]

I love the universe.

The vastness, the mystery,

the astonishing beauty of the stars.

I love everything about it,

and I've devoted my life to studying it.

［塑造你的未來］

From atoms to galaxies,

我酷愛宇宙——

from beginning to end.

它的浩瀚、它的神秘，

But lately, I've gotten stuck on that last bit.

還有絕美的星辰。

The fact that the universe is dying.

宇宙的一切我無所不愛。

所以我奉獻一生來研究它：

I know this may come as a shock.

I mean, it's the universe, it's everything.

小至原子，大至星系，

從初始到盡頭。

It's supposed to be eternal, right?

但最近，我的研究 卡在宇宙的「盡頭」上。

But it isn't.

We know the universe had a beginning

宇宙已趨近死亡。

and everything that begins ends.

The start of the story is a familiar one.

你聽了可能會嚇一跳：

In the beginning, there was light.

宇宙耶！所有東西都在宇宙裡。

We know that because we can see it directly.

宇宙應該是永恆的吧！

可惜不是。

The cosmos today is filled with low-energy background radiation

我們知道宇宙有個開端，

也知道有開始就會有盡頭。

left over from a time

我們都熟悉故事怎麼開始的：

when the whole universe was an all-encompassing inferno.

混沌初開時，有光，

In its first 380,000 years, space wasn't cold or dark.

因為我們都看得見這些光， 所以我們知道。

今天的宇宙中充滿了

It was thick with a churning, humming plasma.

在還是一團烈焰的混沌之時

所遺留下來的低能量的背景輻射。

It was hot and dense.

It was loud.

But it was also expanding.

在剛開始的 38 萬年， 太空並不寒冷、黑暗，

Over time, the fire dissipated and space cooled.

它充滿著不斷翻騰、隆隆作響的電漿，

Clouds of gas pulled together by their own gravity

炙熱、稠密，

formed stars and galaxies and planets and us.

而且震耳欲聾；

但它也在膨脹。

And one day,

漸漸地，火焰散去，太空冷卻下來。

astronomers using a microwave receiver detected a bit of static

散佈在太空中的氣體被自己的質量 所產生的重力凝聚成一團一團，

coming from every direction in the sky,

the leftover radiation from that primordial fire.

形成了恆星、星系、 行星，還有我們。

We can now map out the cosmos

現在，

天文學家使用微波接收器

to the farthest reaches of the observable universe.

We can see distant galaxies

偵測在天空中從四面八方而來的

whose light has taken billions of years to reach us.

那團原始火焰所殘留的輻射。

So by looking at them, we are looking deep into the past.

我們現在能夠繪製 可觀測範圍的宇宙地圖。

We can watch how the expansion of the universe has slowed down

since that hot early phase 13.8 billion years ago.

我們看得到遙遠的星系，

這些星系的光 歷經了數十億年才到達這裡。

We can see collisions of entire galaxies

透過觀察它們， 我們能夠看到遙遠的過去；

and watch the bursts of star formation,

我們能夠看到宇宙的膨脹

that result from the sudden conflagration of all that cosmic hydrogen.

如何從 138 億年前 炙熱的早期階段減緩下來。

And we can see that these collisions are happening less and less.

我們能夠看到所有星系裡發生的碰撞，

The expansion of the universe isn't slowing down anymore.

並觀察恆星形成時的爆發，

A few billion years ago, it started speeding up.

那是所有宇宙裡大量氫氣 突然起火的結果。

Distant galaxies are getting farther apart

我們可以看到， 這些碰撞的發生次數越來越少。

faster and faster.

Star formation has slowed.

宇宙的膨脹不再減慢。

In fact, we can calculate exactly how much.

幾十億年前，它開始加速。

And when we do, we find something shocking.

本來就很遙遠的星系越來越遠，

Of all the stars that have ever been born or that ever will be,

速度也越來越快。

恆星形成的速度已經放慢。

around 90 percent have already come into being.

事實上，我們計算得出 到底放慢了多少。

From now until the end of time,

the universe is working on just that last 10 percent.

計算後，我們發現了一件駭人的事。

在所有已經誕生 或未來要誕生的恆星中，

The end of the universe is coming.

大約 90% 已經形成。

There are a few ways it could happen,

but the most likely is called the heat death,

從現在開始到時間的盡頭，

and it's an agonizing, slow languishing of the cosmos.

宇宙只剩下 10% 的工作要完成。

Stars burn out and leave smoldering ash.

宇宙的滅亡就要來了。

Galaxies become increasingly isolated in their own dim pools of light.

宇宙的滅亡有幾種可能的方式，

最有可能的方式叫做「熱之死」，

Particles decay.

對宇宙來說，這是一個 痛苦、緩慢煎熬的過程。

Even black holes evaporate into the void.

恆星燃燒殆盡，留下悶燒的灰燼。

Of course, we still have some time.

星系在各自微弱的光團中 變得越來越孤立。

The heat death is so far in the future, we hardly have words to describe it.

粒子衰變，

Long past a billion years,

黑洞也蒸發得無影無蹤。

when the sun expands and boils off the oceans of the Earth.

當然我們還有點時間。

Long past 100 billion years,

when we lose the ability to see distant galaxies

「熱之死」離我們還很遙遠， 所以很難形容得恰當。

and that faint trace of Big Bang light.

遠在距我們十億年時，

Long after we are left alone in the darkness

太陽膨脹並煮沸了地球的海洋之後；

watching the Milky Way fade.

遠在距我們千億年時，

我們無法再看到遙遠星系

It's OK to be sad about it,

和大爆炸發出的光 所遺留的微弱痕跡之後；

even if it is trillions of years in the future.

遠在地球孤獨地處於一片黑暗中，

No one wants to think about something they love coming to an end.

看著我們的銀河系消逝之後。

As disconnected as it may be to us here and now,

it is somehow more profound than personal death.

悲傷是可以理解的，

即使是未來幾兆年後才會發生。

We have strategies for accepting the inevitability of that.

沒有人想要思考所愛的事物 也有結束的一天。

After all, we tell ourselves, something of us will live on.

雖然和現在的我們好像沒有甚麼關聯，

Maybe it will be our great works.

但它似乎比人的死亡更深刻。

Maybe it will be our children, carrying on our genetic material

我們有接受人必有一死的策略。

or perhaps our basic outlook on life.

Maybe it will be some idea worth spreading.

我們會告訴自己， 我們身後總會留下一些東西，

Humanity might venture out into the stars and evolve and change,

也許是我們偉大的成就，

也許是我們的孩子， 帶著我們的遺傳物質繼續繁衍，

but something of us will survive.

也許是我的們基本人生觀，

But if the universe ends,

也許是一個值得散播的想法。

at some point we have no legacy.

There will come a time when, in a very real sense,

人類可能會將腳步 探入星空、演化、改變，

our existence will not have mattered.

但我們的某些東西將會繼續存在。

The slate will be wiped clean completely.

但如果宇宙在滅亡，

Why should we spend our lives

總有讓我們無法遺留下 任何東西的時候。

seeking answers to the ultimate questions of reality

總有個時候，就事實而論，

if eventually there will be no one left to tell?

曾經存在的我們 將無關緊要、不留痕跡。

Why build a sandcastle when you can see that the tide is coming in?

一切都變成完全空白。

我們為什麼要用一生的時間

I've asked a dozen other cosmologists

尋找現實終極問題的答案，

and they all had different answers.

如果最終人去樓空，沒有人聽？

To some, the death of the cosmos just seems right.

潮水將至，為什麼還要建造沙堡？

It's freeing to know that we are temporary.

"I very much like our blipness," one told me.

我問過十幾位宇宙學家，

To others, the question itself motivates the search for some alternative theory.

他們各有不同的答案。

對一些人來說， 宇宙的死亡似乎很合理。

There must be some way to carry on.

知道我們只是過客， 有種被釋放的自由感。

The slow fade to black just cannot be how our story ends.

其中一個人說：「我很喜歡 我們只是時空中的一個小點點。」

One found comfort in the possibility of the multiverse.

對另一些人來說，這個問題本身 促使他們尋找一些替代理論：

"It's not all about us," he said.

我們一定有辦法繼續下去。

Personally, I feel lucky.

慢慢淡入黑暗中 不可能是我們故事的結局。

Our cosmos existed for billions of years before us

有一個人認為 有多重宇宙存在的可能性，

and it will carry on long after we are gone.

For this brief moment, we are here.

他說：「我們的世界 不會是唯一的世界。」

We may be insignificant to the cosmos as a whole,

就我個人而言，我感到很幸運。

but we have an immense power to understand it,

我們的宇宙在我們之前 存在了數十億年，

to see the beginning,

在我們離開之後，還會持續很久。

to contemplate the end,

我們在這個短暫的時刻存在於此。

to look up into the sky

and see ourselves reflected in every tiny point of light.

以整個宇宙來說，我們可能微不足道，

但我們卻具有強大的力量去理解它，

There is a kind of luxury in the freedom to look beyond our own little lives

看到宇宙的生成，

思考它會如何終了，

and contemplate the end of everything.

並在仰望星空時，

看到自己映在每個微小的光點中。

We, fragile, doomed humans

carry within us a sense of discovery and wonder.

我們的視界能夠超越自己的小生命， 思考一切的終結，

It will persist as long as there are thinking beings in the cosmos.

這種自由是一種奢侈。

And we can decide how to use it.

我們——脆弱、 註定終將滅亡的人類——

帶著一種發現的精神 和對事物的驚奇感，

Thank you.

只要宇宙中有能夠思考的物種存在， 這種精神就會持續下去，

而我們能夠決定如何利用它。

謝謝。