TED演讲:从遥远的星系中我们可以学到什么(4)

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

And we need a way to simplify it. 我们需要简化它的方法。

Well, I like to think about this using an analogy. 我会用一个类比来理解。

If I want to understand the sinking of the Titanic¹, 如果我想了解泰坦尼克号的沉没，

the most important thing to do is not to model the little positions of every single little piece of the boat that broke off. 最重要的事情不是去模拟每一片断裂的小碎片的每一个位置。

The most important thing to do is to track the two biggest parts. 最重要的是抓住断裂的两半船体的位置。

Similarly, I can learn a lot about the universe at the largest scales by tracking its biggest pieces and those biggest pieces are clusters of galaxies². 同样，我可以通过追踪宇宙的最大的部件来学到宇宙大尺度的很多信息，而这最大的部件就是星团。

So, as I come to a close, 现在我即将结尾，

you might feel slightly cheated. 你可能觉得有点受骗上当。

I mean, I began by talking about how galaxy³ clusters are useful, 我的意思是，刚开始我说星团非常有用，

and I've given some reasons, 我也给了一些理由，

but what is their use really? 但是他们真正的用处在哪里？

Well, to answer this, 为了回答这个，

I want to give you a quote by Henry Ford⁴ when he was asked about cars. 我将引用亨利·福特的一句话，当他被问到汽车时。

He had this to say:If I had asked people what they wanted,they would have said faster horses. 他说，如果我之前问人们他们想要什么，他们只会说更快的马。

Today, we as a society are faced with many, many difficult problems. 我们社会在现今面临很多很困难的问题。

And the solutions to these problems are not obvious. 这些问题的解决之道并不明显。

They are not faster horses. 解决之道不会是更快的马。

They will require an enormous amount of scientific ingenuity⁵. 要解决问题，要求有非常多的科学才能。

So, yes, we need to focus, 是的，我们需要集中注意力，

yes, we need to concentrate, 我们需要专心，

but we also need to remember that innovation, ingenuity, inspiration,these things come when we broaden our field of vision when we step back when we zoom⁶ out. 但我们也要记得创造力、新颖的主意、灵感，这些是在我们开阔眼界时产生的，当我们退后一步，当我们把画面拉远

And I can't think of a better way to do this than by studying the universe around us. Thanks. 我想不出更好的办法做这件事，除了研究我们头顶的宇宙。谢谢。

分享到：