How do you observe something you can't see? This is the basic question of somebody who's interested in finding and studying black holes. Because black holes are objects whose pull of gravity is so intense that nothing can escape it, not even light, so you can't see it directly.
要如何去觀察看不見的東西? 對於有興趣尋找和研究黑洞的人來說, 這是個很基本的問題。 因為黑洞這種物體的引力非常強大, 什麼都逃不過黑洞,連光線都不能, 所以我們無法直接看到它。
So, my story today about black holes is about one particular black hole. I'm interested in finding whether or not there is a really massive, what we like to call "supermassive" black hole at the center of our galaxy. And the reason this is interesting is that it gives us an opportunity to prove whether or not these exotic objects really exist. And second, it gives us the opportunity to understand how these supermassive black holes interact with their environment, and to understand how they affect the formation and evolution of the galaxies which they reside in.
我今天要談的是一種特定的黑洞。 我想要知道 在我們的銀河中心,是否有所謂的 「超大質量黑洞」存在。 這點很有趣的原因 是我們有機會可以證明 這些奇特的物體是否真的存在。 第二,我們也有機會 能了解這些超大質量黑洞 如何和我們的環境互動, 並了解它們如何影響 它們所屬銀河的形成和演化。
So, to begin with, we need to understand what a black hole is so we can understand the proof of a black hole. So, what is a black hole? Well, in many ways a black hole is an incredibly simple object, because there are only three characteristics that you can describe: the mass, the spin, and the charge. And I'm going to only talk about the mass. So, in that sense, it's a very simple object. But in another sense, it's an incredibly complicated object that we need relatively exotic physics to describe, and in some sense represents the breakdown of our physical understanding of the universe.
所以,首先, 我們得要了解黑洞是什麼, 接著才能了解黑洞存在的證據。 所以,黑洞是什麼? 在許多層面上, 黑洞是個非常簡單的物體, 因為能夠用來描述 黑洞的特徵只有三項: 質量、自旋,以及電荷。 而我只打算談質量。 在這方面黑洞是很簡單的物體。 但在另一方面, 它又是非常複雜的物體, 我們需要用很奇特的物理才能描述它, 且在某種意義上, 它打破了我們對宇宙的物理認知。 要了解黑洞以證明它的存在,
But today, the way I want you to understand a black hole, for the proof of a black hole, is to think of it as an object whose mass is confined to zero volume. So, despite the fact that I'm going to talk to you about an object that's supermassive, and I'm going to get to what that really means in a moment, it has no finite size. So, this is a little tricky.
我要你們把它想像成一個物體, 它的質量被局限在零體積當中。 所以,儘管我要跟大家談的 是超大質量的物體 ——我馬上就會解釋這一點—— 它沒有大小限制。 所以,這有點難搞。
But fortunately there is a finite size that you can see, and that's known as the Schwarzschild radius. And that's named after the guy who recognized why it was such an important radius. This is a virtual radius, not reality; the black hole has no size. So why is it so important? It's important because it tells us that any object can become a black hole. That means you, your neighbor, your cellphone, the auditorium can become a black hole if you can figure out how to compress it down to the size of the Schwarzschild radius.
但幸運的是, 有種大小限制是我們看得見的, 那就是我們所知的史瓦西半徑。 史瓦西是發現 這個半徑有多重要的人。 這個半徑是虛擬的,不是真實的; 黑洞沒有大小。 那它為什麼如此重要? 是因為它告訴我們 任何物體都能夠變成黑洞; 包括你、你的鄰居、你的手機、 觀眾席都可能變成黑洞, 只要你能想辦法把它壓縮到
At that point, what's going to happen? At that point gravity wins. Gravity wins over all other known forces. And the object is forced to continue to collapse to an infinitely small object. And then it's a black hole. So, if I were to compress the Earth down to the size of a sugar cube, it would become a black hole, because the size of a sugar cube is its Schwarzschild radius.
史瓦西半徑的大小即可。 屆時會怎樣? 屆時引力就贏了。 引力會勝過所有其他已知的力。 因此,物體被迫持續塌陷, 成為無限小的物體。 接著,就成了黑洞。 所以,如果我把地球 壓縮到方糖的大小, 它就會變成黑洞, 因為方糖的大小 就是地球的史瓦西半徑。
Now, the key here is to figure out what that Schwarzschild radius is. And it turns out that it's actually pretty simple to figure out. It depends only on the mass of the object. Bigger objects have bigger Schwarzschild radii. Smaller objects have smaller Schwarzschild radii. So, if I were to take the sun and compress it down to the scale of the University of Oxford, it would become a black hole.
這裡的關鍵在於 找出史瓦西半徑是多少。 結果發現,其實很容易找出來。 史瓦西半徑只和物體的質量有關。 較大的物體,史瓦西半徑也較大。 較小的物體,史瓦西半徑也較小。 如果我把太陽 壓縮到牛津大學的尺寸, 它就會變成黑洞。
So, now we know what a Schwarzschild radius is. And it's actually quite a useful concept, because it tells us not only when a black hole will form, but it also gives us the key elements for the proof of a black hole. I only need two things. I need to understand the mass of the object I'm claiming is a black hole, and what its Schwarzschild radius is. And since the mass determines the Schwarzschild radius, there is actually only one thing I really need to know.
現在我們知道 史瓦西半徑是什麼了。 它其實是個很有用的觀念, 因為它不僅能告訴我們 黑洞何時會形成, 也給了我們證明 黑洞存在的關鍵元素。 我只需要兩樣東西: 宣稱是黑洞的物體, 我需要知道它的質量, 還有它的史瓦西半徑。 因為史瓦西半徑是由質量來決定, 其實我只需要知道一樣即可。 因此,我若要說服你有個黑洞存在,
So, my job in convincing you that there is a black hole is to show that there is some object that's confined to within its Schwarzschild radius. And your job today is to be skeptical. Okay, so, I'm going to talk about no ordinary black hole; I'm going to talk about supermassive black holes.
我就得證明有某個物體 被局限在它的史瓦西半徑中。 今天各位就儘管抱持懷疑的態度。 好,我要談的不是平凡的黑洞, 而是超大質量黑洞。
So, I wanted to say a few words about what an ordinary black hole is, as if there could be such a thing as an ordinary black hole. An ordinary black hole is thought to be the end state of a really massive star's life. So, if a star starts its life off with much more mass than the mass of the Sun, it's going to end its life by exploding and leaving behind these beautiful supernova remnants that we see here. And inside that supernova remnant is going to be a little black hole that has a mass roughly three times the mass of the Sun. On an astronomical scale that's a very small black hole.
我想要簡單說一下 平凡的黑洞是什麼, 講得好像黑洞可以很平凡。 一般認為,大質量的天體 在滅亡後的狀態 就是平凡的黑洞。 如果有一個天體在生命之初的質量 就有比太陽大很多, 它滅亡的方式會是爆炸, 並留下這些美麗的超級新星殘骸。 在這些超級新星殘骸中, 會有一個小黑洞, 質量大約是太陽的三倍。 從天文學的角度來看, 這個黑洞算非常小。
Now, what I want to talk about are the supermassive black holes. And the supermassive black holes are thought to reside at the center of galaxies. And this beautiful picture taken with the Hubble Space Telescope shows you that galaxies come in all shapes and sizes. There are big ones. There are little ones. Almost every object in that picture there is a galaxy. And there is a very nice spiral up in the upper left. And there are a hundred billion stars in that galaxy, just to give you a sense of scale. And all the light that we see from a typical galaxy, which is the kind of galaxies that we're seeing here, comes from the light from the stars. So, we see the galaxy because of the star light.
我想要談的是超大質量黑洞。 一般認為超大質量黑洞 位在銀河的中心。 這張用哈伯太空望遠鏡 拍攝的美麗照片 讓我們看到有各種 形狀、大小的銀河。 有大的、有小的。 在那張照片上幾乎 每個物體都是一個銀河。 為了讓你對規模有個概念, 左上角有個漂亮的螺旋 是個有千億個天體的銀河。 而我們看到來自典型銀河的光, 比如我們在這裡所看見的銀河, 是來自恆星的光。 我們能看見銀河是因為恆星的光。
Now, there are a few relatively exotic galaxies. I like to call these the prima donna of the galaxy world, because they are kind of show offs. And we call them active galactic nuclei. And we call them that because their nucleus, or their center, are very active. So, at the center there, that's actually where most of the starlight comes out from. And yet, what we actually see is light that can't be explained by the starlight. It's way more energetic. In fact, in a few examples it's like the ones that we're seeing here. There are also jets emanating out from the center. Again, a source of energy that's very difficult to explain if you just think that galaxies are composed of stars.
有少數銀河,相對之下很奇特。 我想把它們稱為 銀河世界的女主角, 因為它們有點愛現。 我們稱它們為活躍星系核。 會這麼稱呼是因為它們的核, 或說它們的中心,非常活躍。 其實大部分的星光來自這個中心。 但,我們看到的光 其實無法用星光來解釋。 這些光的能量更強。 事實上,在少數例子中, 就像這裡看到的這些。 從中心還會有噴出物。 如果你把銀河想成是恆星所構成的, 這個能量來源也非常難解釋。
So, what people have thought is that perhaps there are supermassive black holes which matter is falling on to. So, you can't see the black hole itself, but you can convert the gravitational energy of the black hole into the light we see. So, there is the thought that maybe supermassive black holes exist at the center of galaxies. But it's a kind of indirect argument.
所以有人認為也許 有超大質量黑洞在那裡, 物質會掉進去。 你無法看見黑洞本身, 但你能把黑洞的引力 轉換成為可見光。 所以會有人認為在銀河的中心 有超大質量黑洞存在。 但這種論點沒有直接證據。
Nonetheless, it's given rise to the notion that maybe it's not just these prima donnas that have these supermassive black holes, but rather all galaxies might harbor these supermassive black holes at their centers. And if that's the case -- and this is an example of a normal galaxy; what we see is the star light. And if there is a supermassive black hole, what we need to assume is that it's a black hole on a diet. Because that is the way to suppress the energetic phenomena that we see in active galactic nuclei.
無論如何,這就帶出了一個想法: 也許不是只有這些女主角 才有超大質量黑洞, 而是所有的銀河在中心處 都有這種超大質量黑洞。 如果真是這樣…… 這個例子是正常的銀河, 我們看見的光都是星光。 若有個超大質量黑洞存在, 我們就得假設照片裡 是個在節食的黑洞, 因為那樣才能壓抑 我們在活躍星系核 看到的能量現象。
If we're going to look for these stealth black holes at the center of galaxies, the best place to look is in our own galaxy, our Milky Way. And this is a wide field picture taken of the center of the Milky Way. And what we see is a line of stars. And that is because we live in a galaxy which has a flattened, disk-like structure. And we live in the middle of it, so when we look towards the center, we see this plane which defines the plane of the galaxy, or line that defines the plane of the galaxy.
如果我們要去找 這些躲在銀河中心處的黑洞, 最理想的目標就是 在我們自己的銀河中尋找。 這是張廣視野的照片, 照片上的是銀河的中心。 我們看到的是一列恆星。 那是因為我們所處的銀河 結構是扁盤狀的。 我們置身其中,看向它的中心時, 會看到定義銀河平面的這個平面, 或者定義銀河平面的那條線。
Now, the advantage of studying our own galaxy is it's simply the closest example of the center of a galaxy that we're ever going to have, because the next closest galaxy is 100 times further away. So, we can see far more detail in our galaxy than anyplace else. And as you'll see in a moment, the ability to see detail is key to this experiment.
研究我們自己的銀河有個好處, 因為這是離我們最近的銀河中心, 第二近的銀河距離還要遠一百倍。 所以,在我們的銀河中能看到的 細節會比其他地方多很多。 等下就會看到, 這個實驗的關鍵 在於看見細節的能力。
So, how do astronomers prove that there is a lot of mass inside a small volume? Which is the job that I have to show you today. And the tool that we use is to watch the way stars orbit the black hole. Stars will orbit the black hole in the very same way that planets orbit the sun. It's the gravitational pull that makes these things orbit. If there were no massive objects these things would go flying off, or at least go at a much slower rate because all that determines how they go around is how much mass is inside its orbit.
所以天文學家要如何證明 在很小的體積中有很大的質量? 這就是今天我要展示給各位看的。 我們用的工具, 是觀察恆星繞行黑洞的方式。 恆星繞行黑洞的方式 和行星繞行太陽的方式一樣。 是引力讓它們繞行。 如果沒有大質量物體, 它們就會飛走, 或至少行進速度慢很多, 因為決定它們如何繞行的 就只是軌道內有多少質量。
So, this is great, because remember my job is to show there is a lot of mass inside a small volume. So, if I know how fast it goes around, I know the mass. And if I know the scale of the orbit I know the radius. So, I want to see the stars that are as close to the center of the galaxy as possible. Because I want to show there is a mass inside as small a region as possible. So, this means that I want to see a lot of detail. And that's the reason that for this experiment we've used the world's largest telescope.
這樣很好,因為我就是要說明 在小體積內有大質量。 若我知道繞行速度, 就能知道質量。 若我知道軌道的大小, 就能知道半徑。 所以我會想研究的恆星, 是越靠近銀河的中心越理想。 因為我想證明在小區域內 有大質量,且那個區域越小越好。 這就表示我想要看到很多細節。 這就是為什麼我們把世界上 最大的望遠鏡用在這個實驗上。
This is the Keck observatory. It hosts two telescopes with a mirror 10 meters, which is roughly the diameter of a tennis court. Now, this is wonderful, because the campaign promise of large telescopes is that is that the bigger the telescope, the smaller the detail that we can see. But it turns out these telescopes, or any telescope on the ground has had a little bit of a challenge living up to this campaign promise. And that is because of the atmosphere. Atmosphere is great for us; it allows us to survive here on Earth. But it's relatively challenging for astronomers who want to look through the atmosphere to astronomical sources.
這是凱克天文台,有兩座望遠鏡, 搭配十公尺的鏡子, 大約等同於網球場的寬度。 這很棒, 因為大型望遠鏡 宣稱尺寸越大, 看到的細節就越細。 但結果發現,這些 或地面上的任何望遠鏡 或多或少難以實現這承諾。 原因是大氣。 對我們來說,大氣很棒, 它讓我們能在地球上生存。 但對於想要穿過大氣 去看天體的天文學家而言, 就成了障礙。
So, to give you a sense of what this is like, it's actually like looking at a pebble at the bottom of a stream. Looking at the pebble on the bottom of the stream, the stream is continuously moving and turbulent, and that makes it very difficult to see the pebble on the bottom of the stream. Very much in the same way, it's very difficult to see astronomical sources, because of the atmosphere that's continuously moving by.
用個比喻讓各位了解, 感覺就像是去看溪底的小卵石。 看溪底的小卵石, 溪流持續在流動,起起伏伏, 因此很難看見溪底的小卵石。 非常類似的道理, 我們很難看見天文源頭, 因為大氣持續流動。
So, I've spent a lot of my career working on ways to correct for the atmosphere, to give us a cleaner view. And that buys us about a factor of 20. And I think all of you can agree that if you can figure out how to improve life by a factor of 20, you've probably improved your lifestyle by a lot, say your salary, you'd notice, or your kids, you'd notice.
職涯裡,我投入大把時間 研究如何針對大氣做校調, 以看得更清楚。 結果讓我們有二十倍的改善。 我想大家都同意, 若你有辦法將生活改善二十倍, 你的生活方式可能會大大改善, 比如你的薪水或你的孩子, 都是你能注意得到的改善。
And this animation here shows you one example of the techniques that we use, called adaptive optics. You're seeing an animation that goes between an example of what you would see if you don't use this technique -- in other words, just a picture that shows the stars -- and the box is centered on the center of the galaxy, where we think the black hole is. So, without this technology you can't see the stars. With this technology all of a sudden you can see it. This technology works by introducing a mirror into the telescope optics system that's continuously changing to counteract what the atmosphere is doing to you. So, it's kind of like very fancy eyeglasses for your telescope.
這個動畫是我們使用 「自調光學」技術呈現出來的例子。 這個動畫展現的是 不用這項技術會看到的景象 ——換言之,就是一個大約的樣子—— 轉換到用這項技術後, 清楚看見銀河中心的方格, 即我們認為的黑洞所在。 所以,沒有這項技術, 你就看不見那些恆星。 有了這項技術,突然就能看見了。 這項技術的原理是將一面鏡子 放入望遠鏡光學系統中, 它會不變改變, 抵消大氣對你產生的影響。 就像是你的望遠鏡 配戴了一副很炫的眼鏡。
Now, in the next few slides I'm just going to focus on that little square there. So, we're only going to look at the stars inside that small square, although we've looked at all of them. So, I want to see how these things have moved. And over the course of this experiment, these stars have moved a tremendous amount. So, we've been doing this experiment for 15 years, and we see the stars go all the way around.
接下來的幾張投影片 會著重在這個小方形上。 我們已經看到所有恆星, 但現在只要看在小方形裡的, 我想要看它們如何移動。 在這個實驗的過程中, 這些恆星移動的距離非常大。 這個實驗進行了十五年, 我們已經看到恆星繞了一整圈。
Now, most astronomers have a favorite star, and mine today is a star that's labeled up there, SO-2. Absolutely my favorite star in the world. And that's because it goes around in only 15 years. And to give you a sense of how short that is, the sun takes 200 million years to go around the center of the galaxy. Stars that we knew about before, that were as close to the center of the galaxy as possible, take 500 years. And this one, this one goes around in a human lifetime. That's kind of profound, in a way.
大部分的天文學家 都有個最愛的恆星, 今天我最愛的是標記為 SO-2 的那一個。 世界上我最喜歡的恆星絕對是它。 因為它只花了十五年就繞了一圈。 讓各位更清楚十五年有多短, 太陽繞著銀河的中心 轉一圈要兩億年。 以前我們所知最靠近 銀河中心的恆星 也要花五百年。 這個恆星可以在人類 一生內就繞一圈回來。 那在某種意義上是挺深的。 但這是實驗的關鍵。
But it's the key to this experiment. The orbit tells me how much mass is inside a very small radius. So, next we see a picture here that shows you before this experiment the size to which we could confine the mass of the center of the galaxy. What we knew before is that there was four million times the mass of the sun inside that circle. And as you can see, there was a lot of other stuff inside that circle. You can see a lot of stars. So, there was actually lots of alternatives to the idea that there was a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, because you could put a lot of stuff in there.
這個軌道讓我知道 在極小的半徑內有多少質量。 接著,從這張照片 可以看到在實驗之前, 我們能將銀河中心的質量 局限在多大的範圍內。 我們以前知道,在那個圓圈中間 有太陽四百萬倍的質量, 你可以看到, 圓圈中還有許多其他東西。 可以看到很多恆星。 所以,其實還有很多其他可能, 不見得在銀河中心一定 有一個超大質量黑洞, 因為裡面可能有很多別的。
But with this experiment, we've confined that same mass to a much smaller volume that's 10,000 times smaller. And because of that, we've been able to show that there is a supermassive black hole there. To give you a sense of how small that size is, that's the size of our solar system. So, we're cramming four million times the mass of the sun into that small volume.
但在這個實驗中, 我們能把同樣的質量 局限在更小更小的體積中, 小了足足一萬倍。 因此,我們能證明 那裡有一個超大質量黑洞。 讓你更清楚那是多小, 那就是我們太陽系的大小。 所以我們是把四百萬倍的太陽質量 塞到那個小體積中。
Now, truth in advertising. Right? I have told you my job is to get it down to the Schwarzchild radius. And the truth is, I'm not quite there. But we actually have no alternative today to explaining this concentration of mass. And, in fact, it's the best evidence we have to date for not only existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of our own galaxy, but any in our universe. So, what next? I actually think this is about as good as we're going to do with today's technology, so let's move on with the problem.
廣告中也有事實,對吧? 我說過,我的工作是要 將它縮小到史瓦西半徑。 事實上,我還沒做到。 但對於這種質量的集中現象, 現今已經沒有其他可能的解釋。 事實上,它是我們至今的最佳證據, 不僅能證明有超大質量黑洞 存在於我們自己銀河的中心, 還能證明在宇宙任何銀河都有。 所以接下來呢? 其實我認為以現今的科技, 已無法再做得更好, 所以我們就談別的吧。
So, what I want to tell you, very briefly, is a few examples of the excitement of what we can do today at the center of the galaxy, now that we know that there is, or at least we believe, that there is a supermassive black hole there. And the fun phase of this experiment is, while we've tested some of our ideas about the consequences of a supermassive black hole being at the center of our galaxy, almost every single one has been inconsistent with what we actually see. And that's the fun.
我想要用幾個例子,簡短告訴各位 現今我們可以在銀河中心 做什麼有趣的事, 因為我們已經知道, 或至少我們相信, 那裡有個超大質量黑洞。 這個實驗很有趣的階段 是當我們測試一些想法, 關於銀河中心有個超大質量黑洞 會有什麼後果的想法時, 我們發現幾乎每個想法 都和我們實際所見到的不一致。 這就是有趣之處。
So, let me give you the two examples. You can ask, "What do you expect for the old stars, stars that have been around the center of the galaxy for a long time, they've had plenty of time to interact with the black hole." What you expect there is that old stars should be very clustered around the black hole. You should see a lot of old stars next to that black hole.
讓我舉兩個例子。 你可以問:「你預期老恆星會怎樣? 在銀河中心附近已經很久的恆星, 它們有很多時間 和黑洞發生交互作用。」 你會預期老恆星應該會 非常集中在黑洞附近。 你應該會看到黑洞旁邊 有許多老恆星。 相對的,年輕的恆星,
Likewise, for the young stars, or in contrast, the young stars, they just should not be there. A black hole does not make a kind neighbor to a stellar nursery. To get a star to form, you need a big ball of gas and dust to collapse. And it's a very fragile entity. And what does the big black hole do? It strips that gas cloud apart. It pulls much stronger on one side than the other and the cloud is stripped apart. In fact, we anticipated that star formation shouldn't proceed in that environment.
它們不應該在那裡。 黑洞不是孕育恆星的好鄰居。 恆星的形成需要 大量氣體和塵埃往中心塌陷。 它是非常脆弱的實體。 而大黑洞會怎樣? 它會把氣體雲扯開。 它在一邊的拉力遠大於另一邊, 因此氣體雲會被扯開。 事實上,我們預期 在那個環境中不會有恆星形成,
So, you shouldn't see young stars. So, what do we see? Using observations that are not the ones I've shown you today, we can actually figure out which ones are old and which ones are young. The old ones are red. The young ones are blue. And the yellow ones, we don't know yet. So, you can already see the surprise. There is a dearth of old stars. There is an abundance of young stars, so it's the exact opposite of the prediction.
不該看見年輕的恆星。 然而我們看見了什麼? 使用一些我今天沒有 給各位看的觀察資料, 我們可以辨視出 哪些恆星老、哪些年輕。 老恆星是紅色的。 年輕恆星是藍色的。 我們還不清楚黃色的是什麼。 所以,已經可看到意料之外的現象。 老恆星不多,年輕恆星很多, 和預測完全相反。
So, this is the fun part. And in fact, today, this is what we're trying to figure out, this mystery of how do you get -- how do you resolve this contradiction. So, in fact, my graduate students are, at this very moment, today, at the telescope, in Hawaii, making observations to get us hopefully to the next stage, where we can address this question of why are there so many young stars, and so few old stars. To make further progress we really need to look at the orbits of stars that are much further away. To do that we'll probably need much more sophisticated technology than we have today.
這就是有趣的部分。 我們正在努力想通這一點, 這個謎題在於要如何解決這種矛盾。 事實上,我的研究生此時此刻 就在夏威夷的望遠鏡前 進行觀察,希望能 讓我們邁入下一階段, 我們才可以處理為什麼 有這麼多年輕恆星 卻沒幾個老恆星的問題。 為了未來的進展, 我們需要去研究更遙遠恆星的軌道。 若要做到這一點, 我們需要比現今更精密的技術。
Because, in truth, while I said we're correcting for the Earth's atmosphere, we actually only correct for half the errors that are introduced. We do this by shooting a laser up into the atmosphere, and what we think we can do is if we shine a few more that we can correct the rest. So this is what we hope to do in the next few years. And on a much longer time scale, what we hope to do is build even larger telescopes, because, remember, bigger is better in astronomy.
因為,雖說我們針對 地球大氣做了修正, 其實我們只修正了一半的錯誤。 我們的做法是將雷射射入大氣中, 而我認為我們能做的 是再多發射一些, 把剩下的錯誤修正,這是我們 接下來幾年希望做到的目標。 更長遠來看, 我們希望打造更大的望遠鏡, 因為,別忘了, 在天文學上越大越好。
So, we want to build a 30 meter telescope. And with this telescope we should be able to see stars that are even closer to the center of the galaxy. And we hope to be able to test some of Einstein's theories of general relativity, some ideas in cosmology about how galaxies form. So, we think the future of this experiment is quite exciting.
我們想打造三十公尺的望遠鏡。 有了它,我們應該能看見 更靠近銀河中心的恆星。 我們希望能測試一些 愛因斯坦的廣義相對論理論, 在宇宙論中一些 關於銀河形成的想法。 所以,我們認為這項實驗的未來 很讓人興奮。
So, in conclusion, I'm going to show you an animation that basically shows you how these orbits have been moving, in three dimensions. And I hope, if nothing else, I've convinced you that, one, we do in fact have a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. And this means that these things do exist in our universe, and we have to contend with this, we have to explain how you can get these objects in our physical world.
我要給大家看一支動畫作結, 基本上,它會用 3D 方式呈現 這些軌道如何移動。 我希望, 至少我能說服大家,在銀河中心 的確有一個超大質量黑洞。 那就表示我們的宇宙中 真的有這種黑洞, 而我們必須要提出論據, 解釋在我們的物理世界中 怎麼會有這些物體存在。
Second, we've been able to look at that interaction of how supermassive black holes interact, and understand, maybe, the role in which they play in shaping what galaxies are, and how they work.
第二,我們能夠去研究 超大質量黑洞的交互作用方式, 也許還可以了解它們 在銀河形成當中所扮演的角色, 及它們的運作方式。
And last but not least, none of this would have happened without the advent of the tremendous progress that's been made on the technology front. And we think that this is a field that is moving incredibly fast, and holds a lot in store for the future. Thanks very much. (Applause)
最後,也很重要的, 這一切之所以能夠實現, 是因為科技前線的重大進展。 我們認為這個領域的進展非常快, 且對於未來會有很多貢獻。 非常謝謝大家。 (掌聲)