I have a confession to make. I am addicted to adventure, and as a young boy, I would rather look outside the window at the birds in the trees and the sky than looking at that two-dimensional chalky blackboard where time stands still and even sometimes dies. My teachers thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't paying attention in class. They didn't find anything specifically wrong with me, other than being slightly dyslexic because I'm a lefty. But they didn't test for curiosity. Curiosity, to me, is about our connection with the world, with the universe. It's about seeing what's around that next coral head or what's around that next tree, and learning more not only about our environment but about ourselves.
我必須向你們坦白一件事。 我對冒險成癮, 打從還是個小男孩, 我就寧可看看窗外 樹上的小鳥及天空, 也不想看兩度空間的黑板, 那裡時間像靜止般, 有時甚至像死了一樣。 我的老師認為我有問題, 因為我上課都不專心。 他們沒找出我到底哪裡有問題, 除了有一點閱讀障礙, 因為我是左撇子。 但是他們沒有測驗好奇心。 好奇心,對我而言, 是我們與世界, 與天地萬物的連結。 它就是去看那塊珊瑚丘旁邊有什麼, 或那棵樹旁邊有什麼, 及學習到更多不僅是關於環境 還有關於我們本身的東西。
Now, my dream of dreams, I want to go explore the oceans of Mars, but until we can go there, I think the oceans still hold quite a few secrets. As a matter of fact, if you take our planet as the oasis in space that it is and dissect it into a living space, the ocean represents over 3.4 billion cubic kilometers of volume, within which we've explored less than five percent. And I look at this, and I go, well, there are tools to go deeper, longer and further: submarines, ROVs, even Scuba diving. But if we're going to explore the final frontier on this planet, we need to live there. We need to build a log cabin, if you will, at the bottom of the sea.
那麼,我夢想中的夢想, 我想去火星上的海洋探險, 但在我們能去之前, 我想地球的海洋仍然保有 很多秘密。 事實上, 如果你把我們的地球當做 太空中的綠洲,它的確也是, 然後分出可居住空間, 海洋占了超過 34 億 立方公里的體積, 我們卻只探索了不到百分之五。 我看著這個,然後我想,嗯, 有很多工具讓我們能潛得 更深、更久及更遠: 潛水艇、遙控水下載具、甚至是潛水設備。 但是如果我們要探索地球上 最後一塊未知領域, 我們得住在那裡。 如果可以,我們得蓋一座木屋 在海洋底部。
And so there was a great curiosity in my soul when I went to go visit a TED [Prize winner] by the name of Dr. Sylvia Earle. Maybe you've heard of her. Two years ago, she was staked out at the last undersea marine laboratory to try and save it, to try and petition for us not to scrap it and bring it back on land. We've only had about a dozen or so scientific labs at the bottom of the sea. There's only one left in the world: it's nine miles offshore and 65 feet down. It's called Aquarius. Aquarius, in some fashion, is a dinosaur, an ancient robot chained to the bottom, this Leviathan. In other ways, it's a legacy. And so with that visit, I realized that my time is short if I wanted to experience what it was like to become an aquanaut.
所以我靈魂中有強大的好奇心, 在我去拜訪一位 TED 大獎得主時, 她是席薇亞·厄爾博士。 你們大概聽過她。 二年前,她堅守在 最後一個海底的海洋實驗室, 試著要挽救它, 也試著替我們請願 不要拆毀它, 並將它運回陸地上。 我們只有大約一打左右的 科學實驗室在海底。 現在全世界只剩下一個了: 它離岸九哩遠, 在 65 呎深的地方。 它叫寶瓶座。 寶瓶座從某些方面看, 就像恐龍, 一個年代久遠的機器人 鏈接著海底 這個鱷魚怪物。 (譯註:又稱利維坦,聖經中的海底怪物) 但另一方面,它又是經典。 所以那次拜訪讓我領悟到 我的時間緊迫, 如果我想體驗 成為海底觀察員是什麼感覺。
When we swam towards this after many moons of torture and two years of preparation, this habitat waiting to invite us was like a new home. And the point of going down to and living at this habitat was not to stay inside. It wasn't about living at something the size of a school bus. It was about giving us the luxury of time outside to wander, to explore, to understand more about this oceanic final frontier.
我們游泳接近這個居住艙, 當時才結束幾個月的折磨 及兩年的準備, 這個居住艙等著邀請我們, 就像我們的新家一般。 我們要下去並生活在 這個居住艙的目的 不是待在裡面就好。 不是為了要生活在 校車般大小的空間裡, 而是為了給我們充裕的時間 在外面漫遊、探索, 及更加瞭解這塊 海洋的最後未知領域。
We had megafauna come and visit us. This spotted eagle ray is a fairly common sight in the oceans. But why this is so important, why this picture is up, is because this particular animal brought his friends around, and instead of being the pelagic animals that they were, they started getting curious about us, these new strangers that were moving into the neighborhood, doing things with plankton. We were studying all sorts of animals and critters, and they got closer and closer to us, and because of the luxury of time, these animals, these residents of the coral reef, were starting to get used to us, and these pelagics that normal travel through stopped. This particular animal actually circled for 31 full days during our mission. So mission 31 wasn't so much about breaking records. It was about that human-ocean connection.
我們有大型動物群來拜訪我們。 這種雪花鴨嘴燕魟在海裡還挺常見。 但是為什麼這很重要? 為什麼要放這張相片? 因為這種特殊的動物 呼朋引伴來看我們, 而且牠們拋棄了深海動物的身分, 牠們開始對我們起了好奇心, 就是我們這些剛剛搬來的新陌生人, 不知道跟浮游生物一起在搞什麼。 我們在研究各式的動物和怪物, 而且牠們離我們愈來愈近, 就是因為有充裕的時間, 這些動物,這些住在珊瑚礁的居民, 開始習慣了我們, 而且這些通常穿來穿去的 深海動物都停下來了。 這隻特殊的動物其實還繞著我們轉, 在我們的任務期間, 轉了整整 31 天。 所以任務 31 並不是 為了要打破紀錄, 而是為了人類與海洋的連結。
Because of the luxury of time, we were able to study animals such as sharks and grouper in aggregations that we've never seen before. It's like seeing dogs and cats behaving well together. Even being able to commune with animals that are much larger than us, such as this endangered goliath grouper who only still resides in the Florida Keys. Of course, just like any neighbor, after a while, if they get tired, the goliath grouper barks at us, and this bark is so powerful that it actually stuns its prey before it aspirates it all within a split second. For us, it's just telling us to go back into the habitat and leave them alone.
因為有充裕的時間,我們能研究動物, 像鯊魚及石斑魚群集在一起, 這種現象前所未見。 這就好像看到狗和貓相處良好一般。 甚至還能與比我們 大很多的動物生活在一起, 譬如這種瀕臨絕種的伊氏石斑魚, 仍只棲息在佛羅里達礁島群。 當然,就像任何鄰居, 過一會兒,如果牠們煩了, 伊氏石斑魚就對我們咆哮, 而且咆哮地很大聲, 其實會震昏獵物, 然後以迅雷不及掩耳的速度 把獵物吸入。 對我們, 牠只是告訴我們回去居住艙, 不要打攪牠們。
Now, this wasn't just about adventure. There was actually a serious note to it. We did a lot of science, and again, because of the luxury of time, we were able to do over three years of science in 31 days. In this particular case, we were using a PAM, or, let me just see if I can get this straight, a Pulse Amplitude Modulated Fluorometer. And our scientists from FIU, MIT, and from Northeastern were able to get a gauge for what coral reefs do when we're not around. The Pulse Amplitude Modulated Fluorometer, or PAM, gauges the fluorescence of corals as it pertains to pollutants in the water as well as climate change-related issues. We used all sorts of other cutting-edge tools, such as this sonde, or what I like to call the sponge proctologist, whereby the sonde itself tests for metabolism rates in what in this particular case is a barrel sponge, or the redwoods of the [ocean]. And this gives us a much better gauge of what's happening underwater with regard to climate change-related issues, and how the dynamics of that affect us here on land. And finally, we looked at predator-prey behavior. And predator-prey behavior is an interesting thing, because as we take away some of the predators on these coral reefs around the world, the prey, or the forage fish, act very differently. What we realized is not only do they stop taking care of the reef, darting in, grabbing a little bit of algae and going back into their homes, they start spreading out and disappearing from those particular coral reefs. Well, within that 31 days, we were able to generate over 10 scientific papers on each one of these topics.
那麼,這不只是冒險而已。 這其實還有很嚴肅的意義。 我們作很多科學,再強調一次, 因為有很充裕的時間, 我們能把原本要超過三年 才作得出的科學 在 31 天內作完。 在這個特別的實例,我們用一組 PAM, 全名是,讓我看看能不能說對, 脈波振幅調變螢光計。 我們從佛羅里達國際大學、 麻省理工學院 及東北大學來的科學家 能估算珊瑚礁 在我們遠離時的動態。 脈波振幅調變螢光計, 或簡稱 PAM, 能量測珊瑚發出的螢光, 因為它與水中的汙染物相關, 也與氣候變化有關的問題相關。 我們還使用各種不同的先進儀器, 例如這個探測器, 我喜歡稱它為海綿的肛門大夫, 這個探測器本身是測量代謝率的, 在這裡看到的是測桶狀海綿代謝率, 又稱為海底紅杉。 這讓我們能更準確地測出 水面下到底發生了什麼事, 在與氣候變遷有關的問題發生時, 及其動態如何 影響在陸地上的我們。 最後,我們還看 捕食者和被食者的行為。 捕食者和被食者的行為很有趣, 因為如果我們取走一些 世界各地珊瑚礁群上的捕食者, 這些稱為糧粖魚的被食者 行為會大大不同。 我們瞭解到 牠們不但會停止照顧珊瑚礁, 就是鑽進去抓一點點海藻 然後回家, 牠們還會開始四散, 在這些特別的珊瑚礁裡消失。 嗯,在那 31 天, 我們產出的資料 能針對上述每一項專題 寫出超過十篇的科學論文。
But the point of adventure is not only to learn, it's to be able to share that knowledge with the world, and with that, thanks to a couple of engineers at MIT, we were able to use a prototype camera called the Edgertronic to capture slow-motion video, up to 20,000 frames per second in a little box that's worth 3,000 dollars. It's available to every one of us. And that particular camera gives us an insight into what fairly common animals do but we can't even see it in the blink of an eye. Let me show you a quick video of what this camera does. You can see the silky bubble come out of our hard hats. It gives us an insight into some of the animals that we were sitting right next to for 31 days and never normally would have paid attention to, such as hermit crabs. Now, using a cutting-edge piece of technology that's not really meant for the oceans is not always easy. We sometimes had to put the camera upside down, cordon it back to the lab, and actually man the trigger from the lab itself. But what this gives us is the foresight to look at and analyze in scientific and engineering terms some of the most amazing behavior that the human eye just can't pick up, such as this manta shrimp trying to catch its prey, within about .3 seconds. That punch is as strong as a .22 caliber bullet, and if you ever try to catch a bullet in mid-flight with your eye, impossible. But now we can see things such as these Christmas tree worms pulling in and fanning out in a way that the eye just can't capture, or in this case, a fish throwing up grains of sand. This is an actual sailfin goby, and if you look at it in real time, it actually doesn't even show its fanning motion because it's so quick.
但是冒險的目的不只是為了學習, 還能將知識分享給全世界, 在這一點上,就要謝謝 麻省理工的兩位工程師, 我們才能使用一種稱為 愛吉 (Edgertronic) 的原型相機 來捕捉慢動作影像, 每秒可顯示高達二萬影格 (fps), 這個小小的盒子 值三千美元。 現在大家都能買到。 那個特別的相機讓我們仔細觀察 這些還挺常見的動物在做什麼, 但我們平常卻無法用肉眼看到。 讓我播一段短片 看看這台相機能做什麼。 你能看見細小的泡沫 從我們的鋼盔中冒出。 它讓我們仔細觀察 一些就在我們身邊的動物 整整 31 天, 而這些動物我們平常絕看不上眼, 例如寄居蟹。 現在,要使用最新科技產品, 卻不是專為海洋工作設計的, 並不太容易。 我們有時候必須把相機顛倒放, 密封帶回實驗室, 並真的找人看守著 實驗室裡的開關。 但是這讓我們能 預先查看及分析 科學及工程學上的專有名詞, 如何形容一些非常奇妙的行為, 是人眼不能看見的, 例如這隻瀨尿蝦 正想要抓獵物, 時間不到 0.3 秒。 那一擊的力道強如一顆口徑 .22 子彈, 如果你曾嘗試以肉眼抓住一顆 飛行中的子彈,你知道那不可能。 但是現在我們可以看到 像是這些聖誕樹管蟲 收進去再扇形展開的景象, 肉眼就是無法捕捉, 或是像這個例子, 一條魚吐出沙礫。 這是四眼蝦虎的本尊, 如果你當場觀察牠, 你甚至看不到牠展扇的動作, 因為太快了。
One of the most precious gifts that we had underwater is that we had WiFi, and for 31 days straight we were able to connect with the world in real time from the bottom of the sea and share all of these experiences. Quite literally right there I am Skyping in the classroom with one of the six continents and some of the 70,000 students that we connected every single day to some of these experiences. As a matter of fact, I'm showing a picture that I took with my smartphone from underwater of a goliath grouper laying on the bottom. We had never seen that before.
我們在水下最珍貴的禮物 是能無線上網, 整整 31 天我們都能與世界連線, 即時從海底傳輸 並分享這些經驗。 真的可以說 我是從教室 與六大洲 及七萬名學生即時通訊, 我們每天都用視訊分享這些經驗。 事實上,我要展示一張相片, 是我用智慧型手機在水下拍的, 一條鞍帶石斑魚躺在海底。 我們之前從沒看過。
And I dream of the day that we have underwater cities, and maybe, just maybe, if we push the boundaries of adventure and knowledge, and we share that knowledge with others out there, we can solve all sorts of problems. My grandfather used to say, "People protect what they love." My father, "How can people protect what they don't understand?" And I've thought about this my whole life. Nothing is impossible. We need to dream, we need to be creative, and we all need to have an adventure in order to create miracles in the darkest of times. And whether it's about climate change or eradicating poverty or giving back to future generations what we've taken for granted, it's about adventure. And who knows, maybe there will be underwater cities, and maybe some of you will become the future aquanauts.
我夢想著有一天 我們會有水下都市, 也許,只是也許,如果我們擴展 冒險及知識的疆界, 而且我們與別人分享那些知識, 我們就能解決所有的問題。 我的祖父常這麼說: 「人們保護其心所愛。」 我的父親則說:「人要如何保護 他們不懂的事?」 我畢生都在思考這個問題。 凡事都有可能。 我們必須夢想,我們必須有創造力, 我們也都必須冒險, 才能在最黑暗的時期創造奇蹟。 無論這是不是與氣候變遷有關, 或是要根除貧窮, 或是要還給未來的子孫 我們視為理所當然的, 這其實是冒險。 誰知道呢?說不定就會有水下都市, 說不定你們之中, 會成為未來的海底觀察員。
Thank you very much.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)