Space, we all know what it looks like. We've been surrounded by images of space our whole lives, from the speculative images of science fiction to the inspirational visions of artists to the increasingly beautiful pictures made possible by complex technologies. But whilst we have an overwhelmingly vivid visual understanding of space, we have no sense of what space sounds like.
Svemir, svima nam je poznato kako izgleda. Okruženi smo slikama svemira čitavog života, od spekulativnih slika naučne fantastike preko inspirativnih umetničkih vizija do sve većeg broja prelepih slika koje su omogućene kompleksnom tehnologijom. Ali dok imamo neodoljivo živopisno vizuelno razumevanje svemira, nemamo osećaj kako svemir zvuči.
And indeed, most people associate space with silence. But the story of how we came to understand the universe is just as much a story of listening as it is by looking. And yet despite this, hardly any of us have ever heard space. How many of you here could describe the sound of a single planet or star? Well in case you've ever wondered, this is what the Sun sounds like.
I zaista, većina ljudi povezuje svemir sa tišinom. Priča o tome kako smo došli do razumevanja svemira je podjednako priča o slušanju kao i o gledanju. I uprkos tome, teško da je iko od nas ikada čuo svemir. Koliko od vas prisutnih može opisati zvuk jedne planete ili zvezde? U slučaju da ste se nekada zapitali, ovako zvuči Sunce.
(Static) (Crackling) (Static) (Crackling)
(Šum) (Pucketanje) (Šum) (Pucketanje)
This is the planet Jupiter.
Ovo je zvuk planete Jupiter.
(Soft crackling)
(Blago pucketanje)
And this is the space probe Cassini pirouetting through the ice rings of Saturn.
A ovo je svemirska sonda Kasini (Cassini) koja prolazi kroz Saturnove ledene prstenove.
(Crackling)
(Pucketanje)
This is a a highly condensed clump of neutral matter, spinning in the distant universe.
Ovo je visoko kondenzovana grudva neutralne materije, koja rotira u udaljenom univerzumu.
(Tapping)
(Tapkanje)
So my artistic practice is all about listening to the weird and wonderful noises emitted by the magnificent celestial objects that make up our universe. And you may wonder, how do we know what these sounds are? How can we tell the difference between the sound of the Sun and the sound of a pulsar? Well the answer is the science of radio astronomy. Radio astronomers study radio waves from space using sensitive antennas and receivers, which give them precise information about what an astronomical object is and where it is in our night sky. And just like the signals that we send and receive here on Earth, we can convert these transmissions into sound using simple analog techniques. And therefore, it's through listening that we've come to uncover some of the universe's most important secrets -- its scale, what it's made of and even how old it is.
Tako da se moj umetnički rad svodi na slušanje čudnovatih i predivnih zvukova koje emituju veličanstveni nebeski objekti koji ispunjavaju naš univerzum. I možete se zapitati, kako mi znamo šta su ti zvuci? Kako možemo uočiti razliku između zvuka Sunca i zvuka pulsara? Odgovor daje nauka radio astronomije. Radio astronomi proučavaju radio talase iz svemira, koristeći osetljive antene i prijemnike, koji im daju precizne informacije o tome šta je astronomski objekat i gde se nalazi na našem noćnom nebu. I upravo kao signale koje šaljemo i primamo ovde na Zemlji, možemo pretvoriti te primljene signale u zvuk koristeći proste analogne tehnike. Dakle, preko slušanja smo došli do otkrića o nekim najvažnijim tajnama univerzuma -- njegovoj veličini, od čega je sačinjen čak i koliko je star.
So today, I'm going to tell you a short story of the history of the universe through listening. It's punctuated by three quick anecdotes, which show how accidental encounters with strange noises gave us some of the most important information we have about space. Now this story doesn't start with vast telescopes or futuristic spacecraft, but a rather more humble technology -- and in fact, the very medium which gave us the telecommunications revolution that we're all part of today: the telephone.
Tako da ću vam danas ispričati kratku priču o istoriji univerzuma, kroz zvuk. Isprekidanu sa tri kratke anegdote, koje pokazuju kako su nam slučajni susreti sa čudnim zvucima dali neke najvažnije informacije koje imamo o svemiru. Ova priča ne počinje sa ogromnim teleskopima ili futurističkim letelicama, nego sa jednim skromnijim posrednikom zapravo, sa onim istim posrednikom koji nas je doveo do telekomunikacione revolucije koju svi koristimo danas: telefonom.
It's 1876, it's in Boston, and this is Alexander Graham Bell who was working with Thomas Watson on the invention of the telephone. A key part of their technical set up was a half-mile long length of wire, which was thrown across the rooftops of several houses in Boston. The line carried the telephone signals that would later make Bell a household name. But like any long length of charged wire, it also inadvertently became an antenna. Thomas Watson spent hours listening to the strange crackles and hisses and chirps and whistles that his accidental antenna detected. Now you have to remember, this is 10 years before Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of radio waves -- 15 years before Nikola Tesla's four-tuned circuit -- nearly 20 years before Marconi's first broadcast. So Thomas Watson wasn't listening to us. We didn't have the technology to transmit.
Godina je 1876., Boston, a ovo je Aleksandar Grejem Bel koji je radio sa Tomasom Votsonom na pronalasku telefona. Ključan deo njihove tehničke postavke je bila žica dužine oko 800 metara, koja je bila prebačena preko krovova nekoliko kuća u Bostonu. Žica je prenosila telefonske signale koji će kasnije načiniti prezime Bel poznatim u svakom domaćinstvu. Ali kao i svaka druga duga naelektrisana žica, ona nehotice postaje antena. Tomas Votson je proveo sate slušajući čudna pucketanja i šištanja, cvrkutanja i zviždanja koje je antena slučajno detektovala. Ali upamtite, ovo je 10 godina pre nego što je Hajnrih Herc dokazao postojanje radio talasa -- petnaest godina pre četvorodelnog kola Nikole Tesle - skoro dvadeset godina pre Markonijevog prvog emitovanja. Tako da Tomas Votson nije slušao nas. Nismo imali tehnologiju za prenos.
So what were these strange noises? Watson was in fact listening to very low-frequency radio emissions caused by nature. Some of the crackles and pops were lightning, but the eerie whistles and curiously melodious chirps had a rather more exotic origin. Using the very first telephone, Watson was in fact dialed into the heavens. As he correctly guessed, some of these sounds were caused by activity on the surface of the Sun. It was a solar wind interacting with our ionosphere that he was listening to -- a phenomena which we can see at the extreme northern and southern latitudes of our planet as the aurora. So whilst inventing the technology that would usher in the telecommunications revolution, Watson had discovered that the star at the center of our solar system emitted powerful radio waves. He had accidentally been the first person to tune in to them.
Šta su onda bili ti čudni zvukovi? Votson je zapravo slušao radio emisiju veoma niskih frekvencija koju je prouzrokovala priroda. Nešto od pucketanja je bila munja, ali jezivo zviždanje i melodični cvrkut je imao egzotično poreklo. Koristeći prvi telefon, Votson je zapravo zvao nebesa. Kao što je tačno pogodio, neki od tih zvukova su bili prouzrokovani aktivnošću površine Sunca. On je zapravo slušao Sunčev vetar u interakciji sa našom jonosferom - fenomen koji možemo videti na ekstremno severnim i južnim geografskim širinama naše planete kao Auroru. Dok je otkrivao tehnologiju koja će pokrenuti telekomunikacionu revoluciju, Votson je otkrio da je zvezda iz centra našeg Sunčevog sistema emitovala jake radio talase. On je slučajno bio prva osoba koja je naišla na njih.
Fast-forward 50 years, and Bell and Watson's technology has completely transformed global communications. But going from slinging some wire across rooftops in Boston to laying thousands and thousands of miles of cable on the Atlantic Ocean seabed is no easy matter. And so before long, Bell were looking to new technologies to optimize their revolution. Radio could carry sound without wires. But the medium is lossy -- it's subject to a lot of noise and interference. So Bell employed an engineer to study those noises, to try and find out where they came from, with a view towards building the perfect hardware codec, which would get rid of them so they could think about using radio for the purposes of telephony.
Preletimo pedeset godina, Belova i Votsonova tehnologija je potpuno preobrazila globalne komunikacije. Ali krenuti od prebacivanja žica preko krovova u Bostonu do postavljanja hiljada i hiljada kilometara kablova na dno Atlantskog okeana nije jednostavna stvar. Tako da je ubrzo Bel potražio nove tehnike koje bi optimizovale njihovu revoluciju. Radio je mogao prenositi zvuk bez žica. Ali medijum ima nedostataka - stvara dosta šuma i interferenciju. Tako da je Bel zaposlio inženjera da proučava te šumove, da pokuša da pronađe odakle dolaze, sa idejom pravljenja savršenog hardvera koji bi se oslobađao šumova, tako da bi mogli razmišljati da koriste radio u svrhu telefoniranja.
Most of the noises that the engineer, Karl Jansky, investigated were fairly prosaic in origin. They turned out to be lightning or sources of electrical power. But there was one persistent noise that Jansky couldn't identify, and it seemed to appear in his radio headset four minutes earlier each day. Now any astronomer will tell you, this is the telltale sign of something that doesn't originate from Earth. Jansky had made a historic discovery, that celestial objects could emit radio waves as well as light waves. Fifty years on from Watson's accidental encounter with the Sun, Jansky's careful listening ushered in a new age of space exploration: the radio astronomy age. Over the next few years, astronomers connected up their antennas to loudspeakers and learned about our radio sky, about Jupiter and the Sun, by listening.
Većina zvukova koje je istražio inženjer Karl Janski, bila je relativno poznatog porekla. Zaključilo se da su to munje ili izvori električnog napajanja. Ali postojao je jedan uporan zvuk koji Janski nije mogao identifikovati, i izgledalo je da se pojavljuje u njegovim radio slušalicama i to četiri minute ranije svakim danom. Sada će vam svaki astronom reći, da je to nagoveštajni znak nečega što ima poreklo van Zemlje. Janski je došao do istorijskog otkrića, da nebeski objetki mogu emitovati radio talase isto kao i svetlosne talase. Pedeset godina od Votsonovog slučajnog susreta sa Suncem, pažljivo slušajći, Janski je najavio novo doba svemirskog istraživanja: doba radio astronomije. Tokom narednih nekoliko godina, astronomi su povezali svoje antene na zvučnike i učili o našem radio nebu, o Jupiteru i Suncu, slušajući.
Let's jump ahead again. It's 1964, and we're back at Bell Labs. And once again, two scientists have got a problem with noise. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were using the horn antenna at Bell's Holmdel laboratory to study the Milky Way with extraordinary precision. They were really listening to the galaxy in high fidelity. There was a glitch in their soundtrack. A mysterious persistent noise was disrupting their research. It was in the microwave range, and it appeared to be coming from all directions simultaneously. Now this didn't make any sense, and like any reasonable engineer or scientist, they assumed that the problem must be the technology itself, it must be the dish. There were pigeons roosting in the dish. And so perhaps once they cleaned up the pigeon droppings, get the disk kind of operational again, normal operations would resume.
Hajde da još jednom odemo malo napred. Godina je 1964. i ponovo smo u Belovim laboratorijama. I još jednom, dva naučnika imaju problem sa šumom. Arno Penzijas i Robert Vilson su koristili rog antene u laboratoriji Bela Holmdela da bi proučavali Mlečni Put sa izvanrednom preciznošću. Oni su zaista slušali galaksiju u visokoj preciznosti. Postojao je problem u njihovoj traci. Uporni, misteriozni šum je ometao njihovo istraživanje. Nalazio se u mikrotalasnom području, i izgledalo je kao da dolazi simultano iz svih pravaca. Što nije imalo nikakvog smisla. I kao i svaki razumni inženjer i naučnik, pretpostavili su da je problem u samoj tehnologiji, da mora da je do antene. Na anteni su se golubovi gnezdili. Možda kada bi očistili golubiji izmet i ponovo osposobili antenu za rad, nastavile bi se normalne radnje.
But the noise didn't disappear. The mysterious noise that Penzias and Wilson were listening to turned out to be the oldest and most significant sound that anyone had ever heard. It was cosmic radiation left over from the very birth of the universe. This was the first experimental evidence that the Big Bang existed and the universe was born at a precise moment some 14.7 billion years ago. So our story ends at the beginning -- the beginning of all things, the Big Bang. This is the noise that Penzias and Wilson heard -- the oldest sound that you're ever going to hear, the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang.
Ali šum nije nestao. Ispostavilo se da je misteriozni šum koji su Penzijas i Vilson slušali bio najstariji i najznačajniji zvuk koji je ikada neko čuo. Bilo je to kosmičko zračenje koje je preostalo od samog rođenja univerzuma. Ovo je bio prvi eksperimentalni dokaz da je Veliki prasak postojao i da je univerzum bio rođen u određenom momentu pre oko 14.7 milijardi godina. Tako da se naša priča završava na početku -- početku svih stvari, Velikom prasku. Ovo je zvuk koji su Penzijas i Vilson čuli -- najstariji zvuk koji ćete ikada ćuti, kosmičko mikrotalasno pozadinsko zračenje preostalo od Velikog praska.
(Fuzz)
(Šuštanje)
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)