The world needs bridges. Have you ever thought about what it would be like not to have any? It's hard to imagine a civilization without bridges because they're so essential for growth and development of human society, but they're not just about a safe way across a river or an obstacle. They shout about connectivity -- community. They reveal something about creativity, our ingenuity -- they even hint at our identity. And when bridges fail, or are destroyed in conflict, communities struggle, development stagnates, people suffer. Even today, there are over one billion people living in poor, rural communities around the world that do not have safe, year-round access to the things that you and I take for granted: education, medical care, access to markets ... which is why wonderful organizations like Bridges to Prosperity build bridges in this kind of place -- this is in Rwanda. And they make such a difference, not only to those lives immediately around the bridge, but the impact of these bridges is huge, and it spreads over the whole community, far, far away.
世界需要橋樑。 你可曾想過,沒有橋樑的 世界會是什麼樣子? 很難想像沒有橋樑的文明, 因為橋樑對於 人類社會的成長和發展相當重要, 但它們的功能不只是讓人 安全越過河流或是障礙物。 它們高分貝吶喊著連結性、 社區。 它們能夠展示出創意、 我們的智巧, 它們甚至暗示了我們的身份。 當橋樑損毀, 或是在衝突中被破壞, 社區會陷入掙扎, 發展會停滯,人民會受苦。 即使是現今, 全世界仍然有 超過十億人居住在貧窮、 鄉村的社區中, 在那些地方,無法隨時安全地 取得使用你我視為 理所當然的東西: 教育、醫療照護、 到市場的通路…… 這就是為什麼有些美好的組織, 如「通向繁榮之橋」, 會在這類地方建立橋樑—— 這是盧安達。 橋樑帶來了好大的不同, 不只改變了住在 橋樑周圍的人的生活, 這些橋樑的影響很大, 且影響力散佈至整個社區, 影響範圍非常遠。
Of course bridges have been around for an awfully long time. The oldest ones are stone because it's a very durable material. I don't know about you -- I love to look at the development of technology to learn about what people did with the materials and tools available to them at the time. So the Pont Du Gard in the center is a wonderful example -- Roman aqueduct in the South of France -- fantastic piece of technology built using massive stones put together, dry -- there's no mortar in those joints. They're just dry stone joints -- fantastic and almost as good as new today. Or sometimes up in the mountains, people would build these suspension bridges, often across some dizzy canyon, using a vine. In this case, this is in Peru. This is using grass which grows locally and is woven into ropes to build these bridges. And do you know they rebuild this every year? Because of course grass is not a durable material. So this bridge is unchanged since Inca times.
當然,非常久以前 就已經有橋樑出現了。 最早的橋樑是石橋, 因為石頭是很耐用的材料。 我不知道你們怎麼想, 但我很愛去看科技的發展, 去了解大家拿材料來做些什麼, 以及當時他們能用的工具是什麼。 所以,中間的加爾橋 就是個很棒的例子, 它是位在法國南部的羅馬高架渠, 很棒的科技傑作, 用大量的石頭所組成, 而且是乾燥的, 在接合處沒有用黏合物, 接合處就只是乾燥的石頭, 簡直難以置信, 到現在還幾乎和新的一樣。 或是,有時在山中, 會有人搭建這類吊橋, 通常是用藤蔓製造, 橫越讓人頭暈的峽谷。 圖中的吊橋位在秘魯。 將當地生長的一種草當材料, 編織成繩子來搭建這些吊橋。 你們知道嗎, 他們每年都要將它重建? 當然,因為草並不是很耐用的材料。 所以,這座橋從印加時代 開始就沒有改變過。
And bridges can be symbols of their location. Of course, Golden Gate and Sydney are well familiar. In Mostar the bridge was synonymous with the name of the place, and to such an extent that in the war in 1993 when the bridge was destroyed, the town all but lost its identity until the bridge was reconstructed. And bridges are enormous features in our landscape -- not just enormous, sometimes there's small ones -- and they are really significant features, and I believe we have a duty to make our bridges beautiful. Thankfully, many people do. Think of the stunning Millau Viaduct in the South of France. French engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Lord Foster collaborated together to produce something which is a really spectacular synergy of architecture and engineering. Or Robert Maillart's Salginatobel Bridge in the mountains in Switzerland -- absolutely sublime. Or more recently, Laurent Ney's beautiful and rather delicate bridge for Tintagel Castle in the UK. These are spectacular and beautiful designs and we need to see more of this.
橋樑也可能是其所在地的象徵。 當然,大家都很熟悉 金門大橋和雪梨港灣大橋。 在莫斯塔爾,這座橋的 名稱和那個地方同名, 它們之間的關聯程度高到 在 1933 年的戰爭中 當這座橋被摧毀時, 這個鎮完全失去了它的身份, 直到橋被重建為止。 在我們的地景中, 橋樑是很巨大的特徵, 不只巨大的橋,有時小的也是, 都是很明顯的特徵。 我相信我們有責任 要讓我們的橋樑很美觀。 謝天謝地,許多人的確做到了。 想想在法國南部的米約高架橋。 法國工程師米歇爾維洛熱 與英國建築師福斯特男爵 聯手合作, 將建築與工程做了非常壯觀的結合。 或是羅勃馬亞爾在瑞士山區 建造的塞金納特伯橋, 它非常宏偉莊嚴。 或是在近期, 勞倫奈伊為英國的廷塔哲城堡建造了 一座美麗精緻的橋樑。 這些都是壯觀又美麗的設計, 我們需要看到更多這樣的傑作。
Bridges can be considered in three convenient categories, depending on the nature of the structural system that they adopt as their principal support. So, bending, of course, is the way a beam will behave -- so, beams and bending. Or compression is the principal way of operating for an arch. Or for the really long spans you need to go lightweight, as we'll see in a minute, and you'll use tension, cables -- suspension bridges. And the opportunity for variety is enormous. Engineers have a fantastic scope for innovation and ingenuity and developing different forms around these types.
橋樑被簡單分成三類, 分類的依據,是它們用做當作 主要支撐的結構系統的特性。 當然樑柱有可能是彎曲的。 樑柱和彎曲。 還有壓縮法, 它是拱門的主要運作方式。 當礅距非常長時,需要輕量級的, 我們等下就會看到, 你會用到張力、纜繩、 吊橋。 多樣性的機會是很大的。 工程師有很棒的空間 可以做創新和獨創, 以這些類型為基礎, 發展出不同的形式。
But technological change happens relatively slowly in my world, believe it or not, compared to the changes that happen in mobile phone technology and computers and digital technologies and so on. In our world of construction, the changes seem positively glacial. And the reason for this can be summarized in one word: risk. Structural engineers like me manage risk. We are responsible for structural safety. That's what we do. And when we design bridges like these, I have to balance the probability that loads will be excessive on one side or the strength will be too low on the other side. Both of which, incidentally, are full of uncertainty usually, and so it's a probabilistic problem, and we have to make sure that there's an adequate margin for safety between the two, of course. There's no such thing, I have to tell you, as absolute safety. Contrary to popular belief, zero risk doesn't exist.
但在我的世界中, 科技的改變速度相對比較慢, 信不信由你, 相對之下行動電話 科技的改變就快很多, 電腦和數位科技等等亦是如此。 在建造業的世界中, 改變似乎就像冰川形成一樣慢。 這背後的理由可以用一個詞總結: 風險。 像我這樣的結構工程師要管理風險。 我們要為結構的安全負責。 那是我們的工作。 當我們設計出像這樣的橋樑, 我得要去平衡各種可能性, 一端的負重可能會過重, 或是另一端的力量可能會不足。 順便一提,這兩種狀況 通常都充滿了不確定性, 所以這是一個機率的問題, 當然,我們得要 確保在兩者之間有適當的安全空間。 我得告訴各位,沒有所謂的 絕對安全。 和大家所相信的相反, 零風險是不存在的。
Engineers have to do their calculations and get their sums right to make sure that those margins are there, and society expects them to do so, which is why it's all the more alarming when things like this happen. I'm not going to go into the reasons for these tragedies, but they are part of the reason why technological change happens quite slowly. Nobody wants this to happen. Clients don't want this to happen on their projects, obviously. And yet of course they want innovation. Innovation is vital. As an engineer, it's part of my DNA. It's in my blood. I couldn't be a very good engineer if I wasn't wanting to innovate, but we have to do so from a position of knowledge and strength and understanding. It's no good taking a leap in the dark, and civilization has learned from mistakes since the beginning of time -- no one more so than engineers.
工程師得要做計算,把數字算對, 確保一定要有餘裕空間在, 社會也期望他們能做到, 這就是為什麼當這種事發生時, 大家會特別緊張。 我不打算談這些悲劇發生的原因, 但這些事情就是為什麼 科技改變如此緩慢的部分原因。 沒有人希望這種事發生。 很顯然,客戶不會希望 他們的專案發生這種事。 但,當然,他們會想要有創新。 創新是很重要的。 身為工程師, 創新是我 DNA 的一部分。 創新在我的血液當中。 如果我不想要創新, 我就不可能成為非常好的工程師, 但我們若要創新, 得要先有知識、力量, 以及了解。 在黑暗中冒險一躍並不是好事, 從古早以來, 文明就一直從錯誤中學習, 工程師更是如此。
Some of you may have seen this film before -- this is the very famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in Tacoma, Washington state, 1940. The bridge became known as "Galloping Gertie" because she -- she? Is a bridge female? I don't know. She was wobbling like this for quite a long time, and notice this twisting motion. The bridge was far too flexible. It was designed by a chap called Leon Moisseiff, no stranger to suspension bridge design, but in this case he pushed the limits just that little bit too far and paid the price. Thankfully, nobody was killed. But this bridge collapse stopped suspension bridge development dead in its tracks. For 10 years nobody thought about doing another suspension bridge. There were none. And when they did emerge in the 1950s, they were an understandable overreaction, this sort of oversafe response to what had happened. But when it did occur in the mid-60s, there was indeed a step change -- an innovation, a technological step change. This is the Severn Bridge in the UK. Notice the aerodynamically streamlined cross section in the center there. It's also a box which makes it very torsionally stiff -- that twisting motion which we saw at Tacoma would not happen here. And it's also really lightweight, and as we'll see in a moment, lightweight is really important for long spans, and everybody seems to want us to build longer spans.
有些人可能看過這段影片, 這是非常著名的 塔科馬海峽吊橋倒塌, 它位在華盛頓州的塔科馬, 1940 年。 這座橋被暱稱為「舞動的歌蒂」, 因為她——她? 橋是女性的嗎?我不知道。 有很長一段時間 她都一直這樣子擺動, 注意看扭動。 這座橋太有彈性了。 它的設計師叫做里昂莫西夫, 他對吊橋的設計不陌生, 但在這個案例中, 他把極限推過頭了一些, 付出了代價。 謝天謝地,沒有人死亡。 但這座橋的倒塌, 讓吊橋的發展停滯下來, 突然停止。 十年來,沒有人想要 再建另一座吊橋。 完全沒有。 到五十年代,吊橋又出現時, 可以想見會有過度的反應, 結果就產生這種過度安全的反應。 但到了六十年代中期的時候, 的確有了進一步的改變, 一項創新,一項科技的改變。 這是英國的塞文河橋。 注意到切面上有來自 空氣動力學的流線型, 在中間這裡。 它也像是個盒子, 能承受很大的扭力。 我們在塔科馬看到的扭動, 在這裡就不會發生。 它也是非常輕量級的, 我們馬上就會看到, 對於礅距長的橋樑, 輕量是非常重要的, 且大家似乎都希望我們 建造礅距更長的橋樑。
The longest at the moment is in Japan. It's just under 2,000 meters -- one span. Just under two kilometers. The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge. We're currently working on one in Turkey which is a bit longer, and we've designed the Messina Bridge in Italy, which is just waiting to get started with construction one day, who knows when.
目前礅距最長的橋樑在日本, 礅距將近兩千公尺遠。 (註:橋墩跨距1991公尺) 明石海峽大橋。 目前我們正在土耳其 建造一座更長一點的橋, 我們也設計了義大利的 墨西拿海峽大橋, 正在等待開始動工的日子, 天知道是何時。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I'm going to come back to Messina in a moment. But the other kind of long-span bridge which uses that tension principle is the cable-stayed bridge, and we see a lot of these. In fact, in China they're building a whole load of these right now. The longest of these is the Russky Bridge in Vladivostok, Russia -- just over 1,100 meters.
我等下再回來談墨西拿海峽大橋。 另一種使用張力原則的長礅距橋樑 是斜張橋, 這種橋很常見。 事實上,在中國, 現在就建造了一大堆這種橋。 當中最長的是俄羅斯島大橋, 位在俄羅斯的海參崴, 長度超過一千一百公尺。 (註:主跨礅距 1,104 公尺)
But let me take you back to this question about long-span and lightweight. This is using Messina Bridge as an example. The pie chart in the center represents the capacity of the main cables -- that's what holds the bridge up -- the capacity of the main cables. And notice that 78 percent of that capacity is used up just holding the bridge up. There's only 22 percent of its capacity -- that's less than a quarter -- available for the payload, the stuff that the bridge is there to support: the railway, the road and so on. And in fact, over 50 percent of that payload -- of that dead load -- is the cable on its own. Just the cable without any bridge deck. If we could make that cable lighter, we could span longer. Right now if we use the high-strength steel wire available to us, we can span, practically speaking, around about five or six kilometers if we really push it. But if we could use carbon fiber in those cables, we could go more than 10 kilometers. That's pretty spectacular.
但我們先回到關於 長礅距和輕量的問題。 用墨西拿海峽大橋來當例子。 中間這張圓餅圖代表 主要纜繩的承載量, 要靠它(主纜)拉起橋樑, 主要纜繩的承載量。 注意到,承載量有 78% 被用來支撐這座橋樑。 只剩下 22% 的承載量, 還不到四分之一, 可以用來承載「載量」, 也就是橋樑要支撐的東西: 鐵軌、道路等等。 事實上, 超過 50% 的載量, 淨負荷, 其實是纜繩本身。 單單纜繩,不含橋面。 如果我們能減輕讓纜繩的重量, 我們就能讓礅距更長。 現在,如果用我們 能找到的高強度鋼纜繩, 實際上來說, 我們可以做到五或六公里的礅距, 如果真要拼到極限的話。 但如果我們能在纜繩中使用碳纖維, 就能做到超過十公里。 那是非常驚人的。
But of course superspans is not necessarily the way to go everywhere. They're very expensive and they've got all sorts of other challenges associated with them, and we tend to build multispan when we're crossing a wide estuary or a sea crossing. But of course if that sea crossing were somewhere like Gibraltar, or in this case, the Red Sea, we would indeed be building multiple superlong spans and that would be something spectacular, wouldn't it? I don't think I'm going to see that one finished in my lifetime, but it will certainly be worth waiting for for some of you guys.
但當然,不是每個地方 都想要超長礅距。 這種材質很貴, 還有很多其他與它相關的 各種挑戰要處理, 我們傾向採用多礅距 來跨越很寬的河口或是海洋。 但當然,如果跨海處 是在像直布羅陀這種地方, 或者,在這個例子是紅海, 我們就確實需要多個超長礅距, 那會非常壯觀,對吧? 我想我在有生之年應該 看不到這樣的橋樑完工, 但對於在座的一些人來說, 這肯定是值得等待的。
Well, I want to tell you about something which I think is really exciting. This is a multispan suspension bridge across very deep water in Norway, and we're working on this at the moment. The deep water means that foundations are prohibitively expensive. So this bridge floats. This is a floating, multispan suspension bridge. We've had floating bridges before, but nothing like this. It stands on floating pontoons which are tethered to the seabed and held down -- so, pulled down against those buoyancy forces, and in order to make it stable, the tops of the towers have to be tied together, otherwise the whole thing would just wobble around and nobody will want to go on that. But I'm really excited about this because if you think about the places around the world where the water is so deep that nobody has given a second thought to the possibility of a bridge or any kind of crossing, this now opens up that possibility. So this one's being done by the Norwegian Roads Administration, but I'm really excited to know where else will this technology enable development -- that growing together, that building of community.
我想要告訴你們一件 我覺得非常讓人興奮的事。 這是一座多礅距的吊橋, 橫越挪威一片很深的水域, 我們目前正在建造它。 深水的意思就是, 地基會非常非常昂貴。 所以,這座橋可以浮起。 這是一座漂浮式的多礅距吊橋。 以前也有過浮橋, 但跟這種還差得遠。 它站立在浮筒上, 浮筒被拴在海床上,維持在水底下, 它們被向下拉,需要對抗浮力, 為了要讓它們穩定, 那些高塔的頂端必須要被綁在一起, 要不然整座橋會晃來晃去, 沒有人會想要踏上去。 但我感到非常興奮, 因為,想想看世界各地 水深的地方, 沒有人會去想搭建 一座橋樑的可能性, 或以任何方式跨越, 現在卻因它而有可能成真了。 這座橋是由挪威公路管理局建造, 但我真的感到很興奮,想知道 這項科技能為哪些其他地方帶來發展 一起成長, 建立社區。
Now, what about concrete? Concrete gets a pretty bad name sometimes, but in the hands of people like Rudy Ricciotti here, look what you can do with it. This is what we call ultra-high performance fiber-reinforced concrete. It's a bit of a mouthful. Us engineers love those kinds of words.
那麼,混凝土呢? 有時,混凝土的名聲不太好, 但在像魯迪瑞奇奧堤 這種人的手中,像這個例子, 看看能夠做出什麼來。 這就是我們所稱的 超高效能纖維增強混凝土。 有點冗長難念。 我們工程師就是愛這種詞。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But what you do with this -- this is really superstrong, and it's really durable, and you can get this fantastic sculptural quality. Who said concrete bridges are dull?
但把它拿來使用, 它真的超級堅固且耐久, 還能達到這種絕佳的雕刻品質。 誰說混凝土橋樑很無趣?
We could talk about all sorts of other new technologies and things which are going on, robots and 3-D printing and AI and all of that, but I want to take you back to something which I alluded to earlier on. Our bridges need to be functional, yes. They need to be safe -- absolutely. They need to be serviceable and durable. But I passionately believe they need to be elegant; they need to be beautiful. Our bridges are designed for a long time. We tend to design for 100 years plus. They're going to be there for an awfully long time. Nobody is going to remember the cost. Nobody will remember whether it overran a few months. But if it's ugly or just dull, it will always be ugly or dull.
我們可以談其他 現在正在發展的各種技術, 機器人、3D 列印、 人工智慧等等。 但我想要帶各位回到 我先前略微提到的一點。 橋樑必須要有功能,沒錯。 橋樑必須要安全,絕對要。 橋樑必須要可用且耐用。 但我熱忱地相信, 橋樑也必須要優雅; 橋樑必須要美觀。 我們設計的橋樑是要用很長的時間。 目標通常是一百年以上。 橋樑會在那裡好長一段時間。 沒有人會記得成本是多少。 沒有人會記得它是否 延遲了幾個月。 但如果它很醜或是很無趣, 它永遠都會很醜或很無趣。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Bridges -- beauty enriches life. Doesn't it? It enhances our well-being. Ugliness and mediocrity does exactly the opposite. And if we go on building mediocre, ugly environments -- and I believe we're becoming numb to that stuff -- if we go on doing that, it's something like a large-scale vandalism, which is completely unacceptable.
橋樑—— 美能讓生命更豐富。 不是嗎? 它讓我們更幸福。 醜陋和平庸則有完全相反的效用。 如果我們要建立 平庸、醜陋的環境, 而且我相信,我們 對這些東西變得麻木了。 若我們要那麼做, 那就像是大規模的破壞行為, 那是完全不可接受的。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
This is a bridge in Lyon in France, which was procured through a design competition. And I think we need to start talking to those people who procure our bridges and our structures, because it's the procurement which is often the key. Design competitions is one way to get good design, but it's not the only one. There's an awful lot of procurement going on that is absolutely prejudiced against good design.
這是在法國里昂的一座橋, 是透過一次設計比賽來採購的。 我認為我們得要開始 和橋樑及建築物的 採購人員談談, 因為採購通常是關鍵。 設計比賽是得到好設計的一種方法, 但不是唯一的方法。 有很多在進行中的採購 對於好的設計完全有偏見。
So yes, technology happens a bit slowly sometimes in my world. But I'm really excited about what we can do with it. Whether it's saving lives in rural Africa or stretching the boundaries of long-span technology or just crossing the road next-door, I hope we continue to build elegant and beautiful stuff that save lives and build communities.
所以,是的,在我的世界裡, 科技發展是慢了點。 但我很興奮想看看 我們能用科技做什麼。 不論是拯救非洲的生命, 或是拓展長礅距科技的界線, 或只是跨越旁邊的道路, 我希望我們持續 建造優雅美麗的東西, 來拯救生命和建立社區。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)