The fragrance that you will smell, you will never be able to smell this way again. It’s a fragrance called Beyond Paradise, which you can find in any store in the nation. Except here it’s been split up in parts by Estée Lauder and by the perfumer who did it, Calice Becker, and I'm most grateful to them for this. And it’s been split up in successive bits and a chord.
你待會兒聞到的香氣,絕不會有機會以這種方式聞第二次 這香水名為「霓采天堂」 在國內的店裡找不到 除非你去跟雅詩蘭黛要一點來 或是跟香水師Calice Becker要 我很感激他們分我一些 香氣可拆開成接連散發並組合如和弦的各種氣味
So what you’re smelling now is the top note. And then will come what they call the heart, the lush heart note. I will show it to you. The Eden top note is named after the Eden Project in the U.K.
而妳現在所聞到的就是首調 緊接著的引人入勝氣味被稱為中調 等會我將讓各位聞聞 「霓采天堂」的首調「伊甸」是以英國的伊甸園計畫命名的
The lush heart note, Melaleuca bark note -- which does not contain any Melaleuca bark, because it’s totally forbidden.
中調則是白千層樹皮──然而香水裡其實沒有這個成份 因為它被禁用
And after that, the complete fragrance. Now what you are smelling is a combination of -- I asked how many molecules there were in there, and nobody would tell me. So I put it through a G.C., a Gas Chromatograph that I have in my office, and it’s about 400. So what you’re smelling is several hundred molecules floating through the air, hitting your nose.
最後,則是完整的香氣 現在你所聞到的組合是── 我曾問,香水中有什麼分子。沒有人想告訴我 所以我把香水以我辦公室裡的氣相層析儀分析 發現裡頭大概有400種分子 也就是說,你正在聞數百個 漂浮在空氣中、撞擊鼻腔的分子
And do not get the impression that this is very subjective. You are all smelling pretty much the same thing, OK? Smell has this reputation of being somewhat different for each person. It’s not really true. And perfumery shows you that can’t be true, because if it were like that it wouldn’t be an art, OK?
如果這個事實還不夠令人印象深刻的話 你們所聞到的香氣成份其實相當接近啊 嗅覺向以每個人都有不同的感受聞名 這並不完全正確 只需要一瓶香水就能證明這一點 因為如果真是這樣,香水就不會是個藝術,你明白嗎?
Now, while the smell wafts over you, let me tell you the history of an idea. Everything that you’re smelling in here is made up of atoms that come from what I call the Upper East Side of the periodic table -- a nice, safe neighborhood. (Laughter) You really don’t want to leave it if you want to have a career in perfumery. Some people have tried in the 1920s to add things from the bad parts, and it didn’t really work.
當陣陣香氣襲向各位時,我想談談一個點子的歷史 你在這裡所聞到的每種香氣 都是由一群位在,被我稱為 週期表上東城──一個安全美好的區域──的分子組成 (笑) 如果你想在香水業立足,你絕對不會想離開這區 有些人在1920年代曾經試著 在香水裡加入週期表其他區塊的分子,但是沒有成功
These are the five atoms from which just about everything that you’re going to smell in real life, from coffee to fragrance, are made of. The top note that you smelled at the very beginning, the cut-grass green, what we call in perfumery -- they’re weird terms -- and this would be called a green note, because it smells of something green, like cut grass.
上東城裡的五個分子幾乎就能組成 你生活裡從咖啡跟香水等所有的氣味, 而你剛剛一開始所聞到的前調 在我們香水業被稱做清新草原味──很怪的叫法 而之所以這麼稱呼綠葉調 是因為它聞來就像綠色植物,如草原的氣息
This is cis-3-hexene-1-ol. And I had to learn chemistry on the fly in the last three years. A very expensive high school chemistry education. This has six carbon atoms, so "hexa," hexene-1-ol. It has one double bond, it has an alcohol on the end, so it’s "ol," and that’s why they call it cis-3-hexene-1-ol. Once you figure this out, you can really impress people at parties.
這是順式-3-己烯醇。我過去三年 得抽空學習化學。非常昂貴的高中化學教育 順式-3-己烯醇有六個碳分子,所以"hexanol"以hexa-為字首 分子裡有一個雙鍵,分子末端有乙醇 所以"hexanol"以-ol為字尾。這是順式-3-己烯醇的命名由來。 一旦你懂得分子命名原則,你就能在派對上唬人
This smells of cut grass. Now, this is the skeleton of the molecule. If you dress it up with atoms, hydrogen atoms -- that’s what it looks like when you have it on your computer -- but actually it’s sort of more like this, in the sense that the atoms have a certain sphere that you cannot penetrate. They repel.
順式-3-己烯醇聞來就像草原。這是分子的碳鏈 你可以用電腦在碳鏈上加氫原子 這時順式-3-己烯醇看起來像這樣 但因為每個元素都有個不能侵入的圓形區域─ 它們互斥─所以順式-3-己烯醇實際上長這樣
OK, now. Why does this thing smell of cut grass, OK? Why doesn’t it smell of potatoes or violets? Well, there are really two theories. But the first theory is: it must be the shape. And that’s a perfectly reasonable theory in the sense that almost everything else in biology works by shape. Enzymes that chew things up, antibodies, it’s all, you know, the fit between a protein and whatever it is grabbing, in this case a smell. And I will try and explain to you what’s wrong with this notion.
好,現在問題來了:為什麼這分子聞起來是草原味, 而不是馬鈴薯,或是紫羅蘭?有兩個理論: 第一個理論是關於分子的形狀。 這是個完美的理論,因為在生物界 幾乎所有的功能都由分子形狀決定 如分解分子的酵素、抗體,一切取決於蛋白質 跟其他分子間的緊密結合。而嗅覺也是 我等一下會試著解釋這個理論哪裡不對
And the other theory is that we smell molecular vibrations. Now, this is a totally insane idea. And when I first came across it in the early '90s, I thought my predecessor, Malcolm Dyson and Bob Wright, had really taken leave of their senses, and I’ll explain to you why this was the case. However, I came to realize gradually that they may be right -- and I have to convince all my colleagues that this is so, but I’m working on it.
另一個理論則是說嗅覺是我們聞到分子的震動 這個想法完全沒有道理 而我在90年代早期第一次聽到這個想法時 覺得Dyson跟Wright這些先驅者的直覺失準 我等一下會告訴你們為什麼 然而,我漸漸明白,他們也許是對的 我得說服我的同行接受這個理論,而我仍在努力
Here’s how shape works in normal receptors. You have a molecule coming in, it gets into the protein, which is schematic here, and it causes this thing to switch, to turn, to move in some way by binding in certain parts. And the attraction, the forces, between the molecule and the protein cause the motion. This is a shape-based idea.
這是分子跟其受器間作用機制的形狀說圖解 一個分子進入一個蛋白質,當兩者的形狀吻合 分子會跟蛋白質的一部分結合 造成這個複合體的變型、扭轉或移動 而分子跟蛋白質之間的吸引力造成這樣的運動模式 就是這個以分子形狀為基礎的理論
Now, what’s wrong with shape is summarized in this slide. The way --I expect everybody to memorize these compounds. This is one page of work from a chemist’s workbook, OK? Working for a fragrance company. He’s making 45 molecules, and he’s looking for a sandalwood, something that smells of sandalwood. Because there’s a lot of money in sandalwoods. And of these 45 molecules, only 4629 actually smells of sandalwood. And he puts an exclamation mark, OK? This is an awful lot of work. This actually is roughly, in man-years of work, 200,000 dollars roughly, if you keep them on the low salaries with no benefits. So this is a profoundly inefficient process. And my definition of a theory is, it’s not just something that you teach people; it’s labor saving. A theory is something that enables you to do less work. I love the idea of doing less work. So let me explain to you why -- a very simple fact that tells you why this shape theory really does not work very well.
而這個分子形狀理論的問題摘要在這投影片上 希望大家還記得這些物質 這是一位在香水公司工作的化學家 其實驗筆記的一頁 因為檀香味的龐大商機 他得找出檀香味,或是類似檀香的味道 所以他製造了45個分子 而這45個分子中,只有4629分子聞起來是檀香 他加註驚嘆號,對吧?這是非常繁重的工作 以一個人一年工時計,如果你給他無利潤的低薪 其收入約為20萬美金 所以這是個非常沒有效率的工作 而我對理論的定義,不僅只是 被傳授的知識,更得幫助節省勞力 一個理論得讓人們事半功倍 我喜歡省力的主意。請讓我解釋 形狀理論之所以無用的單純現實
This is cis-3-hexene-1-ol. It smells of cut grass. This is cis-3-hexene-1-thiol, and this smells of rotten eggs, OK? Now, you will have noticed that vodka never smells of rotten eggs. If it does, you put the glass down, you go to a different bar. This is -- in other words, we never get the O-H -- we never mistake it for an S-H, OK? Like, at no concentration, even pure, you know, if you smelt pure ethanol, it doesn’t smell of rotten eggs. Conversely, there is no concentration at which the sulfur compound will smell like vodka. It’s very hard to explain this by molecular recognition. Now, I showed this to a physicist friend of mine who has a profound distaste for biology, and he says, "That’s easy! The things are a different color!" (Laughter)
這是順式-3-己烯醇,聞起來像草原 這是順式-3-己硫醇,聞起來像腐敗的蛋 你也知道伏特加聞起來絕對不像腐敗的蛋 如果是,你會放下酒杯,改去另一間酒吧 換句話說,我們不會對弄錯醇類 不會搞混醇類跟硫化物 這跟濃度無關,即使讓你聞純酒精 也不會聞到壞蛋的臭味 反之,再純的硫化物也不會聞起來像伏特加 我們很難用蛋白質辨識分子形狀的不同來解釋這個現象 而我如此向我那對生物學完全沒興趣的 物理學家朋友說明,他說:「這容易,兩種不同顏色的東西!」 (笑)
We have to go a little beyond that. Now let me explain why vibrational theory has some sort of interest in it. These molecules, as you saw in the beginning, the building blocks had springs connecting them to each other. In fact, molecules are able to vibrate at a set of frequencies which are very specific for each molecule and for the bonds connecting them.
更進一步,現在讓我來解釋為什麼振動理論 有趣。這些分子,如你一開始所見 組成分子的原子間有如彈簧般的連結 不同的分子的震動包含不同頻率 頻率組成視分子,或是組成分子的原子間的連結而定
So this is the sound of the O-H stretch, translated into the audible range. S-H, quite a different frequency. Now, this is kind of interesting, because it tells you that you should be looking for a particular fact, which is this: nothing in the world smells like rotten eggs except S-H, OK?
這是將O-H鍵的振動頻率轉換成人類聽力範圍的聲音 而S-H鍵振動頻率則相當不同 這個現象最有趣的部分 在提醒我認清這個特定事實,也就是 這個世界上除了腐爛的蛋,沒有別的東西聞起來像硫氫化物了
Now, Fact B: nothing in the world has that frequency except S-H. If you look on this, imagine a piano keyboard. The S-H stretch is in the middle of a part of the keyboard that has been, so to speak, damaged, and there are no neighboring notes, nothing is close to it. You have a unique smell, a unique vibration.
再者:這個世界上除了有硫氫化物,沒有別的分子能以這樣的頻率振動 你也可以這麼看:想像一個鋼琴鍵盤 代表S-H鍵的振動頻率的琴鍵位在鍵盤某處的中間 這個琴鍵壞掉了 周圍及其他的琴鍵沒有一個能發出接近它的音頻 而氣味也有這樣的獨特性,獨特的震動
So I went searching when I started in this game to convince myself that there was any degree of plausibility to this whole crazy story. I went searching for a type of molecule, any molecule, that would have that vibration and that -- the obvious prediction was that it should absolutely smell of sulfur. If it didn’t, the whole idea was toast, and I might as well move on to other things.
為了自我說服 這整個瘋狂的理論是可信的 我開始這個尋找氣味分子的遊戲 我想找到某個類型的分子,或任何分子 其振動頻率跟硫氫化物一樣 若理論正確,顯然這分子聞起來像硫磺 如果不是這樣,這整個理論是個餿主意,我會轉而研究其他主題
Now, after searching high and low for several months, I discovered that there was a type of molecule called a Borane which has exactly the same vibration. Now the good news is, Boranes you can get hold of. The bad news is they’re rocket fuels. Most of them explode spontaneously in contact with air, and when you call up the companies, they only give you minimum ten tons, OK? (Laughter) So this was not what they call a laboratory-scale experiment, and they wouldn’t have liked it at my college.
在經過幾個月有高潮有低潮的研究 我發現有種叫做硼烷的分子 跟硫氫化物有一模一樣的振動頻率 好消息是,我們能拿到一些硼烷 而壞消息是,硼烷是火藥的燃料 一但跟空氣接觸,大部分的硼烷會自動爆炸 若你打電話給硼烷公司訂購,他們至少得賣你十噸好嗎? (笑) 這並不是所謂的實驗室規模的實驗 而我的學校高層並不欣賞這樣的研究
However, I managed to get a hold of a Borane eventually, and here is the beast. And it really does have the same -- if you calculate, if you measure the vibrational frequencies, they are the same as S-H.
然而,我到底還是拿到一些硼烷了,就是這個怪獸 經過計算跟測量 硼烷的振動頻率的確硫氫化物相同
Now, does it smell of sulfur? Well, if you go back in the literature, there’s a man who knew more about Boranes than anyone alive then or since, Alfred Stock, he synthesized all of them. And in an enormous 40-page paper in German he says, at one point -- my wife is German and she translated it for me -- and at one point he says, "ganz widerlich Geruch," an "absolutely repulsive smell," which is good. Reminiscent of hydrogen sulfide. So this fact that Boranes smell of sulfur had been known since 1910, and utterly forgotten until 1997, 1998.
現在問題來了,硼烷的味道跟硫氫化物一樣嗎? Alfred Stock,有史以來最懂硼烷的人 當他還在世時,他合成了所有硼烷化合物 在一篇長達40頁,以德文寫就的大論文裡,他提到一點── 我的妻子是德國人,是她幫我翻譯原文的 Alfred Stock這麼說:"ganz widerlich Geruch" 意即:「非常難聞的味道」。很好,這讓我想起了硫化氫。 這就是說,早在1910年,就已知硼烷的味道 跟硫化氫相同,之後直至1997, 98年都一直被人遺忘
Now, the slight fly in the ointment is this: that if we smell molecular vibrations, we must have a spectroscope in our nose. Now, this is a spectroscope, OK, on my laboratory bench. And it’s fair to say that if you look up somebody’s nose, you’re unlikely to see anything resembling this. And this is the main objection to the theory.
而有點美中不足的是: 如果我們的嗅覺是在辨別分子振動,我們的鼻子中必定有個光譜儀 這就是光譜儀,好吧,其實是我實驗桌上的光譜儀 公道的說,當你看著一個人的鼻子時 你不太可能覺得鼻子跟這個東西有任何相似之處 這是這理論最主要的反證
OK, great, we smell vibrations. How? All right? Now when people ask this kind of question, they neglect something, which is that physicists are really clever, unlike biologists. (Laughter) This is a joke. I’m a biologist, OK? So it’s a joke against myself.
好吧,我們聞得出分子的振動。然而,這是怎麼辦到的? 當人們問這個問題時,他們忽略了一件事 那就是:物理學家的確很聰明,不像生物學家 (笑) 這是個笑話,我到底還是個生物學家 這笑話是對我的反諷
Bob Jacklovich and John Lamb at Ford Motor Company, in the days when Ford Motor was spending vast amounts of money on fundamental research, discovered a way to build a spectroscope that was intrinsically nano-scale. In other words, no mirrors, no lasers, no prisms, no nonsense, just a tiny device, and he built this device. And this device uses electron tunneling. Now, I could do the dance of electron tunneling, but I’ve done a video instead, which is much more interesting. Here’s how it works.
當福特汽車還投資大量金錢 在基礎研究上時,公司職員 Bob Jacklovich跟John Lamb找到了 製作內建奈米級光譜儀的方法 換句話說,這個小儀器不需要鏡子、 雷射、稜鏡等沒有必要的東西,而是利用電子隧穿的原理 我是可以跳個電子隧穿舞 不過,我還是製作一段更有趣的影片,來告訴你們這是怎麼辦到的
Electrons are fuzzy creatures, and they can jump across gaps, but only at equal energy. If the energy differs, they can’t jump. Unlike us, they won’t fall off the cliff. OK. Now. If something absorbs the energy, the electron can travel. So here you have a system, you have something -- and there’s plenty of that stuff in biology -- some substance giving an electron, and the electron tries to jump, and only when a molecule comes along that has the right vibration does the reaction happen, OK? This is the basis for the device that these two guys at Ford built.
電子是非常活躍的物質,他們能夠跳越 兩個能量相同的能隙。當能隙能量不同時,則無法跨越 跟我們不同,電子不會從由能量差構成的懸崖摔下 如果有某個物質吸收能量,電子就能夠游移 而這個系統── 生物體中有很多這樣的系統── 某些物質提供電子,這些電子試著穿越能隙 只有具正確振動頻率的某分子存在時 反應才會發生 這是福特的兩位職員發明的奈米光譜儀的原理
And every single part of this mechanism is actually plausible in biology. In other words, I’ve taken off-the-shelf components, and I’ve made a spectroscope. What’s nice about this idea, if you have a philosophical bent of mind, is that then it tells you that the nose, the ear and the eye are all vibrational senses. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because it could also be that they’re not. But it has a certain -- (Laughter) -- it has a certain ring to it which is attractive to people who read too much 19th-century German literature.
這個機器的每一個部份在生物學上都行得通 也就是說,我曾經拆開過這個儀器 自己做過光譜儀 如果你天生就是個好學之士,你會明白 這個點子最棒之處,在於揭示所有的感官 包括嗅覺聽覺跟視覺都是在感覺分子的振動 當然,這不重要,因為也有可能不是這樣 但是,這理論在某種程度上── (笑) 在某種程度上對讀了很多19世紀時的 德國文獻的人們是有吸引力的
And then a magnificent thing happened: I left academia and joined the real world of business, and a company was created around my ideas to make new molecules using my method, along the lines of, let’s put someone else’s money where your mouth is. And one of the first things that happened was we started going around to fragrance companies asking for what they needed, because, of course, if you could calculate smell, you don’t need chemists. You need a computer, a Mac will do it, if you know how to program the thing right, OK? So you can try a thousand molecules, you can try ten thousand molecules in a weekend, and then you only tell the chemists to make the right one. And so that’s a direct path to making new odorants.
當年,巨大的轉折出現: 我離開學術圈,進入產業界的現實世界 根據我的想法成立一個公司 並利用我的技術合成新分子 也就是讓別人來投資我的信念 一開始 我們去拜訪香水公司 問他們需要什麼。當然,這是因為 如果你能量化味道,就不需要化學家 只要一部蘋果電腦,跟寫出正確的程式 就能計算一千個分子 一個周末你就能處理一萬個分子 再讓化學家去合成味道正確的分子 這是合成新味道的直接途徑
And one of the first things that happened was we went to see some perfumers in France -- and here’s where I do my Charles Fleischer impression -- and one of them says, "You cannot make a coumarin." He says to me, "I bet you cannot make a coumarin."
剛開始 我們去拜訪法國的香水師─ 這時我模仿Charles Fleischer的演出─ 他們之中有一個人說:「你才做不來香豆素的味道。」 「我賭你做不來。」
Now, coumarin is a very common thing, a material, in fragrance which is derived from a bean that comes from South America. And it is the classic synthetic aroma chemical, OK? It’s the molecule that has made men’s fragrances smell the way they do since 1881, to be exact.
香豆素是非常常見的香水原料 這個味道是從南美洲的一種豆子提煉出來的 但也是個典型的人工合成香味 這個分子讓男性香水的味道 從1881年以來就沒有變過
And the problem is it’s a carcinogen. So nobody likes particularly to -- you know, aftershave with carcinogens. (Laughter) There are some reckless people, but it’s not worth it, OK?
但問題是,香豆素致癌 而沒有人會希望他不過是刮個鬍子就會接觸致癌物 (笑) 總是有不在乎的人,但還是不值得嘛!
So they asked us to make a new coumarin. And so we started doing calculations. And the first thing you do is you calculate the vibrational spectrum of coumarin, and you smooth it out, so that you have a nice picture of what the sort of chord, so to speak, of coumarin is. And then you start cranking the computer to find other molecules, related or unrelated, that have the same vibrations.
所以他們希望我們合成新的香豆素。我們也做了計算 首先,得計算香豆素的振動頻率譜 並整理結果來讓我們 對香豆素是個怎樣的香調有比較好的認識 接著,是利用電腦分析類似香豆素的分子 不相干的分子也可以,來找跟香豆素振動方式相同的分子
And we actually, in this case, I’m sorry to say, it happened -- it was serendipitous. Because I got a phone call from our chief chemist and he said, look, I’ve just found this such a beautiful reaction, that even if this compound doesn’t smell of coumarin, I want to do it, it’s just such a nifty, one step -- I mean, chemists have weird minds -- one step, 90 percent yield, you know, and you get this lovely crystalline compound. Let us try it.
而我們的確,就這個案例,我不得不這麼說 這方法行得通──我們運氣不錯 當時我們的首席化學家打電話給我 說他剛剛發現一個很美妙的化學反應 所以就算反應產物聞起來不像香豆素 他還是想研究這個有效率的、只要一個步驟的反應── 化學家都有個怪腦袋 反正只要一步,我們就能得到這個可愛的結晶物 產率達90%。讓我們試試看吧
And I said, first of all, let me do the calculation on that compound, bottom right, which is related to coumarin, but has an extra pentagon inserted into the molecule. Calculate the vibrations, the purple spectrum is that new fellow, the white one is the old one. And the prediction is it should smell of coumarin. They made it ... and it smelled exactly like coumarin. And this is our new baby, called tonkene. You see, when you’re a scientist, you’re always selling ideas. And people are very resistant to ideas, and rightly so. Why should new ideas be accepted? But when you put a little 10-gram vial on the table in front of perfumers and it smells like coumarin, and it isn’t coumarin, and you’ve found it in three weeks, this focuses everybody’s mind wonderfully. (Laughter) (Applause)
我說:首先,我們來對這個物質進行些計算 它的部分結構近似香豆素,但多了一個五碳環 這是結果,紫色表示這個新物質的振動頻率譜 而白色的就是香豆素 預測顯示,新物質聞起來應該像香豆素 新物質作出來以後,味道正是香豆素的味道 這是我們的新寶物,香豆烯 你看,當你是個科學家時,你總是在賣你的想法 然而人們抗拒新點子,問題也正是: 為什麼我們得接受新點子? 但當你在香水師的桌前放上少少的10克 "聞起來像香豆素,卻不是香豆素"的物質 而你只花三個星期找到它 這讓每個人都覺得棒極了 (笑) (掌聲)
And people often ask me, is your theory accepted? And I said, well, by whom? I mean most, you know -- there’s three attitudes: You’re right, and I don’t know why, which is the most rational one at this point. You’re right, and I don’t care how you do it, in a sense; you bring me the molecules, you know. And: You’re completely wrong, and I’m sure you’re completely wrong.
人們常問:你的理論被接受了嗎? 我說:被誰接受呢?聽到這理論的人大致有三種反應: 雖然我不明白,但你是對的,這是目前最合理的推測 你大概是對的,而我也不在乎你是怎麼辦到的 反正你都把新分子給我了 還有:你錯了,我很確定你一定是錯的
OK? Now, we’re dealing with people who only want results, and this is the commercial world. And they tell us that even if we do it by astrology, they’re happy. But we’re not actually doing it by astrology. But for the last three years, I’ve had what I consider to be the best job in the entire universe, which is to put my hobby -- which is, you know, fragrance and all the magnificent things -- plus a little bit of biophysics, a small amount of self-taught chemistry at the service of something that actually works.
也就是說,我們得面對只在乎結果的人 而這是個資本主義世界 他們說,就算我們是靠著占星學知識達成任務,他們還是滿意的 但我們的確不是靠著占星學知識達成任務 在最近三年,我做著一份我認為是 全宇宙最棒的工作:這讓我能將我的嗜好 也就是香氛跟所有美好的事物 跟一些些生理學,一些些自學來的化學結合起來 做出一些實際有用的貢獻
Thank you very much. (Applause)
非常謝謝大家 (掌聲)