I'm here today, as June said, to talk about a project that my twin sister and I have been doing for the past three and half years. We're crocheting a coral reef. And it's a project that we've actually been now joined by hundreds of people around the world, who are doing it with us. Indeed thousands of people have actually been involved in this project, in many of its different aspects. It's a project that now reaches across three continents, and its roots go into the fields of mathematics, marine biology, feminine handicraft and environmental activism. It's true. It's also a project that in a very beautiful way, the development of this has actually paralleled the evolution of life on earth, which is a particularly lovely thing to be saying right here in February 2009 -- which, as one of our previous speakers told us, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
我今天在此,就如琼所说, 要讲述一个我和同胞姐姐 做了三年半时间的项目。 我们在编织一个珊瑚礁。 实际上,现在已经有成百上千,来自世界各地的人们 加入到我们的行列中, 他们和我们一起工作,事实上, 成千上万的人们,已经通过各种各样的方式 参与到这个项目中。 这个项目现在已经扩展到三个大陆。 它的基础涉及数学, 海洋生物学,女性手工艺品 和环保主义。 是这样的。 这同时也是一个 十分美妙的项目, 因为项目在进行的同时 也与地球生命进化的脉络并行, 这是个很可爱的话题, 2009年2月, 就如之前有位演讲者所说, 是查尔斯·达尔文的 200周年诞辰。
All of this I'm going to get to in the next 18 minutes, I hope. But let me first begin by showing you some pictures of what this thing looks like. Just to give you an idea of scale, that installation there is about six feet across, and the tallest models are about two or three feet high. This is some more images of it. That one on the right is about five feet high. The work involves hundreds of different crochet models. And indeed there are now thousands and thousands of models that people have contributed all over the world as part of this. The totality of this project involves tens of thousands of hours of human labor -- 99 percent of it done by women. On the right hand side, that bit there is part of an installation that is about 12 feet long.
这就是接下来18分钟内,我所想要与你们分享的。 但首先请我给你们 展示一些这些东西的图片。 为使你们对大小有个概念, 那个作品大概6英尺宽, 而最高的模型大约2到3英尺高。 这是它的另一些图片。 右边的那个大约有5英尺高。 整个作品包含了数百件不同的针织模型。 事实上,类似这样的模型,现在已经有数千件, 都来自世界各地人们的捐献。 整个项目 包含了成千上万个小时 的人力劳动—— 99%是有妇女完成的。 在右手边,那是一个大约12英尺长 的作品的一部分。
My sister and I started this project in 2005 because in that year, at least in the science press, there was a lot of talk about global warming, and the effect that global warming was having on coral reefs. Corals are very delicate organisms, and they are devastated by any rise in sea temperatures. It causes these vast bleaching events that are the first signs of corals of being sick. And if the bleaching doesn't go away -- if the temperatures don't go down -- reefs start to die. A great deal of this has been happening in the Great Barrier Reef, particularly in coral reefs all over the world. This is our invocation in crochet of a bleached reef.
我和姐姐在2005年开始了这个项目, 因为那一年,至少在科学出版上, 出现了很多有关全球变暖的讨论, 而全球变暖将对珊瑚礁产生影响。 珊瑚是非常脆弱的生物。 海水温度稍一上升就会对它们产生致命的影响。 这也导致了这些大规模的白化现象, 而这正是珊瑚生病的第一个征兆。 如果白化不能够消失, 如果温度不下降,珊瑚礁就会开始死去。 在大堡礁已经有许多这样的情形出现, 全世界的珊瑚礁也同样如此。 这个白化珊瑚礁的针织模型寄托了我们的祈祷。
We have a new organization together called The Institute for Figuring, which is a little organization we started to promote, to do projects about the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of science and mathematics. And I went and put a little announcement up on our site, asking for people to join us in this enterprise. To our surprise, one of the first people who called was the Andy Warhol Museum. And they said they were having an exhibition about artists' response to global warming, and they'd like our coral reef to be part of it. I laughed and said, "Well we've only just started it, you can have a little bit of it." So in 2007 we had an exhibition, a small exhibition of this crochet reef. And then some people in Chicago came along and they said, "In late 2007, the theme of the Chicago Humanities Festival is global warming. And we've got this 3,000 square-foot gallery and we want you to fill it with your reef." And I, naively by this stage, said, "Oh, yes, sure." Now I say "naively" because actually my profession is as a science writer. What I do is I write books about the cultural history of physics. I've written books about the history of space, the history of physics and religion, and I write articles for people like the New York Times and the L.A. Times. So I had no idea what it meant to fill a 3,000 square-foot gallery. So I said yes to this proposition. And I went home, and I told my sister Christine. And she nearly had a fit because Christine is a professor at one of L.A.'s major art colleges, CalArts, and she knew exactly what it meant to fill a 3,000 square-foot gallery. She thought I'd gone off my head. But she went into crochet overdrive. And to cut a long story short, eight months later we did fill the Chicago Cultural Center's 3,000 square foot gallery.
我们还一起成立了一个新的组织,称作计算研究所, 这是个小组织,目的是 促进并从事有关 表现科学和数学中美学和诗意方面的项目。 在我们的网站上我做了个小小的声明, 希望人们加入到这项事业中。 出乎我们意料,首先打电话过来的 竟是安迪·沃霍尔博物馆。 他们说要举办一个有关 艺术家们对全球变暖作何反应的展览, 并希望我们的珊瑚礁能成为其中一部分。 我笑了,说:“我们才刚刚开始, 你们可以拿一小部分去。” 因此2007年我们就办了个展览, 一次这种编织珊瑚的小展览。 然后有些从芝加哥过来参观的人就说, “2007年底,芝加哥人文艺术节的主题就是全球变暖, 我们有3000平方英尺的展厅, 希望你们用珊瑚礁来填满它。” 而我,天真得很,说,“噢,好的,没问题。” 我说“天真”其实是因为 我的职业是科学作家。 我所做的是写有关物理学文化历史的书籍。 我已经写过有关太空历史、 物理学和宗教历史的书, 我也为纽约时报和洛杉矶时报之类撰写文章。 所以我对填满3000平方英尺的展厅没有丝毫概念。 所以我就答应了这个提议。 回家之后,我告诉了姐姐克里斯汀, 她几乎大发雷霆, 因为她在洛杉矶最主要的艺术学院, 加州艺术学院里当教授, 十分清楚填满3000平方英尺的展厅是什么概念。 她认为我是发疯了。 但她还是加紧投入了编织中。 长话短说,八个月之后, 我们真的把芝加哥文化中心3000平方英尺 的展厅填满了。
By this stage the project had taken on a viral dimension of its own, which got completely beyond us. The people in Chicago decided that as well as exhibiting our reefs, what they wanted to do was have the local people there make a reef. So we went and taught the techniques. We did workshops and lectures. And the people in Chicago made a reef of their own. And it was exhibited alongside ours. There were hundreds of people involved in that. We got invited to do the whole thing in New York, and in London, and in Los Angeles. In each of these cities, the local citizens, hundreds and hundreds of them, have made a reef. And more and more people get involved in this, most of whom we've never met. So the whole thing has sort of morphed into this organic, ever-evolving creature, that's actually gone way beyond Christine and I.
通过这次展示,我们的项目 出现了“病毒式传播”的效应, 完全出乎我们的想象。 芝加哥的人们决定, 在我们的珊瑚礁展览的同时,他们也希望 当地的人们也能造一个珊瑚礁出来。 所以我们就去教授技术。我们开培训班,开讲座, 芝加哥人就做出了自己的珊瑚礁, 并在我们的展品旁展览。 成百上千的人参与其中。 我们受邀前往纽约、 伦敦和洛杉矶 进行同样的工作。 在每一个城市,当地居民, 成百上千的人们都来制作珊瑚礁。 而且越来越多的人们参与进来, 大部分都是新鲜的面孔。 所以整个事情似乎渐渐演变成 这种有机的、不断进化的生物, 实际上已经远远超出我和克里斯汀的想象。
Now some of you are sitting here thinking, "What planet are these people on? Why on earth are you crocheting a reef? Woolenness and wetness aren't exactly two concepts that go together. Why not chisel a coral reef out of marble? Cast it in bronze." But it turns out there is a very good reason why we are crocheting it because many organisms in coral reefs have a very particular kind of structure. The frilly crenulated forms that you see in corals, and kelps, and sponges and nudibranchs, is a form of geometry known as hyperbolic geometry. And the only way that mathematicians know how to model this structure is with crochet. It happens to be a fact. It's almost impossible to model this structure any other way, and it's almost impossible to do it on computers. So what is this hyperbolic geometry that corals and sea slugs embody?
现在在座的一些人会想, “这些人到底是从哪里来的? 你到底为什么要编织一个珊瑚礁? 羊毛织物和湿漉漉的东西 根本就是风马牛不相及的两个东西。 为什么不用大理石来雕刻珊瑚礁? 或者是用青铜来浇铸?” 但事实上我们为什么编织它 的原因很合理, 因为许多珊瑚礁生物 的形状结构都很特别。 你们在珊瑚、海带、海绵和海兔等生物上看到 的镶褶边的形状, 实际上是一种称为双曲线的几何形状。 而数学家们所知的 模拟这种结构的唯一方法, 就是要靠编织。事实也刚好是这样。 几乎没有别的方法来模拟这种形状。 在电脑上也几乎不可能做出来。 那么珊瑚和海蛞蝓到底 展示了什么样的双曲线几何呢?
The next few minutes is, we're all going to get raised up to the level of a sea slug. (Laughter) This sort of geometry revolutionized mathematics when it was first discovered in the 19th century. But not until 1997 did mathematicians actually understand how they could model it. In 1997 a mathematician at Cornell, Daina Taimina, made the discovery that this structure could actually be done in knitting and crochet. The first one she did was knitting. But you get too many stitches on the needle. So she quickly realized crochet was the better thing. But what she was doing was actually making a model of a mathematical structure, that many mathematicians had thought it was actually impossible to model. And indeed they thought that anything like this structure was impossible per se. Some of the best mathematicians spent hundreds of years trying to prove that this structure was impossible.
接下来几分钟,我们要向 海蛞蝓的水平看齐。 (笑声) 在19世纪这种几何形状第一次被发现的时候, 它就引起了数学的革命。 但直到1997年,数学家们才真正知道 怎么去模拟它。 1997年,康奈尔大学的数学家 Daina Taimina, 发现可以用编织和钩针 来表现这种结构。 她的第一个作品是用针织法做的。 但这种方法会使针上面的缝线过多。因此她很快意识到, 钩针编织是更好的方法。 但她所做的,其实是一个模型, 一个数学结构的模型,而许多数学家 都认为这种结构是无法模拟的。 事实上他们认为像这种结构的东西 本身是不存在的。 一些最好的数学家花费了数百年时间, 试图证明这种结构不可能存在。
So what is this impossible hyperbolic structure? Before hyperbolic geometry, mathematicians knew about two kinds of space: Euclidean space, and spherical space. And they have different properties. Mathematicians like to characterize things by being formalist. You all have a sense of what a flat space is, Euclidean space is. But mathematicians formalize this in a particular way. And what they do is, they do it through the concept of parallel lines. So here we have a line and a point outside the line. And Euclid said, "How can I define parallel lines? I ask the question, how many lines can I draw through the point but never meet the original line?" And you all know the answer. Does someone want to shout it out? One. Great. Okay. That's our definition of a parallel line. It's a definition really of Euclidean space.
那么这种不可能的双曲结构是什么呢? 在双曲几何出现之前,数学家已经知道了 两种空间, 欧几里得空间和球面空间。 它们的特性不同。 数学家们喜欢用形式主义的方式来定义事物。 你们都会有平面空间,也就是欧几里得空间的概念。 但数学家们用一种特别的方式来定义它。 他们是通过平行线的概念 来解释的。 这里我们有一条直线和直线外的一点, 欧几里得说,“我怎么定义平行线呢? 问,经过这一点我可以画多少条直线, 且这些直线不与原直线相交?” 你们都知道答案。有谁想大声喊出来的? 一条,没错。好的。 这就是我们对平行线的定义。 它是欧几里得空间真正的定义。
But there is another possibility that you all know of: spherical space. Think of the surface of a sphere -- just like a beach ball, the surface of the Earth. I have a straight line on my spherical surface. And I have a point outside the line. How many straight lines can I draw through the point but never meet the original line? What do we mean to talk about a straight line on a curved surface? Now mathematicians have answered that question. They've understood there is a generalized concept of straightness, it's called a geodesic. And on the surface of a sphere, a straight line is the biggest possible circle you can draw. So it's like the equator or the lines of longitude. So we ask the question again, "How many straight lines can I draw through the point, but never meet the original line?" Does someone want to guess? Zero. Very good.
但还有另一种可能性,你们都知道 球面空间, 想象一个球体的表面, 如沙滩球,地球表面。 在这个球面上有一条直线, 在直线外有一个点,那么过这个点,我可以在 球面上画多少条直线 而不与原直线相交呢? 我们所说的弯曲表面上的 直线是怎么回事呢? 现在数学家们已经回答了这个问题。 他们对直线有个总体上的共识, 这被称为测地线。 而在球体表面, 直线就是你所能画出的最大的圆圈。 就像赤道或经线。 因此我们再问一下, “经过这一点,我们能够画出多少条直线 而不与原来的直线相交?” 有谁想来猜一猜? 零。非常好。
Now mathematicians thought that was the only alternative. It's a bit suspicious isn't it? There is two answers to the question so far, Zero and one. Two answers? There may possibly be a third alternative. To a mathematician if there are two answers, and the first two are zero and one, there is another number that immediately suggests itself as the third alternative. Does anyone want to guess what it is? Infinity. You all got it right. Exactly. There is, there's a third alternative. This is what it looks like. There's a straight line, and there is an infinite number of lines that go through the point and never meet the original line. This is the drawing. This nearly drove mathematicians bonkers because, like you, they're sitting there feeling bamboozled. Thinking, how can that be? You're cheating. The lines are curved. But that's only because I'm projecting it onto a flat surface. Mathematicians for several hundred years had to really struggle with this. How could they see this? What did it mean to actually have a physical model that looked like this?
数学家们认为这只是其中一个答案。 有点蹊跷是吧?目前这个问题有两个答案, 零和一。 两个答案?还可能有第三个答案。 对一个数学家来说,如果有两个答案, 分别是0和1, 那另一个作为第三个答案的数字 也就呼之欲出了。 有谁想来猜一下是什么? 无穷多。你们都对了,没错。 有第三个答案。 这就是那个答案。 这里有条直线,然后有无数多的直线 能经过这点而不与原直线相交。 画起来就是这样。 这几乎使数学家们发疯, 因为,像你们一样,他们也是坐在那里感觉受到欺骗。 想想,这怎么做到的?你在骗人,这些线是曲线。 但之所以如此只是因为我是在 平面上展示它。 数百年来,数学家们为此 真的付出了太多了。 他们怎么看到这个的? 在实际中用物理模型来表现它 意味着什么?
It's a bit like this: imagine that we'd only ever encountered Euclidean space. Then our mathematicians come along and said, "There's this thing called a sphere, and the lines come together at the north and south pole." But you don't know what a sphere looks like. And someone that comes along and says, "Look here's a ball." And you go, "Ah! I can see it. I can feel it. I can touch it. I can play with it." And that's exactly what happened when Daina Taimina in 1997, showed that you could crochet models in hyperbolic space. Here is this diagram in crochetness. I've stitched Euclid's parallel postulate on to the surface. And the lines look curved. But look, I can prove to you that they're straight because I can take any one of these lines, and I can fold along it. And it's a straight line. So here, in wool, through a domestic feminine art, is the proof that the most famous postulate in mathematics is wrong. (Applause)
有点像这样:想象我们只看见过欧几里得空间, 然后数学家们走过来, 说,“这种东西叫做球体, 它上面的线在南极和北极汇合。” 但你不知道球体看起来是什么样的。 然后有人过来说,“看那有个球。” 你走过去,“啊!我能看到它,我能感觉它。 我们触摸它。它还能用来玩。” 而这正是1997年, 当Daina Taimina展示出 可以用编织模型来模拟双曲空间 时的情景。 这里是钩针编织的一个图示。 我已经把欧几里得平行共设缝到了上面。 这些线看起来是弯的。 但请看,我向你们证明它们其实是直的, 因为我可以随便拿起一条线, 然后顺着线折叠起来。 这是条直线。 因此,这些毛线, 通过一种居家女性的艺术形式, 证明了数学史上最著名的假设 原来是错的。 (掌声)
And you can stitch all sorts of mathematical theorems onto these surfaces. The discovery of hyperbolic space ushered in the field of mathematics that is called non-Euclidean geometry. And this is actually the field of mathematics that underlies general relativity and is actually ultimately going to show us about the shape of the universe. So there is this direct line between feminine handicraft, Euclid and general relativity.
你可以把各种各样的数学定理 都缝在这些上面。 双曲空间的发现导致了数学领域中 非欧几何学的出现。 正是这一数学的新领域 构成了广义相对论的基础 并将最终向我们揭示 宇宙的形状。 因此在女性手工艺和 欧几里得以及广义相对论之间 有直接的联系。
Now, I said that mathematicians thought that this was impossible. Here's two creatures who've never heard of Euclid's parallel postulate -- didn't know it was impossible to violate, and they're simply getting on with it. They've been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. I once asked the mathematicians why it was that mathematicians thought this structure was impossible when sea slugs have been doing it since the Silurian age. Their answer was interesting. They said, "Well I guess there aren't that many mathematicians sitting around looking at sea slugs." And that's true. But it also goes deeper than that. It also says a whole lot of things about what mathematicians thought mathematics was, what they thought it could and couldn't do, what they thought it could and couldn't represent. Even mathematicians, who in some sense are the freest of all thinkers, literally couldn't see not only the sea slugs around them, but the lettuce on their plate -- because lettuces, and all those curly vegetables, they also are embodiments of hyperbolic geometry. And so in some sense they literally, they had such a symbolic view of mathematics, they couldn't actually see what was going on on the lettuce in front of them. It turns out that the natural world is full of hyperbolic wonders.
好的,我说过数学家们曾认为这是不可能的。 这是两种从未听过欧几里得平行公设的生物, 它们并不知道这条不能违背的定理, 依旧继续着简单的生活。 亿万年来,它们一直保持这样的形态。 我曾问过数学家它为什么会这样, 而数学家们认为这种结构是不可能的, 即使海蛞蝓从志留纪开始就一直是这样。 他们的答案很有趣。 他们说,“呃,我猜也没有多少数学家 会坐下来观察海蛞蝓。” 这是真的。但这背后还有更多东西。 它能告诉我们很多, 数学家们对数学是什么、 数学能做到和不能做到的 数学能表达和不能表达出来的等的思考。 甚至数学家,他们在某种程度上 是最自由的思想者, 不仅不能确实看到 身边的海蛞蝓, 也看不到盘子里的生菜叶, 因为生菜叶,还有所有有褶的蔬菜, 它们都能体现出双曲几何。 某种程度上他们确实, 他们对数学有种符号化的观点, 他们看不到面前的生菜叶 到底体现了什么。 而事实上自然界到处都有双曲线的奇观。
And so, too, we've discovered that there is an infinite taxonomy of crochet hyperbolic creatures. We started out, Chrissy and I and our contributors, doing the simple mathematically perfect models. But we found that when we deviated from the specific setness of the mathematical code that underlies it -- the simple algorithm crochet three, increase one -- when we deviated from that and made embellishments to the code, the models immediately started to look more natural. And all of our contributors, who are an amazing collection of people around the world, do their own embellishments. As it were, we have this ever-evolving, crochet taxonomic tree of life. Just as the morphology and the complexity of life on earth is never ending, little embellishments and complexifications in the DNA code lead to new things like giraffes, or orchids -- so too, do little embellishments in the crochet code lead to new and wondrous creatures in the evolutionary tree of crochet life. So this project really has taken on this inner organic life of its own. There is the totality of all the people who have come to it. And their individual visions, and their engagement with this mathematical mode.
同样,我们已经发现 编织出来的双曲线型生物 也有无穷无尽的种类。 我们着手开始,克丽希和我,还有我们的志愿者, 从简单的,数学上完美的模型开始做。 但我们发现,当我们偏离了那一整套 特定的数学准则, 以简单的运算法则为基础的数学准则, 钩针编织三次,放一次针。 当我们偏离了这些准则并对它做了一些修饰之后, 模型立刻变得更加自然起来。 而且我们的志愿者们,他们来自世界各地, 非常出色的一群人, 他们用自己的方式进行修饰。 由此,我们拥有了一棵不断演化 的编织分类学生命之树。 就好比地球上的生命 从未停止在形态学和复杂性上的进化, 对DNA编码稍微的 修饰和复杂化, 就导致了像长颈鹿或兰花这样的新物种出现。 同样的,对钩针编织法则一点点的修饰 就能导致在编织生命进化树上 新的,更完美的生物的出现。 所以这一项目真正地 具有它本身内在的有机的生命力。 这里是所有参加这个项目的人的总数。 还有他们的个人观点, 和他们对这一数学模式的理解。
We have these technologies. We use them. But why? What's at stake here? What does it matter? For Chrissy and I, one of the things that's important here is that these things suggest the importance and value of embodied knowledge. We live in a society that completely tends to valorize symbolic forms of representation -- algebraic representations, equations, codes. We live in a society that's obsessed with presenting information in this way, teaching information in this way. But through this sort of modality, crochet, other plastic forms of play -- people can be engaged with the most abstract, high-powered, theoretical ideas, the kinds of ideas that normally you have to go to university departments to study in higher mathematics, which is where I first learned about hyperbolic space. But you can do it through playing with material objects. One of the ways that we've come to think about this is that what we're trying to do with the Institute for Figuring and projects like this, we're trying to have kindergarten for grown-ups.
我们有这些技术,我们利用这些技术。 但为什么?什么才是利害攸关的?什么才是重要的? 对于克里希和我来说,这里最重要的事情之一, 就是这些东西表明了 具体表达出知识的重要性和价值。 我们生活在一个 完全趋向于为各种象征性的表述方式 规定价格的社会, 代数式的表述, 等式,编码等等。 我们生活的社会深深迷恋上 这一种表述信息 和传授信息的方式。 但通过模型的方式, 如钩针编织,其他塑料形式的展示, 人们能理解那些最抽象的, 高难度的理论化的概念, 也就是那些你通常需要跑到 大学里面才能学到的高等数学, 其实我也是在那里才第一次学到双曲空间的。 但你们可以用实际的物件来做到这些。 我们已经想到了这一点, 这也是我们想要通过计算研究所来尝试的一个项目, 像这样的项目,我们想要 建一个属于成人的幼儿园。
And kindergarten was actually a very formalized system of education, established by a man named Friedrich Froebel, who was a crystallographer in the 19th century. He believed that the crystal was the model for all kinds of representation. He developed a radical alternative system of engaging the smallest children with the most abstract ideas through physical forms of play. And he is worthy of an entire talk on his own right. The value of education is something that Froebel championed, through plastic modes of play.
幼儿园其实是一种非常形象化 的教育系统, 由19世纪一位名叫福禄贝尔 的检晶科学家创立。 他认为晶体可以作为 所有表述方式的模型。 他发展了一套激进另类的系统, 即使最小的孩子也能够通过 寓于物理形式的玩耍 来理解最抽象的概念。 他自己本身就值得作一整个演讲了。 福禄贝尔通过 娱乐的可塑模式 捍卫了教育的价值。
We live in a society now where we have lots of think tanks, where great minds go to think about the world. They write these great symbolic treatises called books, and papers, and op-ed articles. We want to propose, Chrissy and I, through The Institute for Figuring, another alternative way of doing things, which is the play tank. And the play tank, like the think tank, is a place where people can go and engage with great ideas. But what we want to propose, is that the highest levels of abstraction, things like mathematics, computing, logic, etc. -- all of this can be engaged with, not just through purely cerebral algebraic symbolic methods, but by literally, physically playing with ideas. Thank you very much. (Applause)
我们现在身处的社会, 有许多的“智库”, 许多优秀的头脑在那里思索世界问题。 他们写下这些伟大的符号化的专著, 也叫书籍,和论文, 还有专栏文章。 我们,克里希和我想要提出, 通过计算研究所来提出,另一种做事情的方式, 我们称之为“玩库”。 玩库,就像智库, 是一个人们过来 认识那些伟大思想和概念的地方。 但我们想提议的, 是那些最高层次的抽象思维, 如数学,计算,逻辑等等, 所有这些都能够, 不仅仅通过单纯的代数性的, 符号化的方法, 也可以通过文学的,物理上的方法“玩转”概念。 非常感谢。 (掌声)