(Music)
(音樂)
Roughly 43,000 years ago, a young cave bear died in the rolling hills on the northwest border of modern day Slovenia. A thousand years later, a mammoth died in southern Germany. A few centuries after that, a griffon vulture also died in the same vicinity. And we know almost nothing about how these animals met their deaths, but these different creatures dispersed across both time and space did share one remarkable fate. After their deaths, a bone from each of their skeletons was crafted by human hands into a flute.
約在四萬三千年以前 一隻年輕的洞熊 死於現今斯洛維尼亞 西北邊界的山巒中 一千年後,一頭長毛象 死於德國的南部 幾個世紀過後,一隻西域兀鷲 也在附近死去 我們對這些動物的死亡原因 幾乎一無所知 但這些不同的生物 跨越時空和不同地點 卻有著同樣不同凡響的命運 在牠們死後,身上的骨頭 經由人類的手製成 一隻笛子
Think about that for a second. Imagine you're a caveman, 40,000 years ago. You've mastered fire. You've built simple tools for hunting. You've learned how to craft garments from animal skins to keep yourself warm in the winter. What would you choose to invent next? It seems preposterous that you would invent the flute, a tool that created useless vibrations in air molecules. But that is exactly what our ancestors did.
想像自己是 四萬年前的山頂洞人 很會用火 也會製造些簡單的狩獵工具 也知道如何用動物皮毛製成衣服 在冬天時保持溫暖 接下來你會想發明什麽? 發明笛子聽起來很荒謬 只是一種讓空氣分子 震盪的無用工具 但這就是我們祖先曾經做的事
Now this turns out to be surprisingly common in the history of innovation. Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.
在人類的發明史中 出乎意料是相當常見的 人們發明的原因 不外乎是為了要求生存 或者餵飽孩子 或是攻占隔壁村莊 但很多時候 世界上的一些新發明 僅僅出自於好玩 而真正奇怪的是 很多用於玩樂、看似沒用的發明 最後卻能在科學、政治和社會上 產生重大的轉變
Take what may be the most important invention of modern times: programmable computers. Now, the standard story is that computers descend from military technology, since many of the early computers were designed specifically to crack wartime codes or calculate rocket trajectories. But in fact, the origins of the modern computer are much more playful, even musical, than you might imagine. The idea behind the flute, of just pushing air through tubes to make a sound, was eventually modified to create the first organ more than 2,000 years ago. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of triggering sounds by pressing small levers with our fingers, inventing the first musical keyboard. Now, keyboards evolved from organs to clavichords to harpsichords to the piano, until the middle of the 19th century, when a bunch of inventors finally hit on the idea of using a keyboard to trigger not sounds but letters. In fact, the very first typewriter was originally called "the writing harpsichord."
舉一個當今世代最重要的發明 可程式電腦 一般來說電腦一開始沿用軍方科技 早期許多電腦都是專門設計 在戰爭時用來破解密碼 或計算火箭運輸軌道 但事實上,現代電腦的始祖 起源是因為有趣的活動 非常具有音樂性的 跟你想的不一樣 笛子的發明 僅是透過管子 推動空氣來產生聲音而已 改良加工之後成為 兩千多年前的第一個風琴 有人想出了一個能製造出聲音的好主意 藉由我們的手指按壓槓桿來產生聲音 發明了第一個鍵盤樂器 鍵盤從管風琴發展到翼琴 衍生到大鍵琴 到今日的鋼琴 直到十九世紀中期 一群發明家終於想到 使用鍵盤敲打出文字而非彈出聲音 事實上,第一台打字機 原名則是「寫字大鍵琴」
Flutes and music led to even more powerful breakthroughs. About a thousand years ago, at the height of the Islamic Renaissance, three brothers in Baghdad designed a device that was an automated organ. They called it "the instrument that plays itself." Now, the instrument was basically a giant music box. The organ could be trained to play various songs by using instructions encoded by placing pins on a rotating cylinder. And if you wanted the machine to play a different song, you just swapped a new cylinder in with a different code on it. This instrument was the first of its kind. It was programmable.
笛子加上音樂 給生活帶來了更多的轉變 大約一千年以前 在伊斯蘭復興運動的高峰期間 在巴格達的三兄弟設計了一個裝置 即為自動風琴 他們稱它做「會自己演奏的樂器」 那個樂器基本上就是一個大型音樂盒 樂器能自己奏出許多不同樂曲 藉由金屬片撥動 編碼在圓筒上的點而產生音樂 如果你想換一首曲子 只需要換上一個新的 編碼過的圓筒就行了 這樂器是第一個被發明出來 可以程式的
Now, conceptually, this was a massive leap forward. The whole idea of hardware and software becomes thinkable for the first time with this invention. And that incredibly powerful concept didn't come to us as an instrument of war or of conquest, or necessity at all. It came from the strange delight of watching a machine play music.
從概念上來說 這是一個非常大的進步 這個發明裡面軟硬體結合的想法 讓人覺得有很大的想像空間 這個不可思議的想像空間 不是為了戰爭或征服而發明 也不是什麼生活必需品 僅是來自於欣賞音樂盒 播放音樂時的美妙樂趣
In fact, the idea of programmable machines was exclusively kept alive by music for about 700 years. In the 1700s, music-making machines became the playthings of the Parisian elite. Showmen used the same coded cylinders to control the physical movements of what were called automata, an early kind of robot. One of the most famous of those robots was, you guessed it, an automated flute player designed by a brilliant French inventor named Jacques de Vaucanson.
事實上,可程式機器的概念 存在於音樂世界中已經有七百多年 在十八世紀,能奏出音樂的機器 成了巴黎貴族們的收藏玩物 雜耍藝人使用相同的編碼圓筒 去控制稱為「Automata」 自動機的各種動作 就是機器人最早的雛形 這些機器人中最著名的 各位猜到了嗎? 是一個能演奏笛子的機器人 由傑出的法國發明家 賈奎茲‧迪‧沃康松設計出來
And as de Vaucanson was designing his robot musician, he had another idea. If you could program a machine to make pleasing sounds, why not program it to weave delightful patterns of color out of cloth? Instead of using the pins of the cylinder to represent musical notes, they would represent threads with different colors. If you wanted a new pattern for your fabric, you just programmed a new cylinder. This was the first programmable loom.
當在設計他的機器人音樂家時 他萌生了另外一個想法 如果可以透過程式 讓機器產生令人愉悅的音樂 為什麽不能透過程式讓它在 衣服上編織出色彩斑斕的圖案呢? 原本圓筒上面代表的音符 能否試試用不同顏色的線來代替 如果想編織一塊新的樣式 只需要換上新程式的圓筒 第一台自動織布機就此產生
Now, the cylinders were too expensive and time-consuming to make, but a half century later, another French inventor named Jacquard hit upon the brilliant idea of using paper-punched cards instead of metal cylinders. Paper turned out to be much cheaper and more flexible as a way of programming the device. That punch card system inspired Victorian inventor Charles Babbage to create his analytical engine, the first true programmable computer ever designed. And punch cards were used by computer programmers as late as the 1970s.
但當時這種圓筒相當昂貴 製造過程也很耗時 但半個世紀之後 另一個名叫查卡的法國發明家 想到了一個絕佳點子 用紙做的「打孔卡」 來代替金屬圓筒 紙張的多種用途加上便宜的價格 在可程式設備的發展史中幫助很大 打孔卡系統啟發了維多利亞時期的 發明家查爾斯·巴貝奇 發明了他的第一台分析機 史上第一台電腦 史無前例的發明 這些打孔卡仍被電腦程式人員廣泛使用 直到二十世紀 1970 年代末
So ask yourself this question: what really made the modern computer possible? Yes, the military involvement is an important part of the story, but inventing a computer also required other building blocks: music boxes, toy robot flute players, harpsichord keyboards, colorful patterns woven into fabric, and that's just a small part of the story. There's a long list of world-changing ideas and technologies that came out of play: public museums, rubber, probability theory, the insurance business and many more.
所以,試想一下 究竟是什麽造就了現代電腦? 沒錯,軍方的介入 的確是一個重要因素 但發明一台電腦還需要其他組件 音樂箱 玩具笛子演奏機器人 大鍵琴的鍵盤 彩色圖案編織布 這都是故事的一小部分 還有一堆能改變世界的想法和科技 都來自於娛樂 公眾博物館、橡膠球 機率理論、保險業務 許許多多
Necessity isn't always the mother of invention. The playful state of mind is fundamentally exploratory, seeking out new possibilities in the world around us. And that seeking is why so many experiences that started with simple delight and amusement eventually led us to profound breakthroughs.
需要並不總是發明之母 腦中愛玩的性格才是探索的基礎 在周圍的世界裡,探索那些新的可能 而這種單純探索娛樂的動機 正是許多實驗的開端 最終引領我們成就更大的突破
Now, I think this has implications for how we teach kids in school and how we encourage innovation in our workspaces, but thinking about play and delight this way also helps us detect what's coming next. Think about it: if you were sitting there in 1750 trying to figure out the big changes coming to society in the 19th, the 20th centuries, automated machines, computers, artificial intelligence, a programmable flute entertaining the Parisian elite would have been as powerful a clue as anything else at the time. It seemed like an amusement at best, not useful in any serious way, but it turned out to be the beginning of a tech revolution that would change the world.
我認為,這裡面蘊涵 我們要如何在學校教育孩子 如何在我們的工作場所鼓勵創新 而就在我們這樣 尋找娛樂和開心的路上 也幫助了我們預測未來會發生的事 想像一下穿越時空回到 1750 年 想了解即將於十九世紀 二十世紀社會發生的重大改變 那些自動機器、電腦 人工智慧 自動演奏的笛子 娛樂了巴黎上等社會 就是一個非常強而有力的線索證明 發明看起來也許只適用於娛樂 沒有什麽正經的用途 但最後成為改變世界科技革命的開端
You'll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.
娛樂帶給人們未來的發展無限可能