Welcome to 10,000 feet. Let me explain why we are here and why some of you have a pine cone close to you. Once upon a time, I did a book called "How Buildings Learn." Today's event you might call "How Mountains Teach." A little background: For 10 years I've been trying to figure out how to hack civilization so that we can get long-term thinking to be automatic and common instead of difficult and rare -- or in some cases, non-existent. It would be helpful if humanity got into the habit of thinking of the now not just as next week or next quarter, but you know, next 10,000 years and the last 10,000 years -- basically civilization's story so far.
欢迎来到一万英尺的高空 先让我介绍一下我们为什么会在这里吧 也许你们有些人手上就有松塔 我曾经写过一本书,叫《建筑是如何学习的》 今天这一演讲你可以理解为“大山是怎么施教的” 先谈一下一些背景:过去的十年,我一直琢磨着 破解人类文明,使得我们能够有长远的思维 使得这样的思维方式成为常态,而不是这种艰难或根本就没有的思维 或者在某些情况下,它们就根本不存在 假如人类可以养成长线思考的习惯,那将是大好事 就是说,现在不是指这个星期或下个季度 而是未来一万年以及过去的一万年 那也是人类文明史所走过的时间
So we have the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. It's an incubator for about a dozen projects, all having to do with continuity over the long term. Our core project is a rather ambitious folly -- I suppose, a mythic undertaking: to build a 10,000-year clock that can really keep good time for that long a period. And the design problems of a project like that are just absolutely delicious. Go to the clock. And what we have here is something many of you saw here three years ago. It's the first working prototype of the clock. It's about nine feet high. Designed by Danny Hillis and Alexander Rose. It's presently in London, and is ticking away very deliberately at the science museum there.
长久基金会就在旧金山 它是一系列项目的孵化器 这些项目都是与长线思考相关的项目 而我们的核心项目是一个相当宏伟的愚公移山式的工程 可以说是一个颇具神话色彩的项目吧,就是要建一个万年钟 一个可以一直很好记时的万年钟 而这样一个计划所带来的设计难题也是相当迷人的 好吧,先回到这个钟。 这里看到的其实你们很多人三年前已经看过 这是我们制作的第一个可以运行的万年钟模型 高九英尺 是由Danny Hillis以及Alexander Rose设计的,它现在放在伦敦 就在科学博物馆里安静地行走着
So the design problem for today is going to be, how do you house an eventual monumental clock like this so it can really tick, save time beautifully for 100 centuries? Well, this was the first solution. Alexander Rose came up with this idea of a spiraloid tower with continuous sloping ramps. And it looked like a way to go, until you start thinking about, what does deep time do to a building? Well, this is what deep time does to a building. This is the Parthenon. It's only 2,450 years old, and look what happened to it. Here's a beautiful project. They really knew it'd last forever, because they'd build it out of absolutely huge stones. And now it's a pathetic ruin and no one even knows what it was used for. That's what happens to buildings. They're vulnerable. Even the most durable and intactable buildings, like the pyramids of Giza, are in bad shape when you look up close. They've been looted inside and out. And they're built to protect things but they don't protect things.
所以说,我们今天面临的设计上的难题是 怎样永久妥善的安放这样一个钟 使之可以在一万年之内都能平稳的运行,并准确的计时? 这是第一个方案 Alexander Rose提出这个设想 用一系列的斜坡做成一个螺旋型的塔 这个想法似乎不错 而一旦你想到长久时间对一座建筑带来的破坏时 看,这就是长久时间对建筑带来的破坏 这是帕提农神庙,它建成至今只有2450年之久 看看它身上发生了什么 这是一个很美的工程 建筑者以为它可以永世长存 因为他们是用巨型的石块建成的 现在看到的就只是一堆烂石 也没有人知道那里原来是用作何种用途的 这就是建筑的命运 它们都是不堪岁月洗礼的 即使是最为持久、最为坚固的建筑 比如吉萨城的金字塔,都已经满目仓荑 盗墓者里里外外把坟墓淘空了 这些建筑本来是用来保存东西的,但事实上它们起不到这个作用
So we got to thinking, if you can't put things safely in a building, where can you safely put them? We thought, OK, underground. How about underground with a view? Underground in a place that's really solid. So the obvious answer was, we need a mountain. You don't want just any mountain. You need absolutely the right mountain if you're going to have a clock for 10,000 years. So here's an image of the long view of the search problem. And we got to thinking for various reasons it ought to be a desert mountain, so we got looking in the dry areas of the Southwest. We looked at mesas in New Mexico. We were looking at dead volcanoes in Arizona.
所以我们想,既然用建筑来放东西不是一个安稳的办法 哪里才是好的存放地呢?我们想,不如放到地下? 在地表上装一个观测的窗口? 找一个相当坚固的地方。 答案很明显,我们需要找到一座山 并且不仅仅是一座山 我们需要合适的山 只有那样才能存放一个万年的钟 于是,我们又遇到了搜寻合适的地点的难题 基于多方面的考虑,我们想到那必须是一个位于沙漠地带的山 于是我们就到美国西南部的干旱地带搜寻 我们看了新墨西哥州的山谷地 看了亚利桑那州的死火山
Then Roger Kennedy, who was the director of the National Parks Service, led us to Eastern Nevada, to America's newest and oldest national park, which is called Great Basin National Park. It's right on the eastern border of Nevada. It's the highest range in the state -- over 13,000 feet. And you'll notice that on the left, on the left, on the west, it's very steep, and on the right it's gentle. This place is remote. It's over 200 miles from any major city. It's nowhere near any Interstate or railroad. And it's -- the only thing that goes by is what's called America's loneliest highway, U.S. 50.
这时,国家公园服务处的Roger Kennedy找到我们 把我们带到内华达州东部 来到美国最年轻也最古老的国家公园 那就是大盘地国家公园 就在内华达州东部的边界上 那里是整个州最高的地方,有一万三千英尺高 你会看到,在左边,在西边,那里非常陡峭 而在右边则非常缓和 这个地方相当偏僻,离最近的大城市都要200英里 旁边没有任何的州际公路或铁路 附近只有一个称之为 美国50号公路,那是美国最寂寞的公路
Now, inside the yellow line here, on the right is -- that's all national park. Inside the green line is national forest. And then over to the left is Bureau of Land Management land and some private land. Now, as it happened, that two-mile-long strip right in the middle, this vertical, was available because it was private land. And thanks to Jay Walker who was here and Mitch Kapor who was here, who started the process, Long Now was able to get that two-mile-long strip of land. And now let's look at the grand truth of what's there.
在这黄线里面,右边是国家公园 绿线里面就是国家森林 左边是国土管理局以及其他私人领地 而刚好中间那一段两英里长的狭窄地带 这个竖状地带是私人领地,它可以出让 感谢Jay Walker以及Mitch Kapor,他们两个今天都在这里 这是在他们的支持下,我们得以启动这一项目,买下了这块地 好吧,让我们看看那里到底有些什么吧
We're in Pole Canyon, looking west up the western escarpment of Mount Washington, which is 11,600 feet on top. Those white cliffs are a dense Cambrian limestone. That's a 2,000-foot thick formation, and it might be a beautiful place to hide a clock. It would be a pilgrimage to get to it; it would be a serious hike to get up to where the clock is. So last June, the Long Now board, some staff and some donors and advisors, made a two-week expedition to the mountain to explore it and investigate, one, if it's the right mountain, and two, if it's the right mountain, how it might actually work for us.
我们就在峡谷顶上,西边就是华盛顿山脉的悬崖 那里的最高峰有11600英尺高 那些悬崖都是由密集的寒武纪钟乳石构成的 有两千英尺厚 用来藏一个钟应该是不错的选择 人们要想去到那里的话,就须得像朝圣者那样徒步前往 一步一步的攀上悬崖 去年六月,长久基金会的董事会成员、一些职员以及捐赠者 花了两周时间在那里考察 一来是想知道那里是否真的合适 假如合适的话,我们可以怎么具体去开展这一项目
Now Danny Hillis sort of framed the problem. He has a theory of how the overall clock experience should work. It's what he calls the seven stages of a mythic adventure. It starts with the image. The image is a picture you have in your mind of the goal at the end of the journey. In this case it might well be an image of the clock. Then there's the point of embarkation, that is, the point of transition from ordinary life to being a pilgrim on a quest. Then -- this is a nice image of it, there's the labyrinth. The labyrinth is a concept, it's like a twilight zone, it's a place where it's difficult, where you get disoriented, maybe you get scared -- but you have to go through it if you're going to get to some kind of deep reintegration. Then there should always be in sight the draw -- a kind of a beacon that draws you on through the labyrinth to finish the process of getting there.
Danny Hillis 尝试这样去解决这个问题 他提出了一套理论,向人们解释这一神秘的探访过程是怎么一回事 他说,这一过程包括七个环节 一开始是一个图像,也就是在你头脑中形成的图像 你想象着自己必须完成这一段旅程 也许旅程的尽头就是一个钟在等着你 而后就是出发,这就是行程的开始点 从平常的生活转变为求索的朝圣者 而后呢,就是走进迷宫——这一点相当迷人 迷宫是一个概念,就有如一个幽暗地带 要走出非常艰难,你会迷路 甚至会被吓坏了——但你必须要走过去 假如你要获得某种深度的融合的话 再而后你肯定会看到 像航标那样的东西,指引你走过重重的迷宫 最终走出迷宫
Now Brian Eno, who's been in the thick of the Long Now process, spent two years making a C.D. called "January 7003," and it's "Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now." Based on -- parts of it are based on an algorithm that Danny Hillis developed, so that a peal of 10 bells makes a different peal every day for 10,000 years. The Hillis algorithm. 10 factorial gives you that number. And in fact, pretty soon we'll hear the sound. January 7003. There it is.
音乐家Brian Eno——他全程参与了长久基金会的这一项目 花了两年时间制作了一张名为“7003的一月”的CD “关于万年钟的贝尔研究” 其中一部分是根据Danny Hillis开创的算法制作的 十个铃组成一串 万年钟在一万年的光阴里每天都可以发出不一样的系列钟声 Hillis的算法可以通过指数10达到这一目的 我们马上就能听到这声音了 ”7003的一月“。听
OK, back to Danny's list. Number five of the seven is the payoff. This is it. The climax. The goal. The main thing that you're trying to get to. And then Danny says a really great journey will have a secret payoff. Something you didn't expect that caps what you did expect. Then there's the return. You've got to have a gradual return to the ordinary world, so you have time to assimilate what you've learned. And then, how about a memento? Number seven. At the end of it there's something physical, a kind of reward that you take away. It might be a piece of a core drill of the mountain. Something that's just yours. How do you study a mountain for the kinds of things we're talking about? This is not a normal building project. What do you look for? What are the elements that will most affect your ideas and decisions?
现在回到Danny Hillis那个七个环节 第五点是回报,就是它,最让人兴奋的时光 你到了终点了,到了你想去的地方 Danny说这样一个伟大的旅途应该有一个神秘的收获的 那是你意想不到的收获 这就是你的收获 你要慢慢的返回到平常世界 你才会慢慢的消化学到的东西 然后呢,是不是应该有一个记念?第七个环节 到最后有一种物质的东西 一种你可以拿走的回报 也许是一件开山岩的钻头 一件你自己的东西 你如何去研究一座山? 研究刚才提到的那些特征? 这不是一个平常的建筑项目 要注意些什么呢? 什么是最能影响你的思想与决定的?
Start with borders. If you look on the left side of the cliffs here, that's national park. That's sacrosanct -- you can't do anything with that. To the right of it is national forest. There's possibilities. The borders are important. Other elements were mines, weather, approaches and elevation. And especially trees. Look at those things up on top there. It turns out that Mount Washington is covered with bristlecone pines. They're the world's oldest living thing. People think they're just the size of shrubs, but that's not actually true. There are trees on that mountain that are 5,000 years old and still living. The wood is so solid it's like stone, and it lasts for a long time. So when you do tree ring studies of trunks that are on the mountain, some of them go back 10,000 years. The stone itself is absolutely beautiful, sculpted by millennia of very tough winters up there. We had tree ring analysts from the University of Arizona join us on the expedition.
我们从边界开始,假如你仔细看悬崖的左边 那里是国家公园,是一 块神圣之地 这块地不能动用,右边则是国家森林 那里有可能(成为选址地),但是对边界必须非常小心 其他需要考虑的因素是矿井、天气、进去的难度以及攀登的高度 还有特别要留意树。大家看看山顶上有些什么 事实上,华盛顿山脉上面覆盖了古刺果松 它们是世界上现存的活下来的最古老的生物 人们以为它们只有灌木丛那么大小,其实不是 那座山上有的树其树龄已达五千年了,还在生长着 这棵树的木质是如此坚固,简直有如石块,它已经久很长的时间了 要是你对高山上的树进行年轮测试 有些还可以追溯到上万年前呢 而这些“石头”本身也非常美丽 因为它们经历了千万年风雨的洗礼 亚利桑那大学对那里的树做了年轮测试 他们跟我们一起去的
Now, if you guys have a pine cone handy, now's a good time to put it in your hand and feel it, especially on the end. That's interesting. You'll find out why it's called a bristlecone pine. A little sensory experience. Here's Danny Hillis in the midst of a bristlecone pine forest on Long Now land. I should say that the age of bristlecones was discovered, led by a theory. Edmund Schulman in the 1950s had been studying trees under great stress at Timberline, and came to the realization that he put in an article in Science magazine called, "Longevity under Adversity in Conifers." And then, based on that principle, he started looking around at the various trees at Timberline, and realized that the bristlecone pines -- he found some in the White Mountains that were over 4,000 years old. Longevity under adversity is a pretty interesting design principle in its own right.
好,假如你们手上有松塔的话 可以用手去摸摸它,特别是顶端。 很有趣的 你可以体会到它为何叫古刺果松了,你能感觉到的 图片上那个就是Danny Hillis,它就在一片古刺果松林里 在这块万年钟的土地上,我应该提起这一树种的树龄测算 它是由一个理论推导出来的 Edmund Schulman在1950年代 他在Timberline公司用高压研究这些树木 最后推出一理论,在《科学》杂志上写一文章公布其结果。 题为“困厄铸就长寿——针叶树的研究” 他起初按照这一理论原理,对该地的周围进行研究 在Timerline公司研究各样的树种 结果发现这种古刺果松 他在怀特山脉发现的这种树有大约4000年的树龄 “困厄出长寿”本身也是一个很有趣的设计法则
OK, onto the mines. The first asking price for the property when we looked at it in 1998 was one billion dollars for 180 acres and a couple of mines. Because the owner said, "There's one billion dollars of beryllium in that mountain." And we said, "Wow, that's great. Listen, we'll counter. How about zero?
好,我们再看看矿井。最初 是以土地要价 1998年我们第一次去看的时候,那里的要价是十亿美元可以买180英亩的地以及少许的矿井 因为土地的主人说地里有价值十亿的铍 我们说,太棒了——我们能不能以零价购买,我们不要那些矿藏?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And we're a non-profit foundation, you can give us the property and take a hell of a tax deduction.
我们是一个非牟利的基金会,你可以直接把地给我们啊 还能减免一大笔的税金呢
(Laughter)
(笑声)
All you have to do is prove to the government it's worth a billion dollars."
只要你能向政府证明那块地值十亿就行了
Well, a few years went by and there was some kind of back and forth, and by and by, thanks to Mitch and Jay, we were able to buy the whole property for 140,000 dollars. This is one of the mines. It doesn't have any beryllium in it. It's called the Pole Adit. And it does have tungsten, a little bit of tungsten, left over, that's the kind of mine it was. But it goes a mile-and-a-half in a straight line, due east into the range, into very interesting territory -- except that, as you'll see when we go inside in a minute, we were hoping for limestone but in there is just shale. And shale is not quite completely competent rock. Competent rock is rock that will hold itself up without any shoring. The shale would like some shoring, and so parts of it are caved in in there.
又过了几年,我们之间也有一些往复 最后,在Mitch Kapor和Jay的帮助下 我们最终以14万美金买下了这块地 这是其中一个矿井,里面根本就没有铍 它叫Pole Adit,里面有钨矿 不过仅仅是一点点遗留下来的,这就是它的模样 它里面有一段是长达1.5英里的直线距离 一直延伸到东部,去到一个非常有趣的地方 我们去到里面你就可以看得到 本希望看到钟乳石的,可惜只是看得到页岩 页岩又不是很坚固的石块 坚固的石块是不需要任何的外物支撑即可树在那里的 而页岩则是需要一些支撑的 它的有些部分是深深陷入洞里的
That's Ben Roberts from -- he's the bat specialist from the National Park. But there are many wonders back in there, like this weird fungus on some of the collapsed timbers. OK, here's another mine that's up on top of the property, and it dates back to 1870. That's what the property was originally built around -- it was a set of mining claims. It was a very productive silver mine. In fact, it was the highest-operating mine in Nevada, and it ran year round. You can imagine what it was like in the winter at 10,000 feet. You may recognize a couple of the miners there. There's Jeff Bezos on the right and Paul Saville on the left looking for galena, which is the lead-silver thing. They didn't find any. They both kept their day jobs. Here's the last mine.
这是Ben Roberts,他是国家公园的蝙蝠专家 里面还有很多奇异的东西,比如这个真菌 它就生长在一个枯萎的木头上 这是另外一个矿井,它在山上 它的历史可以追溯到 1870年 那是这块土地最初开发的时间 很多矿井项目都在这里开始,那是一个高产的银矿 事实上,它是内华达州海拔最高的作业矿井 一年到头都在开工 你可以想象在冬季的时候在一万英尺的地方工作是怎么样的感觉 你也许认识开矿的几位探险者 右边是 Jeff Bezos 左边是 Paul Saville ,他们正在找方铅矿 可是找不到 他们白天都有工作,这是最后一个矿井
It's called the Bonanza Adit. It's down in a canyon. And Alexander Rose on the left there worked with a bunch of people from the National Park to survey the whole mine. It's a mile deep. And they also found four species of bats in there. Now, almost all those mines, by the way, meet underneath the mountain. They don't quite, but it's something to think about. They don't quite meet. Let's go to weather. Mountains specialize in interesting weather. Way more interesting than Monterey even today.
它叫Bonanza Adit,是在峡谷底下的 左边是Alexander Rose,他在和来自国家公园的人员 一起探测整个矿井,那里有一英里深 他们在那还发现了四个种类的蝙蝠 现在,几乎所有的这些矿井都会聚在山底之下 这是值得思考的地方 它们没有完全的汇聚 再看看天气吧。山间的天气都很特别 比蒙特雷的天气有意思多了
And so one Tuesday morning last June, there we were. Woke up in the morning -- the mountain was covered with snow. That was a great time to go up and visit our weather station which again, thanks to Mitch Kapor, we're building up there. And it's a pretty interesting scene. This is, on the left there, the joyful lady is Pat Irwin, who's the regional head of the National Forest Service, and they gave us the temporary use permit to be there. We want a temporary use permit for the clock, eventually -- 10,000-year temporary use permit.
去年六月的一个星期二,我们在那里的时候 早上醒来,山顶上盖满了积雪 那天我们登上山顶去看我们的气候站,一路真是棒极了。 气象站是Mitch Kapor赞助下建起来的 那里的风景也很美 左边这位很快活的女士是 Pat Irwin 她是国家森林服务的地区主管 他们允许我们短暂的使用那块地 我们希望获得一个短期的土地使用许可,结果是 一个时间为一万年的短期使用许可
(Laughter)
(笑声)
The weather station's pretty interesting. Kurt Bollacker and Alexander Rose designed a radically wireless station. It runs on solar, and it sends a signal with that antenna and bounces it off of micrometeorite trails in the atmosphere to a place in Bozeman, Montana, where the data is taken down and then sent through landlines to San Francisco, where we put the data in real time up on our website. And there you see a week of weather at 9,400 feet on Mount Washington. Let's go to approaches. As it happens, there are no trails anywhere on Mount Washington, just a few old mining roads like this, so you have to bushwhack everywhere. But there's no bears, and there's no poison oak, and there's basically no people because this place has been empty for a long time. You can hike for days and not encounter anybody.
气象站是很有趣的 Kurt Bollacker 和 Alexander Rose 设计了一个无线的气象站 通过太阳能驱动,数据通过天线发送 信号通过天际间的彗星折射回来 在蒙特那州的伯兹曼数据中心接收到信号 然后经由地面网络将数据传送到旧金山 在那我们在网上公布实时数据 所以你可以在网站上看到高达94000英尺的华盛顿山山顶最近一周的天气变化 好吧,再看看有些什么样的途径可以去到那里 事实是,没有任何行路迹可以走到华盛顿山 只有一些像这样的很老的矿井路 所以说去到任何一个地方都要在丛林中开路 但没有熊,也没有毒橡木树 也没有人,因为这里的人很久之前就迁走了 你也许一连走了几天也不会遇上一个人
Well, here's a potential approach. You need to come up the Lincoln Canyon. It's this beautiful world all of its own, surrounded by cliffs, and it's an easy hike to stroll up the canyon bottom, until you get to this barrier, and it actually presents a problem. So you can scratch Lincoln Canyon as an approach. Another possible approach is right up the western front of the mountain. You can see why we sometimes call it Long Mountain. And from where you're standing at 6,000 feet in the valley, it's an easy hike up to the mature pinyon and juniper forest through that knoll at the front at 7,600 feet. And you can carry right on up through meadows and steepening forest to the high base of the cliffs at 10,500 feet, where there's a bit of a problem.
这里是一个可行的路径 你要来到林肯峡谷 那里本身就很美,四周是悬崖削壁 有一条捷径在峡谷底部很轻松的行走 但是,当你来到这里的时候,就碰上了一个难题了 你可以选择从头绕过林肯峡谷作为一条路径 另一种可能是从山的西边上去 你也可以理解为何我们称之为长山脉 站在海拔六千英尺高的峡谷上 很轻松的就能徒步走到矮松以及针叶松地带 就是通过7600英尺处的一个小丘 可以继续沿着草地走 经过一段陡林来到一万零五百英尺高处悬崖上的基地 可到了这里又有问题了
Now, Jeff Bezos advised us when he left at the end of the expedition, "Make the clock inaccessible. The harder it is to get to, the more people will value it." And check -- those are 600-foot vertical walls there. So Alexander Rose wanted to explore this route, and he started over here on the left from his pickup truck at 8,900 feet and headed up the mountain. Now, as you gain elevation your IQ goes down --
Jeff Bezos离开我们这个探险队的时候说 “要让万年钟无路可达 越是难以到达,人们越是 会珍视它的价值” 好,看这里——这就有600英尺高的垂直峭壁 Alexander Rose想试一试攀上去 他从停泊卡车的左方开始 那里海拔8900英尺 但是我们知道,去到海拔越高的地方,人的IQ也会随之下降
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but your emotional affect goes up, which is great for having a mythic experience, whether you want to or not. In fact, Danny Hillis can estimate altitude by how much math he can't do in his head.
但是你的情绪会高涨起来 这对于探秘之旅而言是有益的 不管你自身是否愿意 当时,Danny Hillis还能估算高度 靠他不能用他的大脑来进行计算的程度
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Now, I happened to be on the radio with Alexander when he got to this point at the base of the cliffs, and he said, quote, "There's a hidden notch. I think I can get up a ways." Now, he's a rock climber, but you know, he's our executive director. I don't want him killed. I know he's going to love cliffs. I'm saying, "Be careful, be careful, be careful." Then he starts going up, and the next thing I hear is, "I'm half-way up. It's like climbing stairs. I'm going up 60 degrees. It's a secret passage. It's like something from Tolkien." And I'm going, "Careful, careful. Please be careful." And then, of course, the next thing I hear is, "I've made it to the top. You can see all of creation from up here." And he dashed across the top of the mountains.
我曾经和Alexander出现在电台节目上 当他到达悬崖之基部这一点的时候,他说 “那里有个隐秘的V形口,我想我可以通过那里上去的” 他会攀岩,同时也是我们的项目执行总监 我不希望他就此送命,因为我知道他很热爱那项运动 我说,“你要小心、小心、再小心啊” 他就这样上去了,我接着就听到 “我爬到一半距离了,简直跟爬楼梯没什么两样,我还是沿着60度角爬的呢” 这里是一个秘密的通道,就像是托尔金小说里描写的那样“ 我接着说:“你小心点,小心点,求你小心点!” 接下来我听到的是 “我到山顶了,在这里你可以看到造化的万物啊!” 他在山顶上狂奔
In fact, there he is. That's Alexander Rose. First ascent of the western face to Mount Washington, and a solo ascent at that. This discovery changed everything about our sense of these cliffs and what to do with them. We realized that we had to name this thing that Alexander discovered. How about Zander's Crevice? No.
看,那个就是他 他是第一个从西侧登上华盛顿山山顶的 并且完全是一个人完成的 这一发现完全改变了我们对于那些悬崖的看法 以及我们对待它们的态度 我们觉得有必要给这个Alexander发现的东西命名 是不是叫桑德缝隙呢?不好
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So we finally decided on Alexander's Siq. Zander's Siq is named after -- some of you have been to Petra, there's this wonderful slot canyon that leads into Petra called the Siq, and so this is the Siq. And it really is hidden. I can't find it in this image, and I'm not sure you can. Only when you get fresh snow can you see just along the rim there, and that brings it out.
最后我们决定将其以Alexander命名 桑德缝隙——假如你去过Petra的话 那里是一个非常美丽的狭长地带,它通向Petra 名字叫Siq,这就是 它真的是隐藏起来的,在地图上看不到的 不知你们能否找到 只有等到雪后刚过的时候,你才会看到这种轮缘 这时它才能被发现
Now, Danny and I were up at this same area one day, and Danny looked over to the right and noticed something halfway up the cliffs, which is a kind of a porch or a cliff shelf with bristlecones on it, and supposed that people going up to the clock inside the mountain could come out onto that shelf and look down at the view. And the people toiling up the mountain could see them, these tiny little people up there, incredibly halfway up the cliff. How did they get there? Do I have to do that? And so that maybe becomes part of the draw and part of the labyrinth. You can get another angle on Danny's porch by going around to the south and looking north at the whole formation there. And you need to know that Danny's clock is to be kept accurate by a ray of sunshine, that perfect noon hitting it every sunny day, and the pulse of heat from that sets off a solar trigger which resets the clock to make it perfectly accurate. So even with the slowing of the rotation of the earth and so on, the clock will keep perfectly good time.
有一天,Danny和我到了同一个地方 Danny看了看右手边 看到悬崖的半空中 那里就是如一个小平面,上面有些古勒果松 设想一下,假如有人从山里面去寻找万年钟 他们可能来到这里,并且被那松树吸引探出头来 那些想登到山顶的人能看得到他们 这些看上去很小的人在那里,就悬在半空 他们是怎么去到那里的?我是不是也要那样做? 那也许就是万年钟带给游人的吸引力与神秘感之一 这里是另一个视角 绕到是南部,然后向北部去看整个山景 要知道,Danny的钟是要校对准时的 这依靠每个晴天正好在中午的太阳光照射 那样一股热就足以驱动一个太阳能的控制器 那个装置就会把时间调整过来,使时间完全正确 所以即使地球自转速度变慢了 那个钟依然会准时的
So here we're looking from the south, look north. This is all Forest Service land. If you go up on top of those cliffs, that's some of the Long Now land in those trees. And if you go up there and look back, then you'll get a sense of what the view starts to be like from the top of the mountain. That's the long view. That's 80 miles to the horizon. And that's also timberline and those bristlecones really are shrubs. That's a different place to be. It's 11,400 feet and it's exquisite. Now, if you go over to the right from this image to looking at the edge of the cliffs, it's 600 foot, just about a yard to the left of Kurt Bollacker's foot, there is a 600-foot drop. He's ambling on over to Zander's Siq. That's what it looks like looking down it. We should probably put in a rail or something. Over on the eastern side it's gentle, as you can see. And that's not snow -- that's what the white limestone looks like. You also see there a bighorn sheep. Their herd was reintroduced from Wyoming. And they're doing pretty well, but they've got a bit of trouble.
这是从南部、从北部望过去的照片 这里是森林植被的领地。假如你登上这些悬崖的顶端 会看到在森林中的长久基金会基地 假如你再往上走,回头来看,你会体会到 “一览众山小”的感觉 这就是长距离的视野。这里离地平线有八万英里 这也是林木线所在,这里的古勒果松则确实是灌木 那是很不一样的地方。那里高11400英尺,景色非常壮观 假如你仔细看这幅图的右边,特别是悬崖的边缘 有600英尺高,在Kurt Bollacker腿左边一步之遥 600英尺垂直落下,他正慢慢的走到桑德缝隙 边上 往下看的时候就是这个样子 我想我们也许应该在那里放一围栏或之类的东西 山的东峦则相对平缓得多 注意,那可不是雪,而是白色的钟乳石 你还能看到一只长着很长的棱角的绵羊 这些是从怀俄明州重新引进过来的 它们在这边过得挺好的,但它现处于困难的境地
This is Danny Hillis, and he's figuring out a design problem. he's trying to determine if where he is on a bit of Long Now land would appear from down in the valley to be the actual peak of the mountain. because the real peak is hidden around the corner. This is what in the infantry we used to call the military crest. And as it turned out the answer is, yes, that is from down below in the valley it does look like the peak, and that might be conjured with. We gradually realized we have three serious design domains to work on with this. One is the experience of the mountain. Another is the experience in the mountain. And the third is the experience from the mountain, which is really dominated by the view shed of the spring valley there behind Danny, and if you look off to the right, out there, 15 miles across to the Schell Creek range.
Danny Hillis正在那里寻找着一个设计问题的答案 他在想那里算不算是长久基金会的地 看起来从峡谷底下算起都是山顶 因为真正的山顶是在一个隐蔽的角落里的 我们过去在部队里管那叫部队峰顶 这个问题的答案是肯定的 从峡谷深处望出来可以看到,这一块还是山峰 是人的视觉错误而已 所以我们在这里就遇到了三个设计难题 一是关于高山的体验 二是山里头的体验 第三个就是来自高山的体验 第三点完全受到峡谷底下狭隘的观察视角的局限 Danny 后面是河溪谷 要是你往右边看 在离斯耐尔小溪 15英里以外的地方
In the front, there are 10 ranches strung right along the base of the mountains using the water from the mountains. In fact, there are artesian wells where water springs right into the air. One of the ranches is called the Kirkeby Ranch, and I'll take you there for a minute. It's a very nice ranch. Alfalfa and cattle, run by Paul and Ronnie Brenham, and it's pretty idyllic. It's also hard work. And most of these ranches are having trouble keeping going. This is their view to the west of the Schell Creek range. And if you go out to that line of trees at the far end, you'll see what the valley used to look like. This is Rocky Mountain junipers that have been there for thousands of years.
可以看到在大山脚下散布着10个农场 其水源就来自于山间 在那你甚至还能看到地下水崩涌而出呢 其中一个农场叫Kirkeby农场 等下就会介绍 那里很漂亮 处处都能看到紫花苜蓿和奶牛的踪迹,它是由Paul 和Ronnie Brenham共同经营的 田园风光很美,但他们干这活也是挺辛苦的 很多农场存在着维持下去的难题 这是从农场上看斯耐尔小溪之西岸景色 假如你去到远方的树林边 还能看得到过去的峡谷是怎样的 这是刺柏,它们长在洛基山已有数千年时间了
And a scheme emerged that Long Now is looking to see if it might be possible to buy up the whole valley, because those 10 ranches with their 17,000 acres dominate a 500 square mile valley with their grazing allotments and so on, and there's a possibility that you could get the whole thing for five million dollars and gradually restore it to its wild condition, and somewhere in the process turn it back over to the National Park, and it would double the size of Great Basin National Park. That would be swell.
长久基金会正在考虑是否有可能买下 这个峡谷地区的整一块地 因为那十个农场包括17000英亩的土地 覆盖了500平方英里的矿区峡谷 我们认为有可能用五百万美金买下这里整一块地 而后使其逐步恢复到原貌 在适当的时候,将其转变为国家公园 这样就可以使得大盘地国家公园的面积增加一倍。那就太棒了
OK, let's take one more look at the mountain itself. The clock experience should be profound, but from the outside it should be invisible. Now, at the base of the high cliffs there's this natural cave. It's only about 12 feet deep, but what if it were deepened from inside? You excavated from somewhere, came up from inside and deepened it. And then you could have an entrance which was very rough and narrow as you first went in, that gradually becomes more refined and then actually quite exquisite. And this stone takes a perfect polish. You'd have a polished set of passages and chambers in there eventually leading to the 10,000 year clock.
好吧,我们再看看这大山一眼吧 这样一个探寻万年钟的过程应该是能够给人带来深刻体会的 可是,人们在外面是不会体验到这点的 在悬崖的底部,有一个天然的洞穴 只有12英尺深 但里面是否曾经是深拓过? 你可以自己去开掘,走到里头去,接着深挖 你可能找到一个出口 一开始的时候很简陋 可是慢慢的会变得更光滑更具美感 这块石头则显然被很多人踩过 你要经过很多关才能最终去到 万年钟所在地
And it's not a mine. This would be a nuanced evocation of the basic structure of the mountain, and you would be appreciating it as much from inside as you do from outside. This is architecture not made by building, but by what you very carefully take away. So that's what the mountain taught us. Most of the amazingness of the clock we can borrow from the amazingness of the mountain. All we have to do is highlight its spectacular features and blend in with them. It's not a clock in a mountain -- it's a mountain clock. Now, the Tewa Indians in the Southwest have a saying for what you need to do when you want to think long term about anything. They say, "pin peya obe" -- welcome to the mountain.
这里不是一个矿井,这是一个精心设计的鬼魂召唤, 基于这座大山的基本结构 到了里面,你的欣赏感觉决不亚于在外面对大山的欣赏 这样的建筑艺术是大楼所做不到的 是你非常仔细的开发过程中才能达到的 这就是大山带给我们的智慧 万年钟最迷人的地方 也是借由神秘大山才得以体现 我们所做的,就是勾勒出其壮观的部分,并使之与大山相溶 这不是一个大山里的时钟,而是一个以大山为主体的时钟 西南方土著特瓦族印第安人这么一句谚语: 你要做事之时应该考虑到长远的未来, 土著语是 "pin peya obe" -- 欢迎来到大山
Thank you.
谢谢大家
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