In the late 19th century, scientists were trying to solve a mystery. They found that if they had a vacuum tube like this one and applied a high voltage across it, something strange happened. They called them cathode rays. But the question was: What were they made of?
在十九世紀末,科學家 試圖想要破解一個謎。 他們發現,如果他們有 一支像這樣真空管, 接著讓高電壓通過它, 會發生很奇怪的現象。 他們稱之為陰極射線。 但,問題是,陰極射線 是什麼做成的?
In England, the 19th-century physicist J.J. Thompson conducted experiments using magnets and electricity, like this. And he came to an incredible revelation. These rays were made of negatively charged particles around 2,000 times lighter than the hydrogen atom, the smallest thing they knew. So Thompson had discovered the first subatomic particle, which we now call electrons.
十九世紀,在英國, 物理學家 J.J. 湯普森 用磁鐵和電來進行實驗,像這樣。 他得到了很難以置信的意外發現。 這些射線是由 帶負電的粒子所構成, 粒子的重量比氫原子 還要輕兩千倍, 氫原子是我們所知最小的東西。 所以,湯普森發現了 第一個亞原子粒子, 現在我們稱之為電子。
Now, at the time, this seemed to be a completely impractical discovery. I mean, Thompson didn't think there were any applications of electrons. Around his lab in Cambridge, he used to like to propose a toast: "To the electron. May it never be of use to anybody."
在當時,這似乎是個 完全不實際的發現。 我是指,湯普森不認為 電子可以做任何應用。 在他在劍橋的實驗室, 他以前會這樣子敬酒: 「敬電子。願它永遠 不會對任何人有用。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
He was strongly in favor of doing research out of sheer curiosity, to arrive at a deeper understanding of the world. And what he found did cause a revolution in science. But it also caused a second, unexpected revolution in technology. Today, I'd like to make a case for curiosity-driven research, because without it, none of the technologies I'll talk about today would have been possible.
他非常支持 單純出於好奇心來做研究, 以對世界有更深的了解。 他的發現,確實造成了 一次科學的革命。 但,它也造成了科技的 第二次且是未預期的革命。 今天,我想要提出幾個例子來說明, 由好奇心驅使的研究, 因為若沒有這樣的好奇心 今天我要談得這些科技 通通都不可能發生。
Now, what Thompson found here has actually changed our view of reality. I mean, I think I'm standing on a stage, and you think you're sitting in a seat. But that's just the electrons in your body pushing back against the electrons in the seat, opposing the force of gravity. You're not even really touching the seat. You're hovering ever so slightly above it. But in many ways, our modern society was actually built on this discovery. I mean, these tubes were the start of electronics. And then for many years, most of us actually had one of these, if you remember, in your living room, in cathode-ray tube televisions. But -- I mean, how impoverished would our lives be if the only invention that had come from here was the television?
湯普森的發現,改變了 我們對於現實的觀點。 我的意思是,我認為 我站在一個舞台上, 而你認為你坐在一張椅子上。 但那只是你體內的電子 在對抗著椅子的電子, 抵抗地心引力。 你甚至沒有觸碰到椅子。 你其實是停留在椅子 上方一點點的位置。 但,就許多層面來說,我們的現代 社會是建立在這項發現之上的。 我是指,這些真空管 是電子的開端。 接著,許多年來, 如果你記得的話,很多人 在客廳中都有一個這樣的東西, 就在映像管電視裡。 但——我是指, 我們的人生會有多麼無趣, 如果從這個發現產生的發明 就只有電視而已?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Thankfully, this tube was just a start, because something else happens when the electrons here hit the piece of metal inside the tube. Let me show you. Pop this one back on. So as the electrons screech to a halt inside the metal, their energy gets thrown out again in a form of high-energy light, which we call X-rays.
謝天謝地,這個射線管只是個開端, 因為,當這裡的電子 撞到管內的一片金屬時, 會發生另一種現象。 讓我示範給各位看。 把這個重新打開。 所以,當電子碰撞金屬 並停在金屬內的時候, 它們的能量會再次被丟出來, 形式是高能光, 也就是我們所謂的 X 光。
(Buzzing)
(嘈雜聲)
(Buzzing)
(嘈雜聲)
And within 15 years of discovering the electron, these X-rays were being used to make images inside the human body, helping soldiers' lives being saved by surgeons, who could then find pieces of bullets and shrapnel inside their bodies. But there's no way we could have come up with that technology by asking scientists to build better surgical probes. Only research done out of sheer curiosity, with no application in mind, could have given us the discovery of the electron and X-rays.
在發現電子之後的十五年內, 這些 X 光就被用來 製造人體內的影像, 協助外科醫生拯救士兵的性命, 在士兵的體內找到 子彈碎片以及砲彈碎片。 我們不可能要求科學家 藉由找到更好的手術方法來 發現這類的科技, 唯有腦子沒有雜念, 靠著好奇心所做出來的研究, 才能發現電子和 X 光。
Now, this tube also threw open the gates for our understanding of the universe and the field of particle physics, because it's also the first, very simple particle accelerator. Now, I'm an accelerator physicist, so I design particle accelerators, and I try and understand how beams behave. And my field's a bit unusual, because it crosses between curiosity-driven research and technology with real-world applications. But it's the combination of those two things that gets me really excited about what I do. Now, over the last 100 years, there have been far too many examples for me to list them all. But I want to share with you just a few.
如今,這射線管為我們打開了一扇門, 讓我們能了解宇宙 以及粒子物理學的領域, 因為它也是第一個 非常陽春的粒子加速器。 我是加速器物理學家, 我設計粒子加速器, 我試圖了解光束的行為。 我的領域有一點不尋常, 因為它跨在好奇心驅使的研究 和真實世界應用 所需要的技術之間。 但,正是因為這兩者的結合, 讓我對於我的工作感到非常興奮。 在過去一百年間, 有太多例子了,我無法一一列舉。 但我想和各位分享其中幾個。
In 1928, a physicist named Paul Dirac found something strange in his equations. And he predicted, based purely on mathematical insight, that there ought to be a second kind of matter, the opposite to normal matter, that literally annihilates when it comes in contact: antimatter. I mean, the idea sounded ridiculous. But within four years, they'd found it. And nowadays, we use it every day in hospitals, in positron emission tomography, or PET scans, used for detecting disease.
1928 年,物理學家保羅狄拉克 發現他的方程式有點奇怪。 他完全憑著數學上的洞見, 預測到應該還有第二種 與正常物質相反的東西存在, 就在碰觸的時候,會消失不見: 反物質。 這個想法聽起來很可笑。 但在四年後,他們終於找到了。 現今,我們每天都會 在醫院中用到它, 用在正電子發射電腦斷層掃描, 或簡稱 PET 掃描,用來偵測疾病。
Or, take these X-rays. If you can get these electrons up to a higher energy, so about 1,000 times higher than this tube, the X-rays that those produce can actually deliver enough ionizing radiation to kill human cells. And if you can shape and direct those X-rays where you want them to go, that allows us to do an incredible thing: to treat cancer without drugs or surgery, which we call radiotherapy. In countries like Australia and the UK, around half of all cancer patients are treated using radiotherapy. And so, electron accelerators are actually standard equipment in most hospitals.
或者,比如這些 X 光。 如果你能讓這些電子的 能量提升到更高, 比這種射線管還要高一千倍, 產生出來的 X 光 就會有足夠的游離輻射, 可以殺死人類細胞。 如果你能夠操控 這些 X 光的形狀和方向, 就能讓我們做到 一件很了不起的事: 不用藥物或手術就能治療癌症, 這就是所謂的放射線療法。 在像是澳洲和英國這些國家, 癌症病人有一半左右 都是用放射線療法來治療。 所以,電子加速器 其實是大部分醫院的標準配備。
Or, a little closer to home: if you have a smartphone or a computer -- and this is TEDx, so you've got both with you right now, right? Well, inside those devices are chips that are made by implanting single ions into silicon, in a process called ion implantation. And that uses a particle accelerator.
或者,更樸實一點的例子: 如果你有智慧手機或是電腦—— 這是 TEDx,所以你們現在應該 兩種都帶在身上,對吧? 在那些裝置內的晶片 製作方式是將單獨的 離子植入到矽當中, 這個過程叫做離子佈植。 這過程會運用到粒子加速器。
Without curiosity-driven research, though, none of these things would exist at all. So, over the years, we really learned to explore inside the atom. And to do that, we had to learn to develop particle accelerators. The first ones we developed let us split the atom. And then we got to higher and higher energies; we created circular accelerators that let us delve into the nucleus and then create new elements, even. And at that point, we were no longer just exploring inside the atom. We'd actually learned how to control these particles. We'd learned how to interact with our world on a scale that's too small for humans to see or touch or even sense that it's there.
不過,若沒有好奇心驅使的研究, 這些東西都完全不會存在。 所以,多年來, 我們真的在學習探索原子的內部。 為了做到這一點, 我們得要開發出離子加速器。 我們最早開發出來的加速器, 讓我們能把原子分割。 接著,我們朝向 越來越高的能量前進; 我們創造出環形加速器, 讓我們能鑽研原子核, 接著,甚至創造出新的元素。 現在,我們不再 只是在探索原子的內部了。 我們已經學會控制 這些粒子的方法。 我們已經學會在微小規模上, 和我們的世界互動,微小到 人類肉眼看不到也摸不到, 甚至無法感覺到它的存在。
And then we built larger and larger accelerators, because we were curious about the nature of the universe. As we went deeper and deeper, new particles started popping up. Eventually, we got to huge ring-like machines that take two beams of particles in opposite directions, squeeze them down to less than the width of a hair and smash them together. And then, using Einstein's E=mc2, you can take all of that energy and convert it into new matter, new particles which we rip from the very fabric of the universe.
接著,我們建立的 加速器越來越大, 因為我們很好奇宇宙的本質。 隨著我們越挖越深, 新的粒子不斷出現。 最終,我們做出了 巨大的環型機器, 採用來自相反方向的兩道粒子束, 將它們擠壓到比 一根頭髮的寬度還小, 讓它們猛撞在一起。 接著,用愛因斯坦的 E=mc2, 可以把所有產生的能量 轉換成新的物質, 我們從宇宙的構造中 扯下來的新粒子。
Nowadays, there are about 35,000 accelerators in the world, not including televisions. And inside each one of these incredible machines, there are hundreds of billions of tiny particles, dancing and swirling in systems that are more complex than the formation of galaxies. You guys, I can't even begin to explain how incredible it is that we can do this.
現今,世界上有大約 三萬五千台加速器, 不包括電視機。 在每個加速器中, 都是很了不起的機器, 有數百、數十億個小粒子, 在比銀河形成還要複雜的 系統中飛舞、旋轉。 各位,我實在不知道 要如何解釋我們能做到這些 是多麼不可思議的事。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
So I want to encourage you to invest your time and energy in people that do curiosity-driven research. It was Jonathan Swift who once said, "Vision is the art of seeing the invisible." And over a century ago, J.J. Thompson did just that, when he pulled back the veil on the subatomic world.
所以,我想要鼓勵各位, 把你們的時間和能量投資給 出於好奇心而去做研究的人。 強納森史威夫特曾經說過: 「遠見就是能洞見 大家尚未能見的一門藝術。」 這也正是超過一個世紀之前, J.J. 湯普森所做的, 他揭開了亞原子粒子世界的面紗。
And now we need to invest in curiosity-driven research, because we have so many challenges that we face. And we need patience; we need to give scientists the time, the space and the means to continue their quest, because history tells us that if we can remain curious and open-minded about the outcomes of research, the more world-changing our discoveries will be.
現在,我們需要投資 由好奇心驅使的研究, 因為我們要面對好多挑戰。 我們需要耐心; 我們需要給科學家 時間、空間,和方法, 來持續他們的追尋, 因為歷史告訴我們, 如果我們能對研究的結果 保持好奇心和開放的心態, 我們的發現就更有可能 可以改變世界。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)