I became an inventor by accident. I was out of the air force in 1956. No, no, that's not true: I went in in 1956, came out in 1959, was working at the University of Washington, and I came up with an idea, from reading a magazine article, for a new kind of a phonograph tone arm. Now, that was before cassette tapes, C.D.s, DVDs -- any of the cool stuff we've got now. And it was an arm that, instead of hinging and pivoting as it went across the record, went straight: a radial, linear tracking tone arm. And it was the hardest invention I ever made, but it got me started, and I got really lucky after that.
我能成为一个发明家, 纯属偶然 1956年我从空军退役。不,我说错了 是1956年服役,1959年退役 退役后在华盛顿大学工作 我在看一篇杂志文章时冒出个想法 想发明一种新的留声机拾音臂 相比今天的录音带 CD DVD等很酷的产品 那可以说是古董级的了 它是一个臂 用以代替读盘时铰链和枢轴的功能 直截了当的说:放射式直线循迹拾音臂 这是我做过最难的一个发明,但是它促使我开始 之后我就一帆风顺了
And without giving you too much of a tirade, I want to talk to you about an invention I brought with me today: my 44th invention. No, that's not true either. Golly, I'm just totally losing it. My 44th patent; about the 15th invention. I call this hypersonic sound. I'm going to play it for you in a couple minutes, but I want to make an analogy before I do to this. I usually show this hypersonic sound and people will say, That's really cool, but what's it good for? And I say, What is the light bulb good for? Sound, light: I'm going to draw the analogy. When Edison invented the light bulb, pretty much looked like this. Hasn't changed that much. Light came out of it in every direction. Before the light bulb was invented, people had figured out how to put a reflector behind it, focus it a little bit; put lenses in front of it, focus it a little bit better. Ultimately we figured out how to make things like lasers that were totally focused.
不长篇大论了 今天我给大家带来的是 我的第44个发明。不,又错了 天啊,我今天完全不在状态 我的第44个专利,第15个发明 我称之为特超声 我先播放几分钟给你们听 但是在这之前 我要先道歉 通常,我播放这个特超声后 人们都会说确实很酷,但是有什么用呢? 我则会说,那灯泡有什么用呢? 我用声和光来举例 爱迪生发明的灯泡,和这个差不多 并没有太大的改进 光向各个方向照射 在发明灯泡以前 人们已经懂得,在其后面放一个反射器 聚焦效果就会好些 前面再放一个透镜 效果会更好些 最终,我们掌握了如何制造激光 那就是完全聚焦
Now, think about where the world would be today if we had the light bulb, but you couldn't focus light; if when you turned one on it just went wherever it wanted to. That's the way loudspeakers pretty much are. You turn on the loudspeaker, and after almost 80 years of having those gadgets, the sound just kind of goes where it wants. Even when you're standing in front of a megaphone, it's pretty much every direction. A little bit of differential, but not much. If the light bulb was the way the speaker is, and you couldn't focus or sharpen the edges or define it, we wouldn't have that, or movies in general, or computers, or T.V. sets, or C.D.s, or DVDs -- and just go down the list of what the importance is of being able to focus light.
现在想象下,如果我们只有灯泡 而不懂得聚焦 如今的世界会是什么样子 你开灯后,光向任意方向照射 喇叭就和这个差不多 你打开喇叭 在这个玩意已经被发明了80多年后 声音还是像当初那样传播 就算你站在麦克风前面 传播的方向基本上也是任意方向 有一点点差别,但不是很多 如果灯泡和喇叭一样 不能聚焦或限定它 我们就不能播放幻灯片,电影 电脑或电视机 又或者CD和DVD,等等等等 其重要的特征都是 能聚焦
Now, after almost 80 years of having sound, I thought it was about time that we figure out a way to put sound where you want to. I have a couple of units. That guy there was made for a demo I did yesterday early in the day for a big car maker in Detroit who wants to put them in a car -- small version, over your head -- so that you can actually get binaural sound in a car. What if I could aim sound the way I aim light?
在喇叭发明了80年后的今天 我认为是时候掌握 如何将声音按照你们想要的方式传播了 我带来了一组设备 这是用来演示的,我昨天早上做的 底特律的一家知名汽车制造商想把它们安装在汽车上 一个小的型号,可以戴在头上 这样你就可以在汽车里面享受到真正的立体声 如果我能像瞄准光一样瞄准声音会怎么样?
I got this waterfall I recorded in my back yard. Now, you're not going to hear a thing unless it hits you. Maybe if I hit the side wall it will bounce around the room. (Applause) The sound is being made right next to your ears. Is that cool? (Applause) Because I have some limited time, I'll cut it off for a second, and tell you about how it works and what it's good for.
这是我在我家后院录的声音 现在,除非我对准你,否则你是听不到的 也可能是我对准了侧壁,然后声波在屋内回荡 (鼓掌) 声音就在你耳边产生,很酷吧? (鼓掌) 因为时间有限,我中断一会 来讲解下它的原理和用途
Course, like light, it's great to be able to put sound to highlight a clothing rack, or the cornflakes, or the toothpaste, or a talking plaque in a movie theater lobby. Sony's got an idea -- Sony's our biggest customers right now. They tried this back in the '60s and were too smart, and so they gave up. But they want to use it -- seriously. There's a mix an inventor has to have. You have to be kind of smart, and though I did not graduate from college doesn't mean I'm stupid, because you cannot be stupid and do very much in the world today. Too many other smart people out there. So. I just happened to get my education in a little different way. I'm not at all against education. I think it's wonderful; I think sometimes people, when they get educated, lose it: they get so smart they're unwilling to look at things that they know better than. And we're living in a great time right now, because almost everything's being explored anew. I have this little slogan that I use a lot, which is: virtually nothing -- and I mean this honestly -- has been invented yet. We're just starting. We're just starting to really discover the laws of nature and science and physics. And this is, I hope, a little piece of it.
当然,能像光一样用声音勾勒出 晾衣架,或者玉米片、牙膏 又或电影院大厅的公告板太好了 索尼有一个想法--索尼是我们目前最大的客户 60年代他们试过这些想法 但是由于太超前了,他们只能放弃 但是他们还是想使用这些发明,真的 一个发明家必须是全才 你必须非常聪明 虽然我不是大学毕业,但是不代表我笨 在这个世界上,太笨就会被淘汰 因为聪明的人太多了 我只是恰巧通过另一种方式接受教育 我不是完全反对教育 我认为教育很好,只是认为有时候 人们去接受教育,却失去了教育 过于自大,以至于不稀罕其他事物,因为他们认为自己更好 我们现在生活的时代很好 因为几乎所有东西都被重新探究过 我有一个用很多次的口号,就是 一无所有 我是认真的 至今没有发明任何东西 我们仅仅在摸索的开端 我们对自然法则、科学、物理的探索才刚刚开始 对于所掌握的,我希望,只是冰山一角
Sony's got this vision back -- to get myself on track -- that when you stand in the checkout line in the supermarket, you're going to watch a new T.V. channel. They know that when you watch T.V. at home, because there are so many choices you can change channels, miss their commercials. A hundred and fifty-one million people every day stand in the line at the supermarket. Now, they've tried this a couple years ago and it failed, because the checker gets tired of hearing the same message every 20 minutes, and reaches out, turns off the sound. And, you know, if the sound isn't there, the sale typically isn't made. For instance, like, when you're on an airplane, they show the movie, you get to watch it for free; when you want to hear the sound, you pay. And so ABC and Sony have devised this new thing where when you step in the line in the supermarket -- initially it'll be Safeways. It is Safeways; they're trying this in three parts of the country right now -- you'll be watching TV.
索尼开阔了眼界,并使我步入正轨 当你站在超市的结账口时 你要看一个特别的电视频道 他们知道当你在家看电视时 由于你有很多的选择 你可以换台,跳过他们的广告 每天有1.5亿人要站在超市的结账口 如今,这个他们采用多年的方法出现问题了 因为,收银员厌倦了听重复的信息 每20分钟就循环一次 大家知道 ,广告是促销的有效手段 例如,当你在候机厅时 你可以免费欣赏电影 但如果要听声音,你就需要购买 所以ABC和索尼设计了一项新的试验 当你走进超市的结账口时 最初将在西韦夫商店试验 现在在全国的三家西韦夫商店测试 你还是要观看电视频道
And hopefully they'll be sensitive that they don't want to offend you with just one more outlet. But what's great about it, from the tests that have been done, is, if you don't want to hear it, you take about one step to the side and you don't hear it. So, we create silence as much as we create sound. ATMs that talk to you; nobody else hears it. Sit in bed, two in the morning, watch TV; your spouse, or someone, is next to you, asleep; doesn't hear it, doesn't wake up. We're also working on noise canceling things like snoring, noise from automobiles.
但幸运的是,他们这次做的很谨慎 因为他们不想让你再次被一个输出声音而干扰 这个设计的的好亮点是 如果你不想听声音 你向旁边侧一步就听不到了 因此 ,我们制造声音,但同时我们也创造安静 ATM机和你对话时,别人无法听到 凌晨两点,你坐在床上看电视 你的爱人,或其他人还在旁边睡觉 就听不到,也不会被吵醒 我们同样致力于消除噪音,像鼾声或汽车的噪音
I have been really lucky with this technology: all of a sudden as it is ready, the world is ready to accept it. They have literally beat a path to our door. We've been selling it since about last September, October, and it's been immensely gratifying. If you're interested in what it costs -- I'm not selling them today -- but this unit, with the electronics and everything, if you buy one, is around a thousand bucks. We expect by this time next year, it'll be hundreds, a few hundred bucks, to buy it. It's not any more pricey than regular electronics.
这项技术确实给我带来了好运 当这项技术成熟了,这个世界也就准备好了接受 他们甚至在我们门前排起了队 我们从去年的九、十月份就开始发售这项技术 销量非常不错 如果你对价格感兴趣,但今天不卖 这套设备,包括电子器件和其他所有的零件 每套售价在1000美元左右 我们希望在明年的这个时候 价格可以降到几百美元 相比家用电器,这一点都不贵
Now, when I played it for you, you didn't hear the thunderous bass. This unit that I played goes from about 200 hertz to above the range of hearing. It's actually emitting ultrasound -- low-level ultrasound -- that's about 100,000 vibrations per second. And the sound that you're hearing, unlike a regular speaker on which all the sound is made on the face, is made out in front of it, in the air. The air is not linear, as we've always been taught. You turn up the volume just a little bit -- I'm talking about a little over 80 decibels -- and all of a sudden the air begins to corrupt signals you propagate. Here's why: the speed of sound is not a constant. It's fairly slow. It changes with temperature and with barometric pressure.
现在,当我播放时,你们听不到嘈杂的低声 这组设备播放的声音可以达到200赫兹,超过了听觉范围 实际上它是在发射超声波,低电平的超声波 振动频率是每秒十万次 你现在听到的声音 和在表面制造声音的普通喇叭不同 这个是外部,在空气中制造声音 正如我们一直被告诉的,空气是非线性的 把音量稍微调高一点 我的意思是略高于80分贝 突然之间空气开始将传播的信号扭曲化 原因是:声速不是常数。相当慢 但是声速根据温度和气压的变化而变化
Now, imagine, if you will, without getting too technical, I'm making a little sine wave here in the air. Well, if I turn up the amplitude too much, I'm having an effect on the pressure, which means during the making of that sine wave, the speed at which it is propagating is shifting. All of audio as we know it is an attempt to be more and more perfectly linear. Linearity means higher quality sound. Hypersonic sound is exactly the opposite: it's 100 percent based on non-linearity. An effect happens in the air, it's a corrupting effect of the sound -- the ultrasound in this case -- that's emitted, but it's so predictable that you can produce very precise audio out of that effect.
现在,想象一下不用任何高科技水段 我在空气中制造一些正弦波 如果我将振幅调的过大 则会对气压产生影响 也就是说在制造正弦波的同时 声音的传播速度发生了变化 我们常见的广播 是力图接近完美的线性化 线性化意味着更好的音质 特超声则完全相反 它属于完全的非线性 它也作用于空气,但是是相反的效果 这就是特超声 但是它是可预测的 你可以制造精确的广播来消除这种影响
Now, the question is, where's the sound made? Instead of being made on the face of the cone, it's made at literally billions of little independent points along this narrow column in the air, and so when I aim it towards you, what you hear is made right next to your ears. I said we can shorten the column, we can spread it out to cover the couch. I can put it so that one ear hears one speaker, the other ear hears the other. That's true binaural sound. When you listen to stereo on your home system, your both ears hear both speakers. Turn on the left speaker sometime and notice you're hearing it also in your right ear. So, the stage is more restricted -- the sound stage that's supposed to spread out in front of you. Because the sound is made in the air along this column, it does not follow the inverse square law, which says it drops off about two thirds every time you double the distance: 6dB every time you go from one meter, for instance, to two meters. That means you go to a rock concert or a symphony, and the guy in the front row gets the same level as the guy in the back row, now, all of a sudden. Isn't that terrific?
现在的问题是,那么声音从何而来? 不是在这个表面形成 而是沿着空气中这条狭窄的带 数亿计独立的点而形成的 所以当我把它对准你 你听到的声音就在耳边形成 我说过我们可以缩短这条带 我们可以将其扩散以覆盖整排座椅 我可以将其设置成只一支耳朵听一个喇叭 而另一只听的是其他的声音,这才是真正的立体声 当你用家庭影院的音响时 你两耳听到的都是一个喇叭的声音 就算只打开左边的喇叭 你右耳还是能听到左边喇叭的声音 而剧院的情况就更糟了 剧院的声音是在你的前方散播 因为声音时沿着空气中这条带形成 它不遵循平方反比定律 也就是说距离每增加一倍 它就会减弱大约三分之二 例如:你从1米走到2米,声音就会减弱6分贝 而现在,你去听摇滚音乐会或交响乐会时 前排和后排 享受到的效果是一样的 了不起吧?
So, we've been, as I say, very successful, very lucky, in having companies catch the vision of this, from cars -- car makers who want to put a stereo system in the front for the kids, and a separate system in the back -- oh, no, the kids aren't driving today. (Laughter) I was seeing if you were listening. Actually, I haven't had breakfast yet. A stereo system in the front for mom and dad, and maybe there's a little DVD player in the back for the kids, and the parents don't want to be bothered with that, or their rap music or whatever. So, again, this idea of being able to put sound anywhere you want to is really starting to catch on. It also works for transmitting and communicating data. It also works five times better underwater.
所以,正如我所说的,非常成功也非常幸运 很多公司对这个发明感兴趣 汽车制造商想为儿童在汽车的前排安装一个音响系统 在后排再另装一个独立的系统 噢,不,儿童是禁止驾驶的 (观众笑) 我是在试探你们是不是睡着了 实际上,我还没有吃早餐 为大人在前排安装一个立体音响系统 在后排为孩子们装一个迷你的DVD播放器 这样父母就不会被后排的DVD 或者摇滚音乐或其他的东西所打扰 因此,随心所欲控制声音的想法 正在开始变成现实 它还可以应用于数据的传送和通信 传播的速度比在水下的快4倍
We've got the military -- have just deployed some of these into Iraq, where you can put fake troop movements quarter of a mile away on a hillside. (Laughter) Or you can whisper in the ear of a supposed terrorist some Biblical verse. (Laughter) I'm serious. And they have these infrared devices that can look at their countenance, and see a fraction of a degree Kelvin in temperature shift from 100 yards away when they play this thing. And so, another way of hopefully determining who's friendly and who isn't. We make a version with this which puts out 155 decibels. Pain is 120. So it allows you to go nearly a mile away and communicate with people, and there can be a public beach just off to the side, and they don't even know it's turned on. We sell those to the military presently for about 70,000 dollars, and they're buying them as fast as we can make them. We put it on a turret with a camera, so that when they shoot at you, you're over there, and it's there.
我们已经得到军方的订单,并将其中一些应用在伊拉克 比如在四分之一英里远的山坡上 制造军队调遣的假象 (观众笑) 或者在一个恐怖嫌疑分子耳边小声念圣经 (观众笑) 我是认真的 他们确实有这样的红外线装置 他们用它可以在100码远的地方 看到恐怖分子的面部表情 和温度变化中的绝对温度率 另外,也可以用以辨别敌友 我们做一个155分贝的版本 痛苦指数是120 它可以使你在一英里外与其他人交流 那可以是在一个公共的海滩上 而他们根本不知道这打开了 我们卖给军方的售价是7万美元 我们做多少他们就买多少 我们通过一个照相机把它安装在塔楼上,因此当恐怖分子对你射击时 你其实在另外一个地方 这里相只是一台照相机
I have a bunch of other inventions. I invented a plasma antenna, to shift gears. Looked up at the ceiling of my office one day -- I was working on a ground-penetrating radar project -- and my physicist CEO came in and said, "We have a real problem. We're using very short wavelengths. We've got a problem with the antenna ringing. When you run very short wavelengths, like a tuning fork the antenna resonates, and there's more energy coming out of the antenna than there is the backscatter from the ground that we're trying to analyze, taking too much processing." I says, "Why don't we make an antenna that only exists when you want it? Turn it on; turn it off. That's a fluorescent tube refined." I just sold that for a million and a half dollars, cash. I took it back to the Pentagon after it got declassified, when the patent issued, and told the people back there about it, and they laughed, and then I took them back a demo and they bought. (Laughter)
我还有很多其他的发明 我发明过一个用来变速的等离子体天线 有一天 我正在仰望办公室的天花板 当时正在做一个探底雷达的项目 这时 物理学家CEO进来说:“ 我们遇到麻烦了 我们采用的波长太短 因此天线的铃声有问题 当你采用很短的波长时 天线就会和音叉产生共振 而且从天线中传出来的能量 比来自于地面的反向散射要多 我们正在尝试分析试 但数据处理的工作量太大了 我说 为什么不做一个只有用的时候才存在的天线? 可以打开可以关闭 那是一个细致化的荧光管 我卖了150万美元 现金付款 在它被破解后 我将其收回给五角大楼 当专利被批准后 我告诉他们它的来由时 他们笑了 然后我带去了一个样品 他们买下来了 (观众笑)
Any of you ever wore a Jabber headphone -- the little cell headphones? That's my invention. I sold that for seven million dollars. Big mistake: it just sold for 80 million dollars two years ago. I actually drew that up on a little crummy Mac computer in my attic at my house, and one of the many designs which they have now is still the same design I drew way back when.
你们有人戴过Jabber耳机吗 迷你型手机耳机? 那是我发明的 当时的售价是七百万美元 算盘打错了:两年前 这个技术的转让费用是八千万美元 实际上,我就是在家里阁楼上 那台破苹果机上设计的 现在很多的发明 和我当初设计时的一样
So, I've been really lucky as an inventor. I'm the happiest guy you're ever going to meet. And my dad died before he realized anybody in the family would maybe, hopefully, make something out of themselves. You've been a great audience. I know I've jumped all over the place. I usually figure out what my talk is when I get up in front of a group.
因此作为一名发明者,我很幸运 我是你们遇到的最开心的人 我的父亲在他可以看到这个家庭 可能或者有希望有所成就前就去世了 你们是很棒的观众 我知道我省略了很多细节 我经常是站在观众前后才想起我演讲的主题是什么
Let me give you, in the last minute, one more quick demo of this guy, for those of you that haven't heard it. Can never tell if it's on. If you haven't heard it, raise your hand. Getting it over there? Get the cameraman. Yeah, there you go. I've got a Coke can opening that's right in your head; that's really cool. Thank you once again. Appreciate it very much.
在这最后时刻我来告诉你 为了那些没有听到的观众 我再来演示一遍 永远不知道是开着还是关着 没听到的请举手 好了吗 让摄影师也听一下 好嘞 我在你脑袋里面打开了可乐瓶 太酷了 再次感谢 非常感谢