6. 纳森·迈尔沃德：“我对很多事情都感兴趣，这实际上是个糟糕的策略”

那些难以解决的问题，通常是因为用来尝试解决它们的视角和工具集过于局限。

Problems that are hard are usually hard because of the set of perspectives and tools that have been used to try to solve them.

所以你必须不断自问：我是否为这个问题带来了新的东西？

So you have to always ask, am I bringing something new to this problem?

如果你没有，那就应该说：也许我应该尝试获取不同的视角、不同的工具，或者别的方法，或者暂时放一放，转而去处理一些我能取得更多进展的事情。

And if you're not, then you should say, well, maybe I should either try to get a different perspective or a different tool or a different thing, or maybe give it a rest and work on something that I can get a little more progress with.

有些人对少数几个狭窄的领域非常了解。

So there are people who know a lot about a few narrow topics.

而另一些人则对几乎每件事都略知一二。

And then there are other people who who know a little bit about just about everything.

还有内森·米雷沃尔特，他无所不知。

And then there's Nathan Mirewoldt, who knows everything about everything.

欢迎来到《我最钦佩的人》，主持人史蒂夫·列维特。

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

我大概十年前第一次见到内森。

I first met Nathan maybe a decade ago.

从我第一次见到他起，就被他的智慧和热情深深震撼了。

And from the very first time I met him, was just blown away by his intellect and his enthusiasm.

我从未问过他一个问题，而他没有给我一个深刻、详尽且富有知识性的回答。

And I've never asked him a question where he didn't give me an answer that was just profound and detailed and knowledgeable.

我和纳森交谈时，不仅从他那里学到了很多，他还让我觉得世界上的一切都充满趣味。

And what I love about talking to Nathan is not only that I learn a lot from him, but somehow he makes me feel like everything in the world is interesting.

纳森·米尔沃德，物理学家、发明家、烹饪书作者、考古学家、科技巨头，研究企鹅粪便和恐龙性行为的学者。

Nathan Mirvold, physicist, inventor, cookbook author, archaeologist, tech mogul, scholar of penguin poop and dinosaur sex.

我们从头开始吧。

Let's just start at the beginning.

你14岁就高中毕业了。

You graduated from high school when you were 14 years old.

你跳过了四个年级。

You skipped four grades.

你小时候讨人喜欢吗，还是史上最烦人的孩子？

Were you a likable kid, or were you the most annoying kid that ever existed?

你知道，青少年很难对自己有那种客观的视角。

You know, it's very difficult for a teenager to have that perspective on themselves famously.

而且，我从来不是班上最奇怪或最不合群的孩子。

And, you know, I was never the weirdest kid in class or the most misfit kid.

所以在等级排序中，你至少总是比最底层的一个人强，有人可以让你欺负？

So in the pecking order, you were always at least one from the bottom with someone you could bully?

倒也不是说我能欺负别人，我只是体育一直不好，因为我比其他孩子小三四岁。

Well, not so much that I could bully is, you know, I was never good at PE because I was three or four years younger than all of the other kids.

对吧？

Right?

但我从来不是最差的。

But I was never the worst.

在社交笨拙方面也是如此。

And the same thing was true with being socially awkward.

我确实更社交笨拙，但我是最差的吗？

I was more socially awkward, but was I the worst?

哦，不是的。

Oh, no.

还有其他人。

There were others.

跳级是你的主意，还是你妈妈的主意？

Was it your idea to skip all those grades or was it your mom's?

哦，那是我的主意。

Oh, it was my idea.

否则的话，那简直太无聊了。

It was just so damn boring otherwise.

现在回头看，你一点都不后悔吗？

And you don't regret it looking back?

你知道的，我们每个人只能活一次。

You know, we only get to live our lives once.

所以，如果我走了另一条路，会是什么样子，谁又知道呢？

So who knows what it would be like if I'd taken a different path?

我不知道，但我绝对不后悔其中任何一件事。

I I don't know, but I certainly don't regret any of it.

好吧。

Alright.

然后你去了加州大学洛杉矶分校，在那里获得了学士学位和硕士学位，接着你去了普林斯顿大学，我想你又拿到了另一个硕士学位，之后你获得了物理学博士学位，最终在大约23岁时去了剑桥大学，在斯蒂芬·霍金手下做博士后研究。

So then you went to UCLA and you got an undergraduate degree there and master's, and then you went to Princeton where you collected, I think, another master's degree and then you got your physics PhD, which eventually led you to Cambridge, I don't know, at the age of, say, 23, where you studied postdoc with Stephen Hawking.

他是个怎样的人？

What was he like?

我一直想问别人这个问题。

I've always wanted to ask someone that question.

我从未认识任何认识他的人。

I've never known anyone who knew him.

哦，斯蒂芬很棒。

Oh, Stephen was great.

他有着极佳的幽默感，这让你和他在一起时根本没法自怜自艾，因为这位仁兄一边讲笑话、大笑、享受生活，一边却承受着如此不可思议的身体困境。

He had a terrific sense of humor, which made it very, very hard to feel sorry for yourself if you were with Steven, because here's this guy who is telling jokes and laughing and enjoying life, and yet he's under such impossible physical circumstances.

你会想，天哪，他哪来的精力？

And you think, Oh my god, how does he get the energy?

他怎么没有直接瘫成一团？

How does he not just crumple into a ball?

我曾经问过他，他说实际上，他的状况反而是个优势。

And I asked him once, and he said, well, actually, his condition was an advantage.

我说，斯蒂芬，你这话是什么意思？

And I said, Steven, what do you mean it was an advantage?

他说，他们根本不会指望我去参加委员会会议。

And he says, well, they don't expect me to go to committee meetings.

他们基本不会指望我做任何我不想做的事。

They don't expect me basically to do anything I don't wanna do.

所以我能专心思考我的物理问题。

And so I get to think about my physics.

我说，没错，但思考你的物理问题难道不更难吗？

I said, sure, but thinking about your physics is still harder, isn't it?

他说，他发现自己的状况导致他无法做笔记，因此不得不将一切简化为几个核心概念，而他认为这种自律实际上对他的科学研究有帮助。

And he said, well, he found that his condition meant that he couldn't take notes, so he had to simplify everything to just a couple of core concepts, and he thought that discipline actually helped his science.

所以这大约是1980年。

So this was roughly 1980.

那时他还不是名人。

He wasn't yet a celebrity.

我后来听一些物理学家说过，他们可能只是心胸狭隘、心生嫉妒，认为他其实并不是那么出色的物理学家。

I've heard from some physicists much later who may have just been petty and jealous that he wasn't really that great of a physicist.

你觉得这是真的吗，还是完全站不住脚？

Would you say that's true, or is that completely off base?

我觉得这完全不对。

I think that's off base.

你知道，要定义什么才是伟大的科学家总是很难的。

You know, it's always hard to say what makes a great, great scientist.

你可以看看他们取得的成就，这当然是一个角度。

You can look at the achievements that they have, and that's certainly one approach.

另一种方法是考察在他们所处的时代，发现某个了不起的成就有多困难。

A different approach is to look at how hard was it to find some cool achievement in the era that they were in.

比如在20世纪30年代，量子力学刚刚被发现。

In the nineteen thirties, for example, quantum mechanics had just been discovered.

从那时到60年代，几乎任何一位合格的物理学家都能指望发现某种效应或新现象，并以自己的名字命名。

And from then through the nineteen sixties, pretty much any decent physicist could count on finding some effect or some new thing and getting it named after them.

这并不意味着物理学很简单，但我们当时面临着一个非常激动人心的可能性——新的概念框架，即相对论和量子理论，而我们需要将它们应用到众多领域中。

It doesn't mean that physics was easy, but we had a very exciting possibility of a new conceptual framework, both relativity theory and quantum theory, And now we had to apply it to lots of things.

而在史蒂芬活跃的时期，这样的机会已经不多了。

Now, in the period where Steven was active, there wasn't that much.

我想，我们最后还能利用的，大概就是广义相对论了。

The last thing that we could exploit like that, I suppose, was general relativity.

因此，史蒂芬在广义相对论方面做出了非凡的贡献。

And so Steven did some amazing work in general relativity.

任何说史蒂芬不是伟大物理学家的人，我会说，好吧，那你来解释一下奇点定理吧——那是非常了不起的智力成就，帮助我们理解：只要我们对物理学的理解是正确的，宇宙中就必然存在一个奇点。

And anybody who says that Steven isn't a great physicist, I would say, okay, now tell me your answer about the singularity theorems, which are very impressive, intellectual feats that help us understand that, assuming our understanding of physics is correct, there had to be a singularity in the universe.

必须存在类似大爆炸或黑洞终结这样的东西。

There has to be something like the Big Bang or end in a black hole.

非常、非常强大的发现。

Very, very powerful things.

随后，斯蒂芬转向尝试理解更基础的物理，即如何将量子力学与广义相对论结合起来。

Now Stephen then turned to try to make sense of more fundamental physics, how you take quantum mechanics and connect it with general relativity.

当然，其他人也都在这么做。

Of course, so did everybody else.

在过去的三四十年里，进展非常有限。

And during this last period of thirty, forty years, there's been very little progress.

最近几项重大成果是完成了如今人们所称的粒子物理学标准模型。

The last couple big things were the completion of what today people call the standard model of particle physics.

斯蒂芬和其他人曾竭尽全力试图调和我们所知的标准模型与粒子物理学和广义相对论及引力之间的关系。

Well, Steven and others tried very hard to reconcile the standard model and particle physics as we knew it with general relativity and gravity.

显然，这种调和必须实现，因为这两种理论存在于同一个宇宙中，而我们至今尚未找到实现它的方法。

And clearly, that reconciliation has to occur because both theories exist in the same universe, and we've not been able to figure out how to do it.

最近，欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机寻找标准模型中缺失的一块——希格斯玻色子。

Recently, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN looked for one of the missing pieces of the standard model, the Higgs boson.

当然，他们找到了希格斯玻色子，这是一项了不起的成就。

And, of course, they found the Higgs boson, and that was a wonderful achievement.

但所有参与的人都以为他们会发现通向基础物理的下一个线索。

But everybody involved thought they would find the next clue to fundamental physics.

但他们没有。

And they didn't.

所以，如果你说，嗯，史蒂芬没解决这个问题，我会说，是的，那个时期也没人解决。

So, you know, if you say, well, gee, Steven didn't solve that problem, I would say yes, and neither did anybody else during that period.

我们拥有的证据和过去一样，表明引力和粒子物理必须被统一，但我们没有任何新的线索。

We have the same evidence that we've had in the past that shows gravity and particle physics must be reconciled, and we don't have any new clue.

没有新的线索，要取得进展真的非常困难。

Without a new clue, it's really hard to make progress.

所以你的意思是，缺乏新的实证数据正在阻碍理论的发展？

So you're saying that the lack of new empirical data is impeding the ability of theory to progress?

目前，我认为这确实非常正确。

At the moment, I would say that's hugely true.

现在这有点讽刺，因为在科学史上有一些例子，比如牛顿推导出牛顿引力，爱因斯坦推导出广义相对论，那时他们仅凭极少的实证线索就完成了。

Now, it's a little funny because there are some episodes in the history of science, Newton figuring out Newtonian gravity, and Einstein figuring out general relativity, when that was done with only the barest minimum of any empirical clues.

但不幸的是，自爱因斯坦以来，我们再也没有出现过这样的科学家。

Now, unfortunately, we haven't had a scientist like that since Einstein.

如果你把牛顿算作上一位，那么我们可能每五百年才出现一位这样的科学家。

And if you count Newton as the previous one, we may only get them every five hundred years.

是的。

Yeah.

等这么长时间可真够久的。

It's a long time to wait.

在我看来，经济学和物理学之间一个显著的不同在于，经济学家试图回答的问题范围极其广泛。

One thing that seems really different to me about economics and physics is that the set of questions that economists try to answer, it's huge.

经济学家可以专攻成千上万种课题，比如一个人可能花十年研究警察执法中的种族偏见，或者研究求职模型、耐用品定价等。

There's and thousands of things that an economist could specialize in that one person might study, I don't know, racial bias in policing for a decade or models of job search or pricing of durable goods.

因此，在任何一个特定的经济学细分领域，往往只有少数几位专家，两三个、四个人，甚至可能只有一位真正博学的经济学家。

And as a consequence, on any given narrow economic topic, there's only a handful, two or three or four or maybe one expert, one really knowledgeable economist.

但在物理学中，我感觉只有少数几个问题——六七个、十个，我不确定具体数字，而所有人都在研究同一个问题，这是一种完全不同的科学组织方式。

But in physics, I get the impression that there's a handful of problems, six, seven, 10, I don't know the number, and everybody works on the same problem, which is a completely different way of organizing a scientific discipline.

我认为，你的描述总体上是正确的。

Well, I think your characterization is, broadly speaking, correct.

不过，物理学中也有一些子领域并不符合这种情况。

Now there are subfields of physics where that's not the case.

比如凝聚态物理，就有很多不同的子领域。

A solid state physics, for example, has a fair number of different subfields.

说每个人都研究同样的东西，那是不公平的。

I think it'd be unfair to say everyone's working on the same thing.

当谈到粒子物理和宇宙的基本理论时，我们做了两件事。

When it comes to particle physics and what the fundamental theory of the universe is, we did two things.

一是有很多人同时研究同一个问题。

One is we had lots of people working on the same problem.

没错。

That's correct.

第二点是，他们还进一步强化了特定的理论方法。

The second thing is that they also doubled down on particular theoretical approaches.

当我读研究生时，弦理论刚刚开始流行起来。

So string theory was just starting to become popular when I was in graduate school.

它自20世纪60年代以来就以某种形式存在，但在1983年我获得博士学位时，弦理论突然变得极其热门，尽管实际上并没有太多实质性进展。

It had been around one form or another since the 1960s, but in 'eighty three, when I got my PhD, string theory became an incredibly hot topic without there being that much actual progress.

因此，以经济学家的角度来看，这个领域对弦理论投入过度了，而如今我们并没有取得多少成果。

And so I think in an economist's terms, the field overinvested in string theory, and now it's turned out that we don't have that much to show for it.

这种情况时有发生。

That happens.

人们会下大注，但并不总是能获得回报。

People make big bets that don't always pay off.

我记得当我还是哈佛大学学者协会的博士后时，经常和物理学家们在一起。

I remember back when I was a postdoc at the Society of Fellows at Harvard, and I would spend time with physicists.

这是我唯一真正花时间与物理学家相处的时候。

The only time I really spent time with physicists.

我记得当时很庆幸自己是个经济学家，因为物理学家们都不敢休假，因为他们觉得如果离开两周，就会远远落后，而所有其他研究同样问题的人会赶超他们，再也追不上。

And I remember thinking how glad I was an economist because the physicists were afraid to take a vacation because if they went away for two weeks, they felt like they were going to fall hopelessly behind and all of the people working on the same problem were going to race ahead of them and they'd never catch up.

这种激励机制很有趣，因为大家都在竞争激烈的环境中，研究着同一个问题。

Was interesting incentives that were in place because people were working in such a competitive environment with everybody working on the same problem.

这是你避开学术物理的原因之一吗？

Is that one of the reasons you steer clear of academic physics?

嗯，我从来没有明确决定要离开物理学。

Well, I never, like, decided I'm leaving physics.

相反，在研究生期间，我和几个朋友一起做了一个软件项目，那是最早期的个人电脑刚出现的时候。

Instead, I worked in graduate school with a couple of friends on a software project on some of the first PCs that existed because it was right around that time.

我们对这个项目很着迷。

We got excited about it.

我当博士后期间继续做这个项目，后来甚至向史蒂文申请了博士后休假，去专心做这个软件项目，当时我以为六个月就能回来。

I kept working on it when I was a postdoc, And I eventually took a leave of absence for my postdoc with Steven to go work on this software project, and I thought I'd be back in six months.

经过很多年，我想大概是十五年左右，宣布我从微软退休了。

And after many, many years, I think fifteen years, something like that, it was announced I was retiring from Microsoft.

我收到了史蒂文的一封邮件，问他我们是不是该清理一下办公室。

And I got this email from Steven saying, should we clean out the office?

这太好了。

That is great.

我本来一直打算回去的，但说实话，回去对我并没有多大吸引力，因为拉菲尔德现在陷入了它当前的困境。

So I always intended to go back, but I gotta say it's not been that intriguing for me to go back because LaFeld has been stuck in the conundrum it's currently in.

您正在收听《我最钦佩的人》，主持人史蒂夫·莱维特与博学的发明家、前微软首席技术官内森·梅尔沃德的对话。

You're listening to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levitt and his conversation with polymathic inventor and former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Meirvold.

短暂广告后，他们将继续。

They'll return after this short break.

你还记得第一次见到比尔·盖茨的情景吗？那是什么样的？

Do you remember the first time that you met Bill Gates, and what was that like?

哦，我 definitely 记得。

Oh, I definitely remember.

我到微软去跟他们谈我的公司。

I come up to Microsoft to talk to them about my company.

他们觉得需要这项技术。

They thought they needed the technology.

于是我见到了查尔斯·西蒙和史蒂夫·鲍尔默等人，我们进行了非常愉快的讨论。

And I wound up meeting Charles Simone and Steve Balmer and others, and we seem to have a good discussion.

他们说，等等。

And they said, wait a minute.

我们再给你安排一次会议，他们带我去见比尔。

We're gonna arrange one more meeting for you, and they brought me in to see Bill.

我和比尔的会面非常愉快。

And I I had a great meeting with Bill.

我的意思是，

I mean,

我想，如果那次会面不顺利，后来的历史可能会大不相同。

I suppose if I'd had a bad meeting, subsequent history could have been quite different.

所以这是1986年。

So this was in 1986.

微软当时很重要吗？

Was Microsoft a big deal?

我甚至不知道那时候微软是不是个大公司，是吗？

I don't even know Microsoft was a big deal then, was it?

当时他们已经上市了，微软是一家非常重要的公司，因为他们既开发应用程序，也开发像Microsoft BASIC这样的编程语言，并且已经发布了一个版本的Windows，但那个版本还不够用户友好，毕竟是第一个版本。

Well, they had gone public, and Microsoft was a very prominent company because they were doing both applications and languages like Microsoft BASIC, and they had released one version of Windows, which was still not very user friendly because it was its very first version.

所以微软在行业内确实很重要，但还远不是后来那个样子的公司。

So Microsoft was a big deal in the industry, but it wasn't like the company that it became.

所以你很快就成了首席技术官？

And so you somehow very quickly became chief technology officer?

最初，我是特别项目总监。

Initially, I was director of special projects.

好的。

Okay.

我花了几年时间才成为首席技术官。

It took a few years before I was chief technology officer.

你知道，我成为微软的首席技术官时，从未上过任何计算机科学课程。

You know, I became the chief technology officer at Microsoft, never having had a computer science class.

后来我确实非常深入地学习了计算机科学，但我从未正式上过这门课。

Now, I wound up learning computer science very thoroughly, but I never did have a class in it.

所以你在那儿赚了很多钱，然后决定离开。

So you made a lot of money, clearly, being there, and then you decided to leave.

你决定创办智力资本公司。

You decided to start intellectual ventures.

你当时为什么选择离开微软呢？

What what was your thinking behind jumping off the ship at Microsoft?

我在微软度过了非常愉快的时光，但那是一件非常耗费精力的事。

Well, it I had a great time at Microsoft, but it was a very involving thing.

因此，我有一项个人追求占据了我醒着的80%到90%的时间。

And so I had one pursuit of mine that took 80 or 90% of my waking hours.

我其实想做些别的事情，因为我一直有很多兴趣，即使在微软工作时这些兴趣也没有消失，只是我没多少时间去追求它们。

And I kinda wanted to do some other stuff because I've always had lots of interests, and that didn't stop when I was at Microsoft, but I had very little time to pursue them.

你知道，人生中只有一个地方会因为你表现好而给你放假，那就是监狱。

You know, there's only one institution in life where they give you time off for good behavior, and that's prison.

但大多数工作，如果你表现优异，可能会得到加薪和奖金，但通常也会承担更多责任。

But most jobs, if you perform very well, you might get raises and bonuses, but you also typically get more responsibility.

而最简单的方式就是继续下去，长期陷在这种状态里。

And, you know, the easiest thing is just keep going and stay in that rut for a much longer period of time.

我想，为什么呢？

And I thought, well, why?

所以我离开了。

So, so I left.

介绍一下知识产权风险投资公司吧。

And describe Intellectual Ventures.

这跟我见过的任何东西都不太一样。

It's not quite like anything I've ever seen before.

因此，智力资本公司致力于发明新技术的理念。

So, Intellectual Ventures is dedicated to the idea of inventing new technology.

我们试图为各种技术问题提出新的解决方案，其中一些问题规模大且广泛。

We try to come up with new solutions to various technical problems, some of which are big and broad.

正如你所知，我们已经做了大量关于如何用技术手段应对气候变化的研究。

As you know, we've worked a bunch on what would a technological fix to climate change be.

我们还研究一些更具体的问题，比如如何让飞机机翼更高效，或者如何用人工智能在医疗领域开辟新方法。

We also work on narrower things like how would you make airplane wings more efficient or what are new approaches for using AI in health.

所以，这是一系列相当丰富的活动。

So it's it's quite a set of activities.

你创造了一种叫做“萨尔特同步”的装置，这是一种削弱飓风的方法。

So you created something you call the Salter Sync, which is a way of defanging hurricanes.

你能用简单的语言解释一下这个想法吗？

Could you explain in simple terms what the idea was?

是的。

Yeah.

飓风的所有能量都来自热带海洋表面的热水。

So a hurricane draws all of its energy from hot water on the surface of a tropical ocean.

问题是太阳照射在海洋上，使海水变暖，但水越暖，浮力就越大，因此它几乎不再上下翻动和混合。

And the problem is the sun beats down on the ocean, makes the water warm, but the warmer the water is, the more buoyant it is, and so it really stops turning over and stops mixing.

这就使得海水变得越来越热。

And that allows it to get warmer and warmer yet.

要形成强飓风，海面水温至少需要达到80到82华氏度，有时甚至会超过90华氏度。

So to be a strong hurricane, you need to have the surface water be at least 80 degrees, 82 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can get up well over 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

正是储存在海洋表层的热能，最终驱动了风力并为飓风提供动力。

And it's the heat energy that's stored in that top layer of the ocean that ultimately drives the winds and powers a hurricane.

因此，我和来自英国的史蒂芬·萨尔特合作，提出了一个想法：为什么不设法让海水混合起来呢？

So in conjunction with a guy named Stephen Salter from The UK, we had this idea, why don't you come up with a way of mixing the water?

因为尽管表层有暖水层，但往下50英尺、100英尺的地方，水要冷得多。

Because even though there's that layer at the top, if you go down 50 feet, 100 feet, the water is much colder.

那么问题来了，你该怎么让海水混合呢？

So you say, well, how do you mix the water?

大自然混合海水的方式就是飓风。

Well, nature's way of mixing the water is a hurricane.

这个想法是通过一种泵或沉降装置来实现的，它由一个巨大的塑料袋组成。

The idea by an assault or sink is you have a pump, if you will, which is made from a giant plastic bag.

想象一下，一个能装下一座体育场馆的垃圾袋。

So imagine a trash bag that you could put a sports stadium in.

是的。

Mhmm.

如果你在顶部装上浮标，在底部挂上重物，通过一些简单的数学计算就可以证明，波浪会从顶部翻过。

And if you put floats up at the top and you put weights down at the bottom, you can show with some pretty simple math that waves will crest over the top.

这会使袋内的水位上升，从而将水从底部排出。

That builds up the water level inside, which pushes water out the bottom.

因此，它就像一台水泵。

And so it acts like a pump.

事实证明，只需要很少的这种塑料袋，就能把一片区域的海水温度降低到低于飓风形成所需的危险温度。

Well, it turns out it doesn't take very many of these plastic bags to take the water temperature in an area and drop it below the temperature where a hurricane is dangerous.

所以我们想，太好了，我们有了阻止或削弱飓风的方法，正如你所说。

So we thought, great, we have a way of stopping hurricanes or defanging them, as you said.

如果你在海洋中制造几片冷水区，就可能完全阻止飓风，因为当飓风来袭并遇到冷水时，往往会偏离方向。

You might stop them altogether if you made a couple halves of cold water out in the ocean because as a hurricane comes in and if it hits cold water, it tends to bounce off.

我们进行了各种计算和实证研究，证明了这种方法有效，然后我们试图看看是否有人愿意采用。

And we did a variety of work, both computationally and empirically, to show that it works, and then we tried to see if anyone wanted it.

没人想要吗？

Nobody wanted it?

嗯，实际上没有。

Well, effectively, no.

偶尔，在一场大飓风过后第二天，他们会说，哦，某个岛屿的总理打电话来了。

Every now and then, there were after a big hurricane the next day, they'd say, oh, the prime minister of this or that island is calling.

但问题是，这种事属于世界尚未采取主动应对措施的类型。

But the problem is that this is the type of thing where the world has not taken a proactive stance against it.

在洪水问题上，我们确实会这么做。

There are flooding issues where we do that.

我们修建涵洞、分流设施或堤坝，以便将洪水引走。

We build culverts or diversion of things or levees so that we can take flooding away.

但在海洋中这样做没有任何历史先例，而且也不清楚谁会为此出资。

But there's no historical tradition for doing this in the ocean, and it wasn't clear who was going to fund it.

当然，进行研究和实施都需要大量资金，但与一次飓风造成的损失相比，这根本不算什么。

And it's expensive, of course, to both do the research and to do it, but not at all compared to the impact of even a single hurricane.

是的。

Yeah.

那么，你认为实际实施这个方案需要多少钱？

Like, what would it cost, do you think, to actually implement this?

十亿美元左右吗？

A billion dollars or something like that?

哦，我们的估算要低得多。

Oh, our estimate is much less than that.

这些装置其实就是巨大的塑料袋。

These things are literally giant plastic bags.

你会用一种土工织物制成它们，这种材料本质上是一种超强的垃圾袋。

You would make them out of a geotextile cloth, which is effectively a super strong trash bag.

你可以用大量回收材料低成本地制造它们，然后在风暴来临前几个月部署它们。

And you could make them out of largely recycled materials quite cheaply, and then you deploy them months before the storm.

那就是飓风走廊。

That's Hurricane Alley.

你知道飓风会从那个方向来。

You know that the hurricanes come that way.

因此，你可以轻松建造一些设施来保护美国墨西哥湾沿岸或保护加勒比海的各个岛屿。

And so you could easily build something that would defend the Gulf Coast Of The United States or defend various Caribbean islands.

这太疯狂了，因为我一看。

It's so crazy because I look.

你可能是错的。

You might be wrong.

它可能不会奏效。

It might not work.

但美国每年因飓风造成的损失预计是多少？

But what's the annual damage in The US expected from hurricanes?

数百亿美元。

Tens of billions.

数百亿美元。

Tens of billions.

所以你能收回成本。

So you get your return back.

而一次严重的飓风，损失可达数千亿美元。

And and a single bad one, the damage is hundreds of billions.

这纯粹是市场失灵。

It's just a market failure.

还有另一件有趣的事。

Now there's another funny thing.

事实证明，同样大小的垃圾袋与全球已有的许多渔场尺寸并无不同。

It turns out the same sized garbage bags are no different sized than a lot of fish farms the world already has.

嗯。

Mhmm.

事实上，每当我飞越有鱼塘的区域时，我总会望向窗外，心想：这些鱼塘或许能帮我们抵御飓风。

In fact, whenever I'm flying in an area that has the fish farms, I always look out and think, Those could be saving us from hurricanes.

事实证明，海洋表面如果变得非常热且不混合，也会耗尽自身的氧气。

It turns out that the surface of the ocean, that gets really hot and doesn't mix, also depletes itself of oxygen.

由于氧气被耗尽，鱼类无法在其中生存。

And because it depletes itself of oxygen, fish can't live in it.

因此，这造成了大片无法生存鱼类的死亡区域。

So it creates large dead zones where you can't have fish.

当人们注意到近海石油平台附近的渔业资源异常丰富时，这一现象首次引起关注。

And this first became appreciated when people noticed that the fishing was excellent near offshore oil platforms.

嗯。

Mhmm.

是的。

Yeah.

或者你会说，为什么应该是这样呢？

Or you say, like, why should that be?

答案是，海上石油平台在受到海浪冲击时，会引发一些混合，使较冷、富含氧气的水上升到表面。

Well, the answer is that the offshore oil platform, when waves hit it, that does cause some mixing, and colder, oxygen rich water comes up to the surface.

因此，我们认为这也会是非常有利于环境的做法。

So we think this would also be a very pro environmental thing.

我们只需要有人站出来说，是的，我真的很想去做这件事。

We just need somebody who says, yeah, I really want to go do it.

你显然从发明中获得了很大的乐趣。

You obviously get a lot of joy out of the inventing.

当你创造出令人惊叹的东西，却没人愿意将其付诸实施时，你会有同等程度的挫败感吗？

Do you get an equivalent degree of frustration when you create something amazing and nobody will put it into place?

作为一名发明家，有两个主要的挫败。

So there's two big frustrations of being an inventor.

第一个是当你无法解决一个问题时。

The first is when you can't solve a problem.

当然，你的大多数想法都会失败。

And of course, most of your ideas do fail.

在找到真正成功的东西之前，需要反复尝试很多次。

It takes a lot of iteration before you hit on something that really succeeds.

而第二个挫折是，你无法让世界接受它。

And then this is the second one that you can't get the world to adopt it.

但这也正是这个游戏的一部分。

But it also is kind of the game.

我们公司有一个名为全球善举的部门，致力于解决发展中国家的贫困问题。

We have a unit of our company called Global Good, where we work on solving problems in the, developing world, problems of poverty.

在那里，令人沮丧的是，你试图在一个几乎支离破碎的环境中解决问题——而这正是问题产生的根本原因。

And there, it's frustrating because you're trying to solve things in an environment that's mostly broken, which is, of course, why there's a problem in the first place.

但你无法直接修复它之所以破碎的原因。

But you can't fix directly the reason why it's broken.

因此，你所要做的是思考：即使在医疗系统薄弱、法治不健全、还有其他诸多问题的情况下，我们能做些什么？

So what you're trying to do is to say, well, even in a circumstance where there's a poor health care system, and rule of law may not be that great, there's all these other issues, what can we do?

在那里，积极的一面是，即使你做出小小的改进，也能挽救许多生命，这让人感到欣慰。

There, the positive thing is even when you make small improvements, it saves lots of lives, and so that feels good.

你想谈谈TerraPower吗？

Do you want to talk about TerraPower?

在我一生中听过的所有想法里，这个是我觉得最吸引人的。

Of all the ideas I've ever heard in my entire life, this is the one I found most captivating.

每次听到对它的描述，我都感到震撼。

This description of it blows my mind every time I hear about it.

好的。

Okay.

世界需要清洁能源。

Well, the world needs clean energy.

从第一近似来看，我们的生活水平是由能源的可获得性决定的。

To first order approximation, our standard of living is driven by the availability of energy.

我们都必须从碳基能源转向非碳基能源。

We both need to convert from the carbon based energy to a non carbon based energy.

我们还需要让这种解决方案惠及地球上一些最贫困的地区。

We need to have that solution also extend to some of the poorest places on earth.

因此，我们研究了所有可能的方法，并专注于其中几种。

So we looked at all of the different ways of doing this and worked on several of them.

但最切实可行的、无碳且易于扩展的能源方案是核裂变。

But the thing that is the most practical approach for a carbon free, easily scalable form of energy is nuclear fission.

裂变当然就是当今世界上常规核反应堆所依赖的原理。

Fission is, of course, what powers our conventional nuclear reactors that are out there today.

你可能会想，好吧，我们已经有反应堆了，也知道怎么建造，那有什么新意呢？

Now you might think, okay, but we've got reactors and we know how to build them, so what's new?

普通的核反应堆会‘燃烧’燃料，有趣的是，核工程师用‘燃烧’这个词，尽管这和木头燃烧完全不是一回事。

So a normal nuclear reactor burns and it's funny, the nuclear engineers use the term burn, even though it's got nothing to do with the way a log burns.

我们大家都说它是‘燃烧’。

That's what we all say is burns.

它燃烧的是一种叫做铀-235的燃料。

It burns a fuel called u two thirty five.

U235是一种天然存在的物质，但铀-235具有轻微的放射性，这意味着它有半衰期，会逐渐衰变。

Now u two thirty five is a naturally occurring material, but uranium two thirty five is slightly radioactive, and that means it has a half life, which means it decays.

因此，大约每五亿年，它的一半就会消失。

And so roughly half of it goes away every five hundred million years.

我们已经经历了许多这样的半衰期过程。

So we've been through many of these half life things.

你知道，如果我们早在四十亿年前就开始从事这个行业，那情况会好得多。

You know, if we'd been in the business four billion years ago, it would have been terrific.

所以现在当你从地下开采铀矿时，其中只有极小一部分——不到百分之零点六——是真正的U235。

So now when you dig uranium up out of the ground, only a tiny fraction of it, less than, I think, point six of a percent is actually this U235.

因此，你必须对其进行浓缩。

So then you have to go and enrich it.

浓缩的难点在于，首先，它非常昂贵。

And the problem with enriching it is, first of all, it's really expensive.

其次，浓缩过程会让你 halfway 接近制造炸弹。

And second of all, the enrichment stage takes you about halfway towards making a bomb.

这就是问题所在。

And here's the problem.

如果你真的想用核能完全取代燃煤电厂，那么你手头的铀-235是不够的。

If you really want to displace coal plants entirely with nuclear, you don't have enough u two thirty five.

所以我们决定，世界需要的是发明一种全新的反应堆，利用如今计算机远比三十年前设计反应堆时更强大的能力，打造一种具有防扩散特性的反应堆，这样你就无法利用它来转移材料制造炸弹。

So what we decided the world needed was to say, why don't we invent a brand new kind of reactor, use the fact that our computers are vastly better now than they were thirty years ago when people were designing reactors, And let's make something that is proliferation resistant, so you can't use it to divert material and make, bombs.

让我们使用一种能够燃烧全部铀元素、而不仅仅是铀-235的材料。

Let's use something that burns all of the uranium, not just the u two thirty five.

事实上，让我们设计一种能够将当前反应堆的废料作为燃料来燃烧的装置。

In fact, let's make something that will burn the waste from current reactors as fuel.

天哪，我们真的做到了。

And by God, we came up with that.

好的。

Okay.

让我先打断你一下。

So let me stop you for a second.

所以你一开始说，如果我们能做成这些事该多好，然后你就着手去做了，还是在开始之前你就知道这能做到？

So you started by saying, wouldn't it be great if we could do all these things, and then you set out to do it, or do you kind of know you could do it before you started?

哦，这总是混合在一起的。

Oh, it's always a mixture.

你知道，如果你给自己设定太多反事实前提，可能就无法成功。

You know, if you set yourself up with too many counterfactuals, you might not succeed.

如果你设定得太少，虽然能成功，但结果也不会太有意思。

If you set yourself up with too few, you'll succeed, but it won't be very interesting.

所以我们一开始的目标是打造一款超级简单、低成本的增殖反应堆，我们称之为被动增殖堆，也就是上世纪50年代和60年代人们设计的那种。

So what we set out to do is to make a super simple and low cost effective economics breeder reactor that's what we call a passive breeder, meaning the designs people made in the '50s and '60s.

当时的增殖反应堆极其复杂。

The breeder reactor was extremely complicated.

你必须不断把高放射性燃料取出，然后进行分离。

You'd have to continually be taking this highly radioactive fuel out and then separating it.

而一旦分离，就有可能将部分材料转移用于制造炸弹。

And when you separate it, you've got the possibility of diverting some of it to make bombs.

所以我们不希望这一点成为我们反应堆的特性。

So we didn't want that to be a feature of our reactor.

因此，我们的类比是蜡烛，或者也许是湿木头。

So our analogy is a candle or perhaps wet firewood.

你知道，当你点燃一支蜡烛时，蜡烛的燃料从哪里来？

You know, when you light a candle, where does the fuel for the candle come from?

嗯，燃料当然是蜡，但最初蜡是固态的。

Well, the fuel is the wax, of course, but initially, the wax is solid.

你不能直接点燃固态蜡。

You can't just light the wax.

蜡烛的情况是，当你点燃灯芯时，灯芯上只有一点点固态蜡，你可以点燃它。

What happens with the candle is when you light the wick, that has just got a tiny bit of the solid wax in it and you can light it.

但随后蜡烛火焰的热量会熔化一小滩石蜡，这些石蜡会被灯芯吸上去并燃烧。

But then the heat from that candle flame melts a little puddle of the paraffin wax, which then gets sucked up the whip and it burns.

所以蜡烛是自己制造燃料的。

So the candle makes its own fuel.

你不需要经历什么复杂的过程。

You don't have to go through some complicated thing.

只需点燃蜡烛即可。

Just light the candle.

这个类比，你可能不信，但同样适用于快中子增殖反应堆。

And that analogy, believe it or not, carries over to fast breeder reactors.

你可以建造一个快中子增殖反应堆，使用铀-238作为燃料，而今天我们把这种物质归类为核废料。

You could build a fast breeder reactor that has this U-two 38 as its fuel, as stuff that we would classify today as nuclear waste.

就像蜡烛一样，它在运行过程中会自行产生燃料。

And just like the candle, it prepares its own fuel as it runs.

你把这种燃料封装起来，埋到地下，它就能像蜡烛一样燃烧好多年？

You encase this fuel, you put it underground, and it burns like a candle for a bunch of years?

我们的主要方法，也是首选方法，是把燃料放进去，六十年内不取出任何东西。

Our main approach, the preferred approach, you put the fuel in, you don't take anything out for sixty years.

是的。

Mhmm.

这与传统反应堆非常不同。

Now that's very different than a conventional reactor.

传统反应堆每十八个月就需要更换燃料。

A conventional reactor, you have to refuel every eighteen months.

当你取出这些燃料时，其中很多的放射性远低于当今的常规核废料，因为它们已经运行了六十年，半衰期已经大大降低。

And then when you take the stuff out, a lot of it is much less radioactive than conventional waste is today because it's already lasted for sixty years and its half lives have run down.

所以大部分最危险的物质都已经消失了。

So a lot of the nastiest stuff is gone.

然后，如果你愿意，你还可以对其中一些部分进行改造，再燃烧六十年。

And then you have the possibility, if you wanted to, you could actually redo some parts of it and burn it for another sixty years.

现在，有趣的是。

Now, here's the interesting thing.

在肯塔基州的帕迪尤卡，有一个美国政府设施用于储存核废料。

In Paducah, Kentucky, there is a US government facility that stores nuclear waste.

特别是，它储存了这种铀-238废料。

In particular, it stores this U-two 38 waste.

帕杜卡的容器中储存的核废料已经足够多，美国纳税人正在支付费用让人看守这些废料，仅凭这些现有废料，就足以让地球实现零碳排放，并运行数百年。

Well, there is enough waste in containers in Paducah that US taxpayers are paying people to guard that you could take Earth to zero carbon and run it for hundreds of years just with the waste that's currently there.

这太疯狂了。

It's crazy.

我猜你会说，向人们推销这个想法真的很难。

And I'm guessing you're going to say it's been really hard to sell this to people.

是，也不是，还是是。

Yes and no and yes.

事实是，长期以来，美国一直害怕建造核反应堆。

It turns out that The United States has been afraid of building nuclear reactors for a long time.

我们仍在运行现有的反应堆。

We operate our existing reactors.

安全记录非常出色，但公众对此并不安心。

The safety record is excellent, but there's been a public at ease.

我认为这种不安并非基于理性的事实。

And I think that that is not based on rational facts.

我们实际上成功说服了中国建造其中一座反应堆。

We actually did manage to sell China on building one of these reactors.

然后，美国政府以它无尽的智慧决定我们不能这么做。

Then the US government, in its infinite wisdom, decided that we couldn't.

你什么意思‘不能’？

What do you mean you couldn't?

核技术是政府管控的事务。

Well, nuclear technology is a government controlled thing.

这本就是理所当然的。

That's to be expected.

我不认为这有什么不对。

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

因此，一家美国公司若要与外国公司合作建造反应堆，即使所有设计都由我们完成，也需要获得政府的许可。

So for a US company to cooperate with a company in a different country to build a reactor, even if we're doing all the design, you need a license from the government.

而政府撤销了我们的许可，大概是出于某种反华的念头，比如：我们不能把我们的先进技术给他们之类的，我想。

And the government revoked our license, presumably as part of some anti China notion of, oh, let's not give them our great technology and so on and so forth, I guess.

我的意思是，事实是我们正面临气候变化的问题，而我们都共享着同样的大气层。

I mean, the fact is we're facing a problem of climate change, and we all share the same damn atmosphere.

结果发现，我们在美国建造的核电站非常少。

It turns out we're building very few plants here in The US.

而中国正在建造大量的核电站。

They're building lots of plants in China.

而且确实，任何一种新型核反应堆的建设都离不开大量的政府资金支持。

And it's also true that no first of a kind nuclear plant has ever been built without a lot of government money.

世界各国政府都认识到，这是一种战略技术，因此愿意提供资金支持。

Governments around the world have recognized, Hey, this is a strategic technology, so we will help fund it.

但我们目前还没有一个切实可行的计划，来重建我们不得不放弃的那些反应堆。

But we do not yet have a plan to build our reactors in The US that really replace what we'd had to walk away from.

这让人感到沮丧。

And that's frustrating.

实际上，在我们采访之后，美国能源部确实向TerraPower提供了资金，用于在本国建造一座先进核反应堆。

Actually, after our interview, the US Department of Energy did award TerraPower funding to build an advanced nuclear reactor in this country.