通过你的感官揭开重大谜团

这条消息来自纯保险。

This message comes from Pure Insurance.

购买房屋保险通常意味着要比较评价和价格。

Shopping for home insurance usually means comparing reviews and prices.

但公司的动机又是什么呢？

But what about the company's motivations?

纯保险的动机来自其会员。

Pure Insurance is motivated by its members.

请访问pureinsurance.com。

Visit pureinsurance.com.

特权承保人互惠交易所。

Privilege underwriters reciprocal exchange.

这里是TED广播时间。

This is the TED Radio Hour.

每周，开创性的TED演讲。

Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

我们现在的工作就是大胆梦想。

Our job now is to dream big.

在TED大会上呈现。

Delivered at TED conferences.

去创造我们想看到的未来。

To bring about the future we want to see.

遍布世界各地。

Around the world.

去理解我们是谁。

To understand who we are.

从这些演讲中，我们为你带来会让你惊喜的演讲者和想法。

From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

你永远不知道会发现什么。

You just don't know what you're gonna find.

挑战你。

Challenge you.

我们真的得问问自己，为什么这件事值得关注？

We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?

甚至能改变

And even change

你。

you.

我真的觉得自己像变了一个人。

I literally feel like I'm a different person.

是的。

Yes.

你有这种感觉吗？

Do you feel that way?

值得传播的想法。

Ideas worth spreading.

来自TED和NPR。

From TED and NPR.

我是马诺·扎莫罗迪。

I'm Manoj Zamorodi.

今天节目中，我们来聊聊我们的感官如何揭示那些可能原本看不见的、关于我们自己以及周围世界的事物，先从我们听到的开始。

Today on the show, how our senses can reveal things about ourselves and the world around us that might otherwise remain invisible, starting with what we can hear.

大约138亿年前，宇宙诞生了。

Roughly thirteen point eight billion years ago, the universe began.

我们称那一刻为宇宙大爆炸，但它并没有发出声音。

We call that moment the big bang, except it didn't make a sound.

“大爆炸”这个词确实让人联想到爆炸。

The term big bang does suggest an explosion.

它让人联想到声音，但实际情况比这要微妙一些。

It suggests a sound, but things are a little bit more subtle than that.

这是马克·惠特尔。

This is Mark Whittle.

他是弗吉尼亚大学的天文学教授。

He's a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia.

马克想让我们明白的第一件事是，大爆炸本身并不是一次爆炸，至少不像电影里那样。

And the first thing that Mark wants us to understand is that the big bang wasn't an explosion per se, at least not like in the movies.

实际上，它并不是在预先存在的空间里发生某种物质的膨胀，而是空间本身的膨胀，带着物质一起扩展。

It was really in a way the the expansion not of something in a preexisting space, but it it was the expansion of space itself carrying material with it.

所以矛盾的是，大爆炸可能实际上是无声的，因为所有东西都在彼此远离。

And so paradoxically, the big bang was probably in a way silent because it because everything's moving away from everything else.

没有压力波。

There are no pressure waves.

压力波。

Pressure waves.

那就是声音的本质。

That's what sound is.

现在，当我说话的时候，微小的分子在空气中运动。

Right now, as I speak, tiny molecules are moving through the air.

但如果没有任何介质，没有空气、气体或水，那就没有声音。

But if there's nothing to move through, no air, gas, or water, then there is no sound.

所以宇宙在最初的那一刻是寂静的。

So the universe in its first few moments was silent.

但随着它的膨胀，情况发生了变化。

But then as it expanded, things changed.

在年轻的宇宙中，确实到处弥漫着气体。

In the young universe, you did actually have a gaseous atmosphere pervading everywhere.

那就是年轻宇宙的样子。

That was the nature of the young universe.

它很热，但有气体存在。

It was hot, but there was a gas.

而声波可以在气体中传播。

And through the gas, sound waves can move.

所以大爆炸本身可能很安静，但几乎紧接着，宇宙就变得嘈杂起来。

So the Big Bang itself may have been silent, but almost immediately afterwards, the universe got noisy.

声学时代几乎立刻开始，持续了大约四十万年。

The acoustic era started almost immediately, basically, and extended for about four hundred thousand years.

四十万年听起来可能很长，但跟宇宙将近一百四十亿年的寿命比起来，马克思说这大概相当于它的第一天。

Four hundred thousand years might seem like a long time, but compared with the nearly fourteen billion year life of the universe, Marx says it's roughly the equivalent of its first day.

在这段时期，也就是声学时代，宇宙中某些区域的物质比其他区域多。

And during this period, the acoustic era, certain areas of space had more matter than others.

引力把气体拉向那些密度更高的区域，压缩它，再弹出来，又拉进去，反复如此。

Gravity pulled gas towards those denser regions, compressing it, bouncing it back out, pulling it in again over and over.

这里发生的是，引力把气体拉向这些密度稍高的区域，同时从密度稍低的区域拉开，从而产生了一个近似球形的声波。

What you have there is an approximately spherical sound wave being created by gravity pulling gas into these slightly denser regions and away from the slightly less dense regions.

所以就有了这一整套的压缩和稀疏过程。

So you have this whole set of compressions and rarefactions.

这就在整个年轻宇宙中产生了声波。

This created sound waves moving through the entire young universe.

当然，当时没有人在场听到这些声音。

Of course, no one was around to hear them.

而且就算你奇迹般地在那里，你的耳朵也派不上用场。

And even if you somehow could have been there, your ears would have been useless.

我所说的这些波的频率，是每五万年才有一个波。

The frequencies of the waves that I, you know, I'm talking about are one at one wave every fifty thousand years.

所以，你甚至活不到看到一个波经过你的时候。

So, I mean, you wouldn't even live to see one wave pass you.

但如果我们把这些波转换成人类耳朵能听到的声音呢？

But what if we translated those waves into something the human ear can perceive?

宇宙的起源听起来会是什么样子？

What would the beginning of the universe sound like?

你即将听到的声音，代表了宇宙最初四十万年的历史，被压缩到大约十秒钟，并提高了大约五十个八度，进入人类听觉范围。

What you're about to hear represents the first four hundred thousand years of the universe compressed into about ten seconds and raised roughly 50 octaves into the range of human hearing.

多亏了马克·惠特尔，我们仿佛能听到宇宙在膨胀。

Thanks to Mark Whittle, it's like we can hear the universe expanding.

最明显的就是音调的降低，音高下降。

So the the most obvious thing is this decrease in pitch, the drop in pitch.

马克思说，想象年轻的宇宙是一台巨大的乐器，几乎就像一架管风琴。

Marx says, imagine the young universe as an enormous musical instrument, almost like an organ.

一开始，只有最小的管道有足够的时间产生波动。

At first, only its smallest pipes had enough time to produce waves.

但随着宇宙逐渐老化，越来越大的区域加入进来，而更大的管道会发出更低沉的声音。

But as the universe aged, larger and larger regions joined in, and larger pipes make deeper notes.

可以说，宇宙这件乐器正在慢慢苏醒，而且它是按顺序醒来的，从小风琴管开始，一直到大风琴管。

The musical instrument, if you like, of of the universe is is beginning to wake up, and it wakes up in sequence, starting with the smallest organ pipes and ending with the largest.

我们的感官是我们与周围世界接触的方式。

Our senses are how we make contact with the world around us.

我们用它们来应对日常生活，但它们也能帮助我们理解那些看似几乎无法理解的事物。

We use them to navigate everyday life, but they can also help us understand things that seem almost impossible to comprehend.

所以今天节目里，我们来一场感官之旅。

So on the show today, a journey through the senses.

从艺术家把现代挑战转化为实体艺术体验，到化学感官研究员探索气味科学，再到用声音理解宇宙膨胀，这让我们回到了宇宙学家马克·惠特尔。

What we can hear, see, feel, and smell from an artist translating modern day challenges into physical art experiences to a chemosensory researcher exploring the science of smell and using sound to understand the expansion of the universe, which brings us back to cosmologist Mark Whittle.

马克从小在英格兰长大，一直对天文学着迷。

Mark has been obsessed with astronomy since he was a child growing up in England.

我很幸运，六十年代中期我大概十岁，那时候天文学界发生了很多大事。

I was lucky in in being a sort of 10 year old in the mid sixties when a lot happened in astronomy.

而且我碰巧住在英国的剑桥，有些事就发生在那里。

And I also happened just, happened to be living in in Cambridge in the in England, and some of what was going on was happening there.

比如脉冲星的发现，就是那种旋转的中子星，还有类星体的发现，那是宇宙远处巨大的黑洞。

So discovery of pulsars, these sort of rotating neutron stars, discovery of quasars, so these were huge black holes, you know, far across the universe.

当然，还有著名的微波背景辐射的发现，就是大爆炸的余晖。

And then, of course, you know, the famous discovery of the of the microwave background, the the fireball of the big bang.

这些事都差不多发生在同一时期。

And they all happened to roughly the same time.

我有一个小盒子，用来放我从报纸上剪下来的文章和一些小玩意儿。

I had a little box that I put, you know, articles that I'd cut out of the newspaper and little paraphernalia.

你自己的小谷歌。

Your own little Google.

对，没错。

That's yeah.

是的。

Yes.

那可比谷歌早多了。

That's way predates anything like that.

但那是我自己的小方法，它让我着迷，我觉得我从此就再也没回头过。

But that was my little way of doing it, and it it fascinated me, and I don't think I've ever looked back.

我们能先打个基础吗？

Can we just lay some groundwork?

大爆炸确实成了你的专长之一，你经常解释和谈论这个话题。

The big bang has really become one of your specialties, explaining and talking about that.

但我小时候，它被当作一种理论，是可能创造我们周围一切的一种解释。

But when I was a kid, it was presented as a theory of one of the things that may have happened to create everything around us.

当然，有一部著名的电视剧叫《生活大爆炸》，里面就带着“理论”这个词。

So certainly, I mean, of course, there's a famous TV show called the Big Bang Theory, and the word theory is attached to it.

现在我会说，大概有五六个关键证据，支持宇宙在大约140亿年前经历了一个炽热的早期阶段这一事实。

Nowadays, I would say there was sort of, oh, maybe five or six just really key pieces of evidence which support the reality of a hot early phase in the universe's life roughly fourteen billion years ago.

而且，你知道，最明显的可能就是微波背景辐射了。

And, you know, maybe the most obvious is the microwave background.

这基本上就是那些早期时代穿越太空传到我们这里的余晖。

It's essentially the the glow coming to us from those early times across space.

但当我们向外看时，我们并不能直接看到那束光。

But when we look out, we we don't see that light directly.

光波在穿越不断膨胀的宇宙时被拉长了。

The light waves got stretched as they crossed the expanding universe.

所以它们最初是光，从年轻的宇宙出发时波长大约是一百万分之一米，也就是一微米，到达时波长已经拉长了一千倍。

And so they started out as light, leaving the young universe with wavelengths of about a millionth of the meter, that's a micron, and they arrived a thousand times longer.

我确定那有一毫米长，那就是微波。

I'm sure it's a millimeter and those are microwaves.

所以，离开年轻宇宙的是光，但到达我们这里的是微波。

So it is light that left the young universe, but it's microwaves that arrived.

它们经历了非常漫长的旅程，你知道，140亿年。

They've had a very long journey, you know, fourteen billion years.

在这段时间里，它们被拉长了，所以到达时就成了微波。

And during that time, they've been stretched, and they arrive therefore as microwaves.

当然，我们就把这种波长叫做微波。

And that wavelength, of course, we we attach the the name microwave.

这和微波炉里的波是同一类波。

It's the same basic the same type of waves that are inside your microwave oven.

所以我想这就回到了我关于“大爆炸”这个名字的问题。

So I guess that brings me back to my question about the name, the big bang.

我可能有点较真，但我一直以为那意味着有一次巨大的爆炸。

I mean, call me literal, but I always assumed that meant there was a loud explosion.

对。

Yes.

那我们就来看看“大爆炸”这个词是怎么来的，其实是在五十年代。

So let's just look at the coining of that term, the big bang, which was sort of nineteen fifties, actually.

这要追溯到BBC的一系列广播节目，当时一位著名的英国宇宙学家弗雷德·霍伊尔在向公众介绍这些新发现方面做得非常出色。

And it goes to a series of, radio programs broadcast on the BBC where a prominent British cosmologist called Fred Hoyle was actually doing an excellent job communicating these all these new discoveries.

新星系形成的意义非常重大。

The implications of new galaxies forming are striking.

他创造“大爆炸”这个词时，带点嘲讽的意味，就是说，这不过就是一次大爆炸而已。

He coined the term big bang to be slightly derisive, just saying, well, it's it's nothing more than a a big bang, really.

结果这个名字就流传下来了。

And that name that name has stuck.

其实有很多种大爆炸宇宙模型，它们都有一个共同点，就是认为宇宙是在某个特定时刻开始的。

There are actually many big bang cosmologies, and they all have the property that the universe is supposed to have started at a particular moment.

但所谓“大爆炸”中宇宙的诞生，其实和那种爆炸很不一样。

But the creation of the universe in this so called big bang was really rather different.

这很复杂，很难理解。

It's involved, and it's difficult to get your head around this.

它并不是向某个空间膨胀。

But it's really not of an expansion into anything.

而是所有一切都在膨胀。

It's an expansion of everything.

天哪。

God.

这真的让人头疼，对吧，马克？

It really messes with your head, doesn't it, Mark?

哦，是的。

Oh, yes.

那你当初是怎么想到把这些声波的测量结果转化成音乐，变成我们能听的东西的？

So how did you come up with this idea of translating all your measurements of these sound waves into music, something that is we can listen to?

从COBE任务开始，那是1990年NASA的一颗卫星，然后是2003年的WMAP卫星，微波望远镜的灵敏度开始揭示出微波背景上这些非常微小的斑块。

So starting with the COBE mission, it's a NASA satellite in 1990, and then the WMAP satellite in 2003, the sensitivity of the microwave telescopes began to reveal these very slight patches on the microwave background.

科学家们对微波背景图像——这个布满斑点的整个天球——做波动分析，然后得到一个频谱。

And what scientists do with the image of the microwave background, this full sky sphere of glowing with patchiness on it, is they do a wave analysis of it, and it produces a spectrum.

这些波不仅是声波，而且还有基频谐波。

And not only were these waves basically acoustic waves, but also there was a fundamental harmonics.

这正是乐器或人声的特征。

And that is exactly the signature of something like a musical instrument or a human voice.

这给‘与宇宙和谐相处’这句话赋予了新的含义。

I mean, it brings new meaning to the phrase feeling like you're in harmony with the universe.

是的。

Yes.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

确实如此。

I mean, it's a yes.

它们既是情感和美学上的和谐，也是声学上的和谐。

They're both harmony, sort of emotionally and aesthetically, but also acoustically.

所以我觉得，用声音而不是光作为桥梁，是向公众传达这些新发现的绝佳方式。

And so I just thought it was a wonderful way of communicating to the public what these new discoveries were, was to actually use sound as the bridge rather than light.

因为正如你所说，大部分东西都是视觉化的。

Because everything for the most part, as you said, is visual.

你有哈勃望远镜和其他望远镜拍的那些精彩照片，它们都是视觉的、彩色的，这触发了我们对颜色的敏感度。

You have the wonderful pictures from, you know, Hubble and other telescopes, They're all visual, they're color, and that triggers our, you know, our sensitivity to color.

但我们的耳朵不常用，所以我想，嗯，这倒是个合适的载体。

But our ears are not often used, and so I thought, well, here's an appropriate vehicle.

现在这是一张当今宇宙的地图，跨度40亿光年，我们位于中心，显示了大约10万个星系的位置。

Now here's a map of today's old universe spanning 4,000,000,000 light years with us at the center, and it shows the positions of about a 100,000 galaxies.

马克·惠特尔在TED舞台上进一步解释。

Mark Whittle explains more from the TED stage.

如果你进行类似的波分析，果然，那些网状图案中隐约出现了基频谐波。

And if you perform a similar wave analysis, sure enough, there's the fundamental harmonics showing up faintly in those web like patterns.

可以说，声波变成了石头，在星系的图案中变成了化石。

The sound waves have turned to stone, so to speak, and become fossilized in the patterns of galaxies.

但更值得注意的是，我们认为所有这些宇宙结构，声波和星系图案，其最终原因都是宇宙诞生过程中亚原子量子振动，那是一个极短的超膨胀时期，我们称之为暴胀。

But even more remarkable, I think, is that we think all of this cosmic structure, the sound waves and the galaxy patterns, had their ultimate cause with subatomic quantum vibrations during the universe's birth process, an incredibly short time of hyperexpansion that we call inflation.

这是一个真正令人震惊的命题，比原子还小的量子振荡被宇宙膨胀放大，产生巨大的声波，然后转化为不断扩展的星系织锦。

Now this is a truly stunning proposition, that quantum oscillations smaller than atoms get amplified by cosmic expansion to make huge sound waves that then transform into an ever expanding tapestry of galaxies.

稍后，我们将进一步了解如何利用声音帮助我们理解宇宙的起源，以及如何将太空的奥秘转化为音乐。

In a minute, more about using sound to help us understand how the universe began and turning the mysteries of space into music.

今天的节目，我们来解读我们周围看不见的世界。

On the show today, making sense of the invisible world around us.

我是马努什·扎莫罗迪，你正在收听NPR的TED广播时间。

I'm Manouche Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

我们马上回来。

We'll be right back.

这条消息来自Grainger。

This message comes from Grainger.

对于那些把事情搞定的人，Grainger提供你需要的专业级产品，帮你完成任务。

For the ones who get it done, Grainger offers the professional grade products you need to get the job done.

快速配送，还有技术产品专家随时准备帮你应对任何挑战。

With fast delivery and access to technical product experts ready to help you meet any challenge.

打电话、点击grainger.com，或者直接到店。

Call, click grainger.com, or just stop by.

本周，我们首先来聊聊经济。

This week and up first, we talk about the economy.

卡车、火车和拖拉机都靠柴油运行，而现在柴油价格创下历史新高，距离中期选举还不到五十天。

Trucks, trains, and tractors run on diesel, which is now priced at record highs with less than fifty days until the midterm elections.

所以接下来的六周会非常紧张。

So the next six weeks are gonna be intense.

让Up First节目每天早晨带你度过这段时间，每天给你讲三条你需要知道的新闻。

Let Up get you through it one morning at a time with three stories you need to know each day.

在NPR应用或任何你收听播客的地方收听Up First。

Listen to Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

本周的《等等，别告诉我》节目中，我们采访了普利策奖得主小说家埃内斯托·迪亚斯，聊了聊他三十年来一直用同一支钢笔的故事。

This week on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, we talked with Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Ernand Dias, about how he's used the same fountain pen for the last thirty years.

如果你把它弄丢了会怎么样？

What would happen if you lost it?

你们知道那种四色Bic笔吗？

Do you guys know those Bic pens with four colors?

哦，知道。

Oh, yeah.

我就是用那个长大的。

I grew up with that.

别错过我们的完整对话和其他游戏环节。

Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games.

在NPR应用或你收听播客的任何地方，收听《Wait Wait Don't Tell Me》播客。

Listen to the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

产品是怎么摆上大型零售商店的货架的呢？

How do products end up on big box shelves?

我们《Planet Money》节目组推销了《Planet Money》桌游。

Well, we at Planet Money pitch the Planet Money board game.

我尽量不去想这件事有多重要，以及投入了多少心血。

I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into.

这真的很重要。

It's really big.

需要我提醒你它有多重要吗？

Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is?

开始。

Go.

这基本上就是全部了。

It's It's sort of the whole thing.

我们深入那些决定货架上放什么商品的人们的内心。

We go inside the minds of the people who decide what goes on store shelves.

在NPR应用或任何你收听播客的地方收听《Planet Money》。

Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

在我们回到节目之前，有个简短说明。

A quick note before we get back to the show.

现在很多听众在问如何支持公共广播，其实有一个超级简单、完全免费的方法，而且只需要两分钟。

These days, many listeners are asking how they can support public radio, and there is a super easy, totally free thing you can do, and it literally takes two minutes.

去你现在收听的这个播客应用里，给这个节目评分并写个评论。

Go into the podcast app where you're listening right now and rate and review this show.

就这么简单。

That's it.

这样做能帮助更多人发现TED广播时间，对我们来说帮助非常大。

Doing that helps other people find TED Radio Hour, and that helps us tremendously.

谢谢。

Thank you.

这里是NPR的TED广播时间。

It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

我是马诺·扎莫罗迪。

I'm Manoj Zamorodi.

今天节目要聊的是，理解我们周围这个看不见的世界。

On the show today, making sense of the invisible world around us.

宇宙学家马克·惠特尔几十年来一直在弗吉尼亚大学向学生们讲解宇宙的起源。

Cosmologist Mark Whittle has spent decades explaining the creation of the universe to his students at the University of Virginia.

但他也一直在用声音和音乐，帮助大众理解这些令人震撼的概念。

But he's also been using sound and music to help the public at large connect with these mind blowing concepts.

之前我们听到了那些古老的声波，被转化成了我们人类能真正听到的声音。

Earlier, we heard those ancient sound waves turned into something that we can actually hear as humans.

但马克还想知道，那些声波能不能变成真正的音乐呢？

But Mark also wanted to know, could those sound waves be turned into actual music?

是的。

Yes.

所以，在2000年代初期，当数据陆续传来，我们看到了前三个谐波，后来通过普朗克任务，又看到了前七个谐波。

So in this, period in the early two thousands when the data were coming in and the and the first three harmonics were seen and then more recently with the Planck mission, the first seven harmonics were seen.

你知道吗？

You know what?

我开始有点更深入地玩味这些数据，试着测量一下，这些谐波的频率是多少？

I began to sort of play with it a bit more and sort of measure, well, what are the frequencies of these?

音调是什么？

What are the tones?

而且，正如你从那段原始声音的渲染中听到的，它其实更像噪音而不是音乐，原因很简单。

And, as you heard from that rendering of the raw sound, it's really more like noise than music, and that's for a very simple reason.

那就是，来自早期宇宙的那些谐波实际上非常宽泛。

And that is that the young those harmonics coming from the young universe are actually very wide.

你知道，如果你站在钢琴前，你不会只按一个键。

You know, if you're standing at a piano, you don't put your finger on one note.

你会把整个前臂放在很多键上。

You put your full forearm onto a lot of notes.

所有声音一起出来。

It all comes out together.

所以听起来不太像音乐，更像噪音。

And so it's not very musical and it's more like noise.

所以，我就想到了一个简单的修改，就是把谐波变窄，让它们的频率和音高范围缩小到乐器那样的宽度，那要窄得多。

And so, you know, I just thought of a simple modification really, which was to narrow the harmonics, bring them down to the kind of width in frequency and pitch that a musical instrument has, and that's very much narrower.

这样一来，它们就变得更像音符了，然后你就会开始想，哦，这些音符是什么？

And so then it becomes more like a note and then you start saying, oh, well, what were these notes?

这是什么和弦？

What kind of chord was it?

然后我还想到，虽然它是连续的声音，所以，我的意思是，技术术语叫微音程，它们不是单独的音符。

And then I also thought, although it's continuous sound, so it's it's, I mean, the technical term is microtonal, so they're not individual notes.

它会滑下来。

They it slides down.

我就想，为什么不把它映射到我们所知道的所有音符上呢？

I just thought, well, why not map it onto all the notes that we know about?

如果可以的话，我们想播放一下。

We wanna play it if that's okay.

当然可以。

Sure.

简单来说，我们刚才听到的是什么？

So in simple terms, what did we hear there?

那是当谐波在音高上下降，穿过钢琴键盘上的每个音符时产生的声音。

So that was the sounds that that come from when you track the harmonics dropping in pitch as they cross each note on a piano keyboard.

所以，它们不再滑下来，而是在特定时刻发声，取决于它们何时穿过钢琴上的那个音符。

So, instead of sliding down, they're now sounded at particular moments just depending on when they cross that that note on the piano.

那些是最初的八个谐波，基本上就是望远镜观测到的八个。

And those are the first eight harmonics, which are which are basically the the eight that have been seen by by telescopes.

而且，你知道，我选择用钢琴来演奏这些音符，但听起来还是不太像管弦乐，也不够有音乐性。

And, you know, I chose to sound those using a piano, but it's still not particularly sort of orchestral and musical.

为了最终加入艺术表现力，我把这些音符交给了声音艺术家安德斯·米克尔森，他与普利策奖得主作曲家卡罗琳·肖合作，创作了一部约十分钟的合唱与管风琴作品，基于这些音符序列。

To finally add artistic expression to this, I gave these notes to sound artist, Anders Mickelson, who worked with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw, to write a work for choir and organ lasting about ten minutes and based on these note sequences.

这部作品已经演出过多次，但这里是从弗吉尼亚州里士满天主教大教堂的一场演出中截取的简短片段。

It's been performed a number of times, but here's a brief excerpt from a performance in the Catholic Cathedral in Richmond, Virginia.

我觉得这是少数几次我真正体验到科学与艺术融合的时刻，而且是在一个神圣的背景下。

I think this is one of the few times I've experienced a genuine coming together of science and art both framed within a sacred context.

那一刻，我感觉与整个宇宙深深相连，并成为它的一部分。

It was a moment to feel deeply connected to and part of the entire universe.

那些来自第一个声学时代的粒子和原子，后来形成了恒星、星系、行星，当然还有我们。

Those particles and atoms from that first acoustic era went on to make stars and galaxies and planets and, of course, us.

而此刻，其中一些原子就在你的大脑里，不知怎的，正在见证并理解它们自己的起源。

And right now, some of those atoms are inside your brain, somehow witnessing and understanding their own ancestry.

它们曾经在那炽热发光的气体中，参与了那第一场交响乐。

They were out in that hot glowing gas participating in that first symphony.

据我们所知，宇宙没有其他地方能够欣赏自己。

Nowhere else, as far as we know, can the universe appreciate itself.

这很震撼。

It's intense.

是的。

Yes.

这首曲子持续十分钟。

The the piece lasts ten ten minutes.

我选这段是因为我觉得它展示了范围，包括结尾那段美妙的转变，变得非常悦耳。

I picked that because I thought it it demonstrated the range and including that lovely transformation towards the end of that excerpt where it gets just delicious.

很动听。

It's lovely.

实际上，我觉得这里有一种几乎哲学上的美妙之处，那就是宇宙的大部分故事和大多数科学其实都是直观的。

And actually, think there's a there's something really sort of almost philosophically rather delicious here, which is that it turns out that most of the cosmological story and most of science in general is actually intuitive.

而且，从某种意义上说，我们没有理由期待这种情况发生，因为我们是在地球表面一个非常不同的环境中进化而来的。

And there's in a way, we have no right for that to happen because we've evolved in a very different environment on the surface of the earth?

为什么我们能够理解并把这些如此遥远的事物转化到我们的世界里来呢？

What what sort of why is it that we can understand and translate these things that are so remote into our world?

我觉得答案是因为，其实，所有的物理定律就在地球表面上，我们通过进化一直在学习它们，所以，是的，我们知道声波是什么，知道光波是什么，因为我们发展出了感官，而宇宙中充满了这两种东西，还有更多。

And I I think the answer is because, actually, you know, all the laws of physics are right here on the surface of the earth and we've sort of been coached in them through our evolution so that, yes, we know what sound waves are and we know what light waves are because we've developed sensors and the universe is filled with those two things and more.

所以实际上，我们对宇宙的其他部分有着非常丰富的直觉，尽管我们只是在这个小小的球体上被构造出来，我们来自那种物质。

And so actually we've got a very rich intuition for most of the rest of the universe, even though we've only been constructed on this tiny little sphere, we've come from that material.

发出声音的那种物质变成了我们。

The material that was making the sound has become us.

我的意思是，不只是我们，它造就了很多恒星和星系，但我们的物质曾经就在那片炽热的气体中。

I mean, not just us, it's made a lot of stars and galaxies, but our material was out there in that hot gas.

不可思议的是，出于我们真正不理解的原因，同样的物质现在竟然能够理解自己，见证自己的起源，并在某种程度上欣赏它们。

Extraordinarily, for reasons which we really don't understand, that same material can now actually understand itself witness its own origins and at some level appreciate them.

在我看来，这是一个相当美丽的循环，从无意识的早期宇宙，通过我们，以及我们以某种方式理解周围环境的能力，来欣赏我们如何到达这里的深层脉络。

And that seemed to me to be a rather beautiful loop from the unconscious early universe sort of becoming awake through us and our ability to somehow understand our surroundings enough to appreciate the deep lineage of how we got here.

我喜欢听这个，因为它让我暂时摆脱了每分每秒的烦恼。

I mean, I love hearing about this because it just takes me out of my minute to minute worries.

而且这些东西很容易不去想，因为我不懂，但后来像你这样的人提醒了我，你做了这么了不起的项目，让我意识到，不。

And it's easy not to think about this stuff because I don't understand it, but then I'm reminded by someone like you who does extraordinary projects like this that, no.

其实，我们对它了解得还真不少。

Actually, we do understand quite a bit of it.

确实。

Sure.

我们不知道原因或方式，但科学正在一点点揭开谜底，而且可以变得更贴近普通人。

We we don't know the why or the how, but but there's so but science is is unraveling and and and can be made more sort of tangible to regular people.

完全同意。

Absolutely.

我基本上就是一辈子都在做小时候的爱好，能这样真的非常幸运。

I basically spent my life doing my childhood hobby, which is incredibly lucky to do that.

而且通过探索天文学，我其实不用费什么劲就能看到周围的宇宙。

And through that exploration of astronomy, I actually can without any real effort just sort of see the universe around me.

比如说，我早上散步的时候，每走一步，脚踩在人行道上，我就会想，我脚下踩的到底是什么物质呢？

I mean, just to give you a quick example, you know, I went from my morning walk and I you know, as each foot lands on the pavement, you just think, well, what is that material that my feet are landing on?

它很硬，含有镁、硅和氧。

It's it's hard and it's it's got, you know, magnesium and silicon and oxygen.

然后你会想，这些东西到底是什么？

And then you think for a moment about, well, what are those things?

它们由原子组成，但进入原子内部，到达原子核。

Well, they're made of atoms, but go inside the atom to get to the nucleus.

有一堆质子粘在一起。

There's a bundle of protons that are stuck together.

它们到底是怎么聚到一起的？

How the hell did they get together?

因为它们互相排斥。

Because they push each other apart.

答案是，大约五十亿年前，在恒星的中心，压力和温度巨大，把那些质子挤在了一起。

And the answer is, well, they got pushed together in the centers of stars about five billion years ago where the, you know, the pressures were enormous and the temperatures flung those protons together.

然后它们被抛射到寒冷的太空中。

And then they got, you know, expelled out into the coldness of space.

然后在45亿年前，这一切在一次巨大的撞击中落到了地球上。

And then 4,500,000,000 ago, it all collapsed in an incredible crash onto the earth.

经过数十亿年，它们现在就在你脚下，每走一步都能感受到，而且它们体内封存着那段历史。

And through billions of years, here they are now under your feet with every step, and they have that history locked inside them.

这真是令人惊叹，从早晨在人行道上散步就能体会到这些。

And that's remarkable to come out of a morning walk down the pavement.

但这一切都在那里，宇宙的浩瀚和它那极其多样的环境，能够创造出所有这些事物，然后把它们聚集在一起，在一个大锅里搅动，我们就从中诞生了。

But it's all there, just the enormity of the universe and its incredibly varied environments that can create all these things and then bring them together and mess them around in a big cauldron and out we come.

马克·惠特尔是弗吉尼亚大学的天文学教授。

Mark Whittle is a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia.

你可以在ted.com上观看和收听他的完整TED演讲。

You can see and hear his full TED talk at ted.com.

今天节目中，我们来聊聊如何用感官来导航和理解世界，包括我们的嗅觉。

On the show today, ideas about using our senses to navigate and understand the world, including our sense of smell.

说到嗅觉的进化目的，那就是生存。

So when it comes to the evolutionary purpose of smell, you know, it's survival.

Paule Joseph是美国国立卫生研究院的高级研究员，她在那里共同领导国家嗅觉和味觉中心。

Paule Joseph is a senior investigator at the National Institute of Health where she codirects the National Smell and Taste Center.

我研究嗅觉和味觉对健康和幸福的重要性。

I study how important smell and taste are for health and well-being.

Paule说，嗅觉是身体的早期预警系统，能在我们意识到之前就检测到很多东西。

Paule says smell is the body's early warning system, detecting things way before we become consciously aware of them.

所以它能检测到空气中的威胁，比如烟雾、火灾、环境中的有毒化学物质，包括捕食者，在它们被看到或听到之前。

So it detects airborne threats like smoke, fire, toxic chemicals that are in the environment, including predators, before they can be seen or heard.

它还能帮助判断食物是否安全可食用，或者是否有危险。

It also helps determine if food is safe to eat or dangerous.

所以你可以把它看作是一种进化系统，为了生存而在不同物种中保留下来。

So you can think about that as like one of these evolutionary systems that has been preserved across species for survival.

所以嗅觉可以提醒我们周围环境中的危险。

So smell can alert us to danger in our surroundings.

但在过去的十年里，Paule一直在研究嗅觉如何也能成为身体内部情况的早期预警系统，特别是大脑的情况。

But over the past decade, Paule has been studying how smell can be an early warning system for things that are happening inside the body as well, specifically the brain.

这一切都始于她婆婆做的菜。

It all started with her mother in law's cooking.

她做的菜开始变得特别咸或者特别甜。

Her food started tasting very salty or very sweet.

你知道，她是个很棒的厨师，做的墨西哥菜特别好吃，而且她是墨西哥人。

You know, an excellent cook, amazing, delicious Mexican cuisine, and she's Mexican,

但我们开始注意到这个问题。

but we started noticing this.

她给你做一顿饭，你会觉得，哇，所有东西都特别咸或者特别甜。

So she would make you a meal and you'd be like, woah, everything is super salty or really sweet.

是的，连孩子们都注意到菜特别咸。

Yes, even the kids will notice it was extremely salty.

而且你知道，她开始做的一件补偿性的事情就是，她会让我们帮她尝尝菜。

And you know, one of the things that she was also starting to do on compensate was like she will ask us to taste the food for her.

比如，这个味道怎么样？

Like, how does this taste?

所以我转过身对我丈夫说，我觉得有点不对劲。

So I tell my I turn around and tell my husband, I think something's wrong.

Paule完全知道该怎么做。

Paule knew exactly what to do.

她拿了一本刮擦嗅探贴纸的小册子，来测试她婆婆的嗅觉。

She got a booklet of scratch and sniff stickers to test her mother in law's sense of smell.

然后根据你的回答，就能判断你是嗅觉减退、完全丧失嗅觉，还是嗅觉正常。

And then that tells you, you know, depending on how you answer, that tells you whether you have decreased sense of smell or complete loss of smell or whether your sense of smell is normal.

结果呢，她确实是嗅觉减退。

And lo and behold, for her, it was a decreased sense of smell.

这就像引发了一连串的医生预约和一堆检查。

And that kind of sort of led to a cascade of doctor's appointment and a number of tests.

后来我们才意识到，她得了额颞叶痴呆。

Then we realized that, you know, she had frontotemporal lobe dementia.

这是因为大脑受影响的区域是同一个吗？

Is that because it's the same region in the brain that's being affected?

对。

Correct.

所以，大脑中受影响的区域，这些嗅觉模式也在退化。

So it's like the areas of the brain that are being affected, you know, are sort of degenerating these olfactory patterns as well.

特别是对她来说，我们很早就注意到了这一点。

So, in particular, you know, for her, I mean, we noticed this early.

我们发现，在阿尔茨海默病、帕金森病甚至额颞叶痴呆的患者中，嗅觉减退出现得很早，比其他任何症状都要早好几年。

So, we see that in individuals with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and even frontotemporal dementia, the sense of smell is decreased early, like years before any other symptoms appear.

早好几年？

Years before?

医生。

Doctor.

比其他任何症状都要早好几年。

Years before any other symptoms appear.

所以，对很多人来说，我们并没有让初级保健医生测量我们的嗅觉。

So, for many people, we're not getting, you know, we're not getting our sense of smell measured by our primary care doctors.

我是说，Manush，我问你，你上次测嗅觉是什么时候？

I mean, I ask you, Manush, when was the last time you had your sense of smell measured?

从来没测过。

Never.

从来没测过。

Never.

大多数人都是这么回答的。

That's usually the answer that most people give.

确实是这样。

That is true.

真有意思。

That's funny.

我前几天刚做了体检，医生检查了我的舌头、耳朵和眼睛，还量了体温和体重。

I just had my checkup the other day and he checked, you know, my tongue and looked in my ears and my eyes and measured, you know, my my body temperature and weight.

但唯独嗅觉，我们完全没有聊到。

But there was that that was the one sense that we had no discussion about, my sense of smell.

没错。

Exactly.

所以，你知道，你的医生并不是个例。

So, and you know, and your provider is not alone.

你看，我们有学校视力筛查。

You know, we have school vision screenings.

听力方面，我们也有同样的筛查。

For hearing, we have the same.

对于嗅觉，我们有检测工具，而且都是很好的工具。

For smell, we have instruments and they're good ones.

我们有这些工具，但它们主要用于研究，而且没有哪个专科真正负责这块。

We have but they're primarily used in research and no specialty really owns it.

没有相应的报销。

There's no reimbursement.

而且直到最近，即使你发现了问题，也没有太多可以提供给患者的方案。

And until recently, there was not much to offer people once you found out there was a problem.

所以，如果你问我谁应该做这些测试，我会说至少初级保健应该进行筛查，然后做适当的转诊。

So, if you ask me who should be doing these tests, I would say at a minimum, primary care should be screening and then doing the proper referrals.

就像我每年检查胆固醇，有一个基线水平，如果发现它飙升，我们就知道需要采取措施了。

So just like, you know, I get my cholesterol done every year and I have a baseline, we would know, like, oh, boy, this is skyrocketing, and we need to do something about it.

对。

Exactly.

但是，正常的衰老导致的嗅觉和味觉减退，与它作为某种更严重、更深层次问题的症状，这两者有什么区别呢？

But but what is the difference between regular loss of smell and taste due to aging versus it being a symptom of something much, much more wrong, deeply wrong?

你知道，随着年龄增长，我们的感官功能会下降。

So, you know, one of the things like our senses are going to decline as we age.

但是，当神经退行性变发生时，即使进展缓慢，有些患者的这些变化在某些方面会更明显。

But one of the things that happens when, you know, neurodegeneration is that even though it's slow, you can see those changes more pronounced in some ways for some patients.

而且这有时确实与认知能力下降有关。

And it's really tied sometimes to cognitive decline as well.

所以，我认为关键不在于你的嗅觉是否完美，而在于它是否发生了变化，尤其是如果这种变化是突然出现且没有恢复的。

So, I think what matters is not whether your smell is perfect, it's whether it changed, especially if this change is suddenly and it has not come back.

而且，你知道，想想比如新冠，新冠其实在嗅觉方面是一个非常有趣的社会实验。

And, you know, when you think about, for example, COVID, COVID was actually a very interesting ex you know, social experiment when it comes to smell.

因为我觉得对我们很多人来说，那是最奇怪的症状，就是人们突然失去嗅觉。

Because I feel like for many of us that was the strangest symptom, which was people immediately losing their sense of smell.

不是像感冒那样嗅觉减弱，而是完全消失了。

Something, you know, not like with a cold where it's dampened, but like completely gone.

对。

Exactly.

你知道，我们在新冠中看到的一个情况是，大多数人恢复了，但也有一小部分人没有恢复。

You know, and one of the things that we have seen when COVID is like, you know, most people recovered, but we've seen that a small group did not.

其中一些人出现了嗅觉倒错，也就是嗅觉扭曲。

And some of them have developed parosmia, which is an absence of distortion.

比如，你的咖啡闻起来像烧垃圾的味道。

For example, your coffee smells like burning garbage.

不会吧，那太惨了。

No, that's so sad.

是的。

Yes.

所以，你知道，他们自己的伴侣闻起来都不对劲。

So, you know, their own partner smells wrong.

哦，天哪。

Oh, no.

这比完全失去嗅觉还难忍受。

And that's hard to live with than losing it all together.

而且这被严重低估了，因为说出来听起来好像没什么，但实际上它真的会改变你的生活质量。

And that gets badly underestimated because it sounds minor when you say it out loud, but it is really it changes your quality of life.

你知道吗，这让我想起我怀孕的时候，路过面包店的情景。

You know what it actually reminds me of is when I was pregnant and I would walk by bakeries.

通常我会很喜欢面包烘焙的香味飘在空气中，但那时候却让我觉得非常恶心。

And normally, I would love the smell of bread baking, wafting through the air, and it made me so nauseous.

那真是一种很奇怪的感觉。

And it was such a strange feeling.