BBC 地平线系列：时空谜团（2008）

If I were to fly past you incredibly fast, I would see your time tick much slower than mine.
这个概念是爱因斯坦的相对论的核心内容
This idea lies at the heart of Einstein's theory of relativity.
没人可以宣布 他们的时间就是时间
No-one has a right to claim that their time is the time,
就是绝对时间
the absolute time.
它只取决于与别人的相对运动
It just depends on who's moving relative to who.
因为时间与空间交织在一起
Because of the mixing of space and time,
你的时间相对别人 快慢有所不同
time ticks differently for you relative to other people,
取决于每个人运动的速度
depending on how fast everyone is moving.
当有人相对我运动时
When someone moves relative to me,
他们用一些他们穿行时空的光速在空间移♥动♥
they use some of their speed of light through space time to move through space.
所以他们就不会留下太多去穿行时间
So they haven't got as much left to move through time,
这就意味着他们穿行时间的速度会有点点慢
and that means that their speed through time is a bit slower.
在很现实的意义上 他们有点点用过头（好像很难理解 @×@！）
They've sort of, in a very real sense, used a bit of it up.
这是理解爱因斯坦时空理论的很深奥的办法
It's a really profound way of understanding Einstein's theory of space time.
时间的奇怪属性还不止这些
And the strange nature of time doesn't stop there.
不光你运动的速度 而且你接下来的情况 都会影响到时间
It's not just how fast you're moving but what you're next to that also affects time.
按照爱因斯坦的说法
According to Einstein,
你会看到我脚上的时间比我头上的时间来得慢
you should see the time tick slower at my feet than at the top of my head.
这是因为你紧挨着地球这样的大物体
This is because the nearer you are to a big object like the earth,
时空弯曲越大
the more bent and warped is the space time,
时间走的就越慢
and the slower time ticks.
在我们的星球上 影响是微乎其微的 但是在宇宙间
On our planet, the effect is miniscule but out there in the universe,
大质量的恒星与星系
the vast mass of the stars and galaxies
时空弯曲得非常厉害
bend and warp the space time so much
时间渗透在整个空间里
that time ticks all over the place.
1960年代 爱因斯坦奇怪的时间概念经受了测试
In the 1960s, Einstein's strange notion of time was put to the test.
利用波士顿北部的大赫斯塔克射电天线
Using the large Haystack radio antenna just north of Boston,
设计了一个实验 来观察 太阳是否会造成时间的不同
an experiment was devised to see if the sun causes time to tick differently
它是如何影响地球的时间的
to how it ticks here on earth.
天文学家欧文·夏皮罗负责这个项目
Astronomer Irwin Shapiro was at the helm.
我们想看一下光信♥号♥♥所用的时间
What we wanted to see was how long it would take a light signal
从地球发到水星
to get from the earth to Mercury,
然后反射回地球
and its echo to get back to the earth,
那就是我们观察的
and that's what we were looking for,
非常高精度的时间测量
a measurement of time to very high accuracy.
然而即使是用上了世界上最强劲的射电天线 还是进行得很艰难
But even using one of the most powerful radio antennas in the world, this wasn't going to be easy.
从水星上反射回的回波难以置信的微弱
Any echo coming back from Mercury would be incredibly weak.
回波极其弱
The echo has very little power.
我可以说就像熄灭的火苗
I can describe it as the power put out
就像苍蝇以千年一毫米的速度攀爬墙壁
by an ordinary housefly crawling up a wall
一千年啊
that's per thousand years.
反射回的多么的可怜
That's how little comes back.
通过掌握与水星的距离 以及光的传播速度
By knowing the distance to Mercury and the speed that light travels,
欧文准确地掌握了信♥号♥♥发出和返回所花的时间
Irwin knew exactly how long it should take
然而根据爱因斯坦的理论
But applying Einstein's theory,
太阳的出现将会影响到结果
the presence of the sun would have an effect on the result.
我们看到了一些奇怪的东西
We see something strange.
就像东西出现在轨道上
It's like a spike appears in the orbit
每当水星走到太阳背后 从地球上看去时
whenever the planet goes behind the sun as seen from the earth.
它看上去好像是走远了一点 在它移♥动♥到太阳背后时
So it looks like it's drifted a bit further away as it goes round the back of the sun.
不错 看上去好像它偏离了轨道
Right, it looks like it deviated from its orbit.
并不是在一个光滑的轨道上
Instead of going in a nice smooth orbit,
而是 在轨道上有什么东西... 当然是不会有什么东西的
it had a spike in the orbit... Which of course it doesn't have.
这就表明了这样一个事实 光在经过太阳时
It's just a manifestation of the fact that light took longer
往返的时间要来得长一些
to get to the planet and back when the light went near the sun.
水星轨道上的明显的尖头就是时间弯曲造成的
The apparent blip in Mercury's orbit is all down to the bending of time.
太阳巨大的质量弯曲了时空
The huge mass of the sun bends and curves the space time,
宇宙的织物
the fabric of the universe.
随着欧文的雷达波经过太阳
As Irwin's radar beam passed by the sun,
时空的弯曲意味着 雷达波的时间
the warping of space time meant that time for the radar pulse
相对地球上的时间 被拉长了
got stretched relative to time on earth.
时间被庞大的太阳放慢了
Time was slowed down by the mass of the sun.
这种效应后来被称为夏皮罗时间延迟
This effect came to be known as the Shapiro time delay.
实际上很少有用物理学家的名字 来命名一个效应或什么的
There are very few physicists actually that have an effect or anything named after them.
啊 这有点不好意思的
Well, it's sort of embarrassing,
但是另一方面 我也必须说 我也是暗暗窃喜的
but on the other hand I must say I take a secret pleasure in it!
也许不用掩饰啊
Maybe not so secret!
欧文的测量与爱因斯坦的预测完全吻合
Irwin's measurement agreed perfectly with Einstein's prediction.
我们确实看到了时间 在经过宇宙间最大的物体时被放慢了
We really do see time slow down near the biggest objects in the universe.
但是这个观察导致了一个令人不安的结论
But this observation leads to an unsettling conclusion.
如果时间可以被放慢
If time can get slowed down,
靠近太阳 比如 相对于我
near the sun, for example, relative to me,
那么当你进入到宇宙中
is there somewhere you can go in the universe
是否存在有些地方 时间会放慢到停止了呢？
where time would slow down so much that it would stop?
宇宙中存在有物体
There are objects out there in the cosmos
弯曲时空厉害到让时间发生非常怪异的情况
that bend and warp space time so much
那些可怕的现象就是黑洞
These fearsome phenomena are black holes.
黑洞把麻省理工的宇宙学家 麦克斯·泰格马克迷惑了一段时间
Black holes have fascinated MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark for some time.
我掉进了一个引力场
So, the further down I get in the gravitational field,
时间越来越慢下来
the slo-o-ower and slo-o-ower time goes.
如果我接着在那里旋转爬升上来
And if I were to then be orbiting around there and picking up
来自地球的无线电♥信♥♥号♥♥ 看上去就像生还的生命在快速往前...
radio signals from earth, it would look like life back here was going in fast forward...
我们会发现它行进得很快
.. We'll notice that it's going too fast.
那声音确实就是那样子
So the voices would literally do that.
那是因为时间的运行不同步 对吧
Yeah, because time is running at different paces, right?
他们发出的声音就像唐老鸭
They're going to sound like Donald Duck.
越是靠近黑洞 时间的流逝
Closer still to a black hole, and the passing of time
相对空间外的人来说 会做出一些很奇怪的事情来
relative to someone out in space does something very weird.
如果我把你投入一个黑洞
If I were to throw you into a black hole and watch what
会看到你手表上的时间越走越慢
happened to the time ticking along on your wristwatch, I'd see it tick slower and slower and slower.
啊.......
Arghhhhhhhhhh!
在你看来 我的时间放慢了 最后终于凝固了
And it would look to you like my time had slowed down and I eventually got frozen on the horizon.
我的脸上泛红 不仅是因为血压升高
I would look very red in the face, not just because my blood pressure
而且实际上是因为广播的频率一直在放慢
had gone up but because actually, even the frequency of the light waves had slowed down.
在某个点上 我实际上看到了你的手表停摆了
At some point, I would actually see your watch stop.
到此为止 你的时间已经终止
As far as I was concerned, time for you would have stopped.
不管你是站在黑洞的边缘 还是在地球上
Whether you're standing on the edge of a black hole or standing on earth,
爱因斯坦指出你的时间只属于你
Einstein showed that your time is unique to you.
所以“时间是什么”的答案
So the answer to the question "What time is it?"
取决于你的状况
is that it depends what you're doing.
两个人用同一种原子钟
Two people with identical atomic clocks,
走在不同的道上 或相互靠近
moving around in different ways or sitting closer
或远离地球 都将给你不同的答案
or further away from a planet will give you different answers,
而且都是对的
and they're both right.
时间是什么 没有唯一的答案
There's no single answer to the question "What time is it?"
时间是我们大家密不可分的东西
Time is something we all have a very close affinity with.
我们欢庆特别的时刻
We celebrate special moments in time,
但是往往在它流逝时绝望过
yet often despair at its passing.
如果你想知道时间的特别之处
If you want to know what's special about time,
你就必须接受我们的话语
you just have to look at our language.
整个描述人类状况的话语
The whole language that describes the human condition
就是...就是现实的语言
is a language... it's a temporal language.
我有过美好的昨天 我期待着明天
I had a great time yesterday. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
是靠我们去贴上遗憾 愿望 希望 恐惧
It's the thing by which we label regrets and aspirations
一切都标注在时间上
They're all labelled in terms of time.
相当...
And it's quite...
难以置信的差不多或许就是
unbelievable almost that
我们即使在现在 我们都知之甚少的东西
it's probably the thing we know least about, even now.
我们对时间的直觉就是已经发生的过去
Our intuition about time is that the past has happened
只留在我们的记忆中 而将来尚未到来
and only exists in our memories, and the future is yet to come.
但是如果爱因斯坦所言属实
But if Einstein is taken at face value,
时间就像空间的维度一样
that time is just like the dimensions of space,
那么我们就会碰到完全违反直觉的情况...
then we're hit with something completely counter-intuitive...
...时间是永恒的
.. all of time has always existed.
想想看 这里是空间 存在着三个维度
Think about it. Space is here, and there are three dimensions.
我可以去那海边 而你不会说大海不存在
I could walk down over there to the ocean and you wouldn't say that the ocean hadn't happened yet.
就在那里 我可以去那里
It's there and I can walk to it.
好 在爱因斯坦的理论中 时间与空间没有不同之处
Well, there's no difference really between time and space in Einstein's theory.
所以你认为时间是个维度
So you decide time's a dimension,
那么同样海洋也存在在那边
then it's there in the same way that the ocean's over there.
所以时间一直存在着