神秘的混沌理论（2009）

This is a film about one very simple question.
本片讲述的问题非常简单
How did we get here?
我们是如何出现的
These are the elements and compounds from which all humans are made.
这些都是组成人类的元素和化合物
They're incredibly, almost embarrassingly common.
全是司空见惯的东西
In fact, almost 99% of the human body
事实上 差不多人体的99%
is a mixture of air, water, coal and chalk,
是空气 水 煤炭和粉笔的混合物
with traces of other slightly more exotic elements
再加上略微奇怪点的各种微量元素
like iron, zinc, phosphorus and sulphur.
比如铁 锌 磷和硫
In fact, I've estimated that the elements which make up
我估计 这些组成人体的元素
the average human cost at most a few pounds.
加起来顶多值几英镑
But somehow, trillions of these very ordinary atoms
但亿万个普通的原子
conspire miraculously to organise themselves
奇迹般地聚集起来 摇身一变
into thinking, breathing, living human beings.
组成了可以思考呼吸的人类
How the wonders of creation are assembled
让我们不禁疑惑
from such simple building blocks,
如此简单的原子
is surely the most intriguing question we can ask.
如何孕育出如此复杂的生命
You may think that answering it is beyond the realm of science.
你可能认为这个问题超越了科学范畴
But that's changing.
但今时不同往日
For the first time, I believe science has pushed past religion
我第一次相信了是科学促使过去的宗教
and philosophy in daring to tackle this most fundamental of questions.
和哲学去探寻这个最根本问题的答案
This film is the story of a series of
本片讲述的是一系列
bizarre and interconnected discoveries
相互关联的奇异发现
that reveal a hidden face of nature.
从而揭示自然界不为人知的一面
That woven into its simplest and most basic laws,
隐藏于最简单而最基本的法则之中的
is a power to be unpredictable.
是一股不可预知的力量
It's about how inanimate matter with no purpose or design,
这关系到这些无生命的物质
can spontaneously create exquisite beauty.
如何自发地♥产♥生了美妙的生命
It's about how the same laws that make the universe chaotic
关系到那些使宇宙混乱莫测的法则
and unpredictable, can turn simple dust into human beings.
如何把尘埃变成人类
It's about the discovery that there is a strange
关系到发现秩序与混乱之间
and unexpected relationship between order and chaos.
意想不到的奇异联♥系♥
The natural world really is one great, blooming, buzzing confusion.
自然界真的是一片混乱
It's a mess of quirky shapes and blotches.
充满各种奇怪的形状和纹理
What patterns there are, are never quite regular,
毫无规律可循
and never seem to repeat exactly.
没有什么是完全重复的
The idea that all this mayhem, all this chaos, is underpinned,
有人认为 这种混乱的背后
indeed determined, by mathematical rules,
隐藏着一些数学规则
and that we can work out what those rules might be,
而且我们可以计算出这种规则
runs counter to our most dearly held intuitions.
这种观点与我们的直觉背道而驰
So not surprisingly, the first man to really take on the momentous task
所以毫不奇怪 首位担此重任
of unravelling nature's mysterious mathematics,
尝试发现自然界的神秘数学规律之人
had a very special and unusual mind.
有着卓尔不群的头脑
He was both a great scientist and a tragic hero.
他是位伟大的科学家 也是位悲情英雄
He was born in 1912, in London. His name was Alan Turing.
他就是阿兰·图灵 1912年生于伦敦
Alan Turing was a remarkable man,
阿兰·图灵才华出众
one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived.
他是有史以来最伟大的数学家之一
He discovered many of the fundamental ideas
支撑现代计算机技术的
that underpin the modern computer.
很多基本概念都是他发现的
Also, during the Second World War, he worked here at Bletchley Park,
在二战期间 他工作于布莱奇利公园
just outside today's Milton Keynes,
就在今天的米尔顿凯恩斯外
in what was then a secret government project called Station X,
当时那里有个政♥府♥机密项目叫做X站
which was set up to crack the German military codes.
专门致力于破解德军密♥码♥
The Station X code breakers proved highly effective,
X站的解码效率极高
and Turing's contribution was crucial.
其中图灵的贡献至关重要
The work he personally did to crack German naval codes,
他在破解德国海军密♥码♥方面的工作
saved thousands of Allied lives
拯救了成千上万联军的生命
and was a turning point in the war.
成为这场大战的转折点
But code breaking was just one aspect of Turing's genius.
但解码只是图灵天份的冰山一角
Just one part of his uncanny ability
他这种发现隐藏模式的天份
to see patterns that are hidden from the rest of us.
用来解码 只能说是牛刀小试
For Turing,
对图灵来说
the natural world offered up the ultimate codes.
自然界呈现出一种终极密♥码♥
And over the course of his life
终其一生
he'd come tantalisingly close to cracking them.
他离这密♥码♥的破解 仅差一步之遥
Turing was a very original person.
图灵非常富有创新精神
And he had realised that there was this possibility
他已经认识到了可能
that simple mathematical equations
可以用一些简单的数学方程
might describe aspects of the biological world.
来描述复杂的生物世界
And no-one had thought of that before.
此前还没人这样想过
Of all nature's mysteries,
在所有的自然之谜中
the one that fascinated Turing most was the idea
最吸引图灵的是
that there might be a mathematical basis to human intelligence.
人类智能背后可能有其数学基础
Turing had very personal reasons for believing in this.
出于某些个人原因 图灵坚信这一点
It was the death of this young man,
这和一个叫克里斯多夫·默克姆的
Christopher Morcom,
年轻人的死亡有关
who... Alan Turing, well, he was gay,
阿兰·图灵是同性恋
and it had been the great emotional thing of his life at that point.
那曾是他生命最重要的一段感情
Christopher Morcom suddenly died.
克里斯多夫·默克姆的突然离世
And, Alan Turing was obviously very emotionally disturbed by this.
让阿兰·图灵的情绪受到极大的影响
But you can see that he wanted to put this
他尝试着化悲痛为力量
in an intellectual context, a scientific context.
投身于科学研究
And the question he wanted to put into context was
而他所研究的问题是
what happens to the mind? What is it?
人的头脑究竟是如何运行的
Turing became convinced that mathematics could be used to describe
图灵开始相信数学可以用来描述
biological systems, and ultimately intelligence.
生物系统 包括最高级的智能
This fascination would give rise to the modern computer,
正是这种痴迷促使了现代计算机
and later in Turing's life, an even more radical idea.
以及另一种更激进的思想的诞生
The idea that a simple mathematical description could be given
那个思想就是胚胎发育的神秘过程
for a mysterious process that takes place in an embryo.
可以用简单的数学描述来表示
The process is called morphogenesis, and it's very puzzling.
这种令人迷惑的过程叫做形态发生
At first, all the cells in the embryo are identical.
一开始 胚胎的各个细胞如出一辙
Then, as this footage of a fish embryo shows,
然后 如这个鱼胚的镜头所示
the cells begin to clump together,
细胞们开始凝集
and also become different from each other.
彼此之间也开始出现差异
How does this happen? With no thought,
没有思想 更没有中♥央♥调控
no central co-ordination?
这一切是如何发生的
How do cells that start off identical, know to become say, skin,
原本相同的细胞们 为何有的形成皮肤
while others become part of an eye?
而有的形成了眼睛
Morphogenesis is a spectacular example
形态发生是自组织
of something called self-organisation.
一个令人惊叹的实例
And before Turing,
在图灵之前
no-one had a clue how it worked.
人们对其机理几乎一无所知
Then, in 1952, Turing published this, his paper
直到1952年 图灵发表了这篇论文
with the world's first mathematical explanation for morphogenesis.
首次给出了形态发生的数学解释
The sheer chutzpah of this paper was staggering.
这篇论文语出惊人
In it, Turing used a mathematical equation
图灵在论文中用一些
of the kind normally seen in papers on astronomy or atomic physics,
天文或原子物理论文中常用的数学方程
to describe a living process.
来描述生命过程
No-one had done anything like this.
这种做法前无古人
Crucially, Turing's equations did, for the first time,
关键的是 图灵确实首次用方程
describe how a biological system could self-organise.
描述出了生物系统是如何自组织的
They showed that something smooth and featureless can develop features.
说明无特征事物会形成特征事物
One of the astonishing things about Turing's work
图灵的成果令人惊奇的一点是
was that starting with the description of really very simple processes
一开始只是一些简单方程表示的
governed by very simple equations, by putting these together,
简单进程 把它们放到一起后
suddenly complexity emerged.
复杂的东西就出现了
The pattern suddenly came out as a natural consequence.
模式突然就自发地出现了
And I think in many ways this was very, very unexpected.
无论怎么想 都觉非常出乎意料
In essence, Turing's equations described
事实上图灵方程式所描述的
something quite familiar,
都是相当熟悉的事物
but which no-one had thought of in the context of biology before.
只是尚未有人将其应用在生物学方面
Think of the way a steady wind blowing across sand
想想吹过沙漠的稳定风
creates all kinds of shapes.
创造了各式各样的形状
The grains self-organise into ripples, waves and dunes.
沙粒们自组织形成了各种波纹和沙丘
This happens, even though the grains are virtually identical,
虽然这些沙粒本身几乎完全相同
and have no knowledge of the shapes they become part of.
也不知晓自己的命运
Turing argued that in a very similar way,
图灵认为 正是以这样类似的方式
chemicals seeping across an embryo
化学物质渗过胚胎
might cause its cells to self-organise into different organs.
让细胞们自组织形成各种不同器官
These are Turing's own very rough scribblings of how this might work.
这些是图灵研究这一过程的草稿