神秘的混沌理论（2009）

he abandoned his experiments.
放弃了自己的实验
Soon he gave up science altogether. '
不久甚至彻底放弃了科学研究
The tragic irony was that divided as they were by the Iron Curtain,
悲剧之处正在于 在冷战对峙的铁幕下
Belousov never encountered Turing's work.
别洛乌索夫从未见过图灵的作品
For if he had, he would have been completely vindicated.
否则 他的发现将得以证实
It turns out that Belousov's oscillating chemicals,
别洛乌索夫的化学振荡反应
far from contravening the laws of physics,
绝未违背物理定律
were actually a real world example
而是一个现实世界里
of precisely the behaviour Turing's equations predicted.
可用图灵方程式精确预测的例子
While the connection might not appear obvious at first sight,
乍看之下 这种联♥系♥可能不明显
other scientists showed that
但有科学家指出
if you left a variation of Belousov's chemicals,
让别洛乌索夫的混合溶液
unstirred in a Petri dish, instead of simply oscillating,
在培养皿中自行沉淀 而不是振荡它
they self-organise into shapes.
溶液能自组织形成各种图案
In fact, they go beyond turing's simple blobs and stripes
其中不止有图灵那些简单的斑点条纹
to create stunningly beautiful structures and patterns
还有很多令人惊叹的美妙结构和模式
out of nowhere.
却不知其从何而来
The amazing and very unexpected thing about the BZ reaction
BZ反应奇妙之处在于
is that someone had discovered a system
它是一个再现了
which essentially reproduces the Turing equations.
图灵方程式的系统
And so, from what looks like a very, very bland solution
使得看起来非常普通的溶液
emerge these astonishing patterns of waves and scrolls and spirals.
产生了精妙的波状 涡状和螺旋状图案
Now this is emphatically not abstract science.
这断然不是理论科学
The way Belousov's chemicals move as co-ordinated waves
别洛乌索夫的溶液以协调波的形式运动
is exactly the way our heart cells are co-ordinated as they beat.
如同心跳时心机细胞协作的方式
Animal skins and heart beats.
动物的皮肤和心跳
Self-organisation seems to operate all over the natural world.
自组织在整个自然界随处可见
So why were the scientific community in Turing and Belousov's day,
为何图灵和别洛乌索夫那个时代的科学界
so uninterested, or even hostile to this astonishing and beautiful idea?
对这美妙发现的反应如此冷淡 甚至敌视呢
Well, the reason was all too human.
究其原因还是人性的弱点
Mainstream scientists simply didn't like it.
主流科学家不青睐他们的成果
To them it seemed to run counter to science,
对他们而言 这些研究颠覆了科学
and all that it had achieved.
及其所有成就
To change that view
要改变主流观点
would require a truly shocking and completely unexpected discovery.
需要震惊世界而且完全出乎意料的发现
In essence, by the beginning of the 20th century,
20世纪初叶之前
scientists saw the universe
科学家一直把宇宙看作
as a giant, complicated, mechanical device.
是一个巨大而复杂的机械装置
Kind of a super-sized version of this orrery.
像是这个星象仪的超大版
The idea was that the universe is a huge and intricate machine
他们认为宇宙是个庞大而错综复杂的机器
that obeys orderly mathematical rules.
遵守着有序的数学规则
If you knew the rules of how the machine was configured to start with,
如果你知道这个机器如何启动
as you turned the handle, over and over again,
那么你只需一圈圈转动手柄
it would behave in an entirely predictable way.
它就会完全按预测的方式运动
Back in the times of Isaac Newton
回溯到牛顿时代
when people were discovering the laws that drove the universe,
那时人们致力于探索宇宙运动的法则
they came up with this kind of metaphor of a clockwork universe.
结果提出了钟表机械宇宙的观点
The universe looked like a machine
宇宙好比一种钟表装置
which had been set going at the instant of creation
自诞生那刻起 就开始运作
and just followed the rules and ticked along.
并一直遵循某种规律 嘀嗒走动
And it was a complicated machine
正因为它很复杂
and therefore complicated things happen.
所以其运动规律也很复杂
But once you set it going it would only do one thing,
但一旦开始运行 就会一直遵循
and the message that people drew from this
人们从中发现
was that anything describable by mathematical rules
只要能用数学规则描述的东西
must actually basically be fairly simple.
事实上都相当简单
Find the mathematics that describes a system
只要找到描述某个系统的数学方程
and you can then predict how that system will unfold.
就可以以此预测该系统的走向
That was the big idea.
这是个重大的思想
It began with Newton's law of gravity
它起始于牛顿万有引力定律
which can be used to predict how a planet moves around the sun.
该定律用于描述行星如何围绕太阳运动
Scientists soon found many other equations just like it.
很快科学家发现了很多类似方程式
Newtonian physics seemed like the ultimate crystal-ball.
牛顿物理学说就像终极水晶球
It held up the tantalising possibility
提出一种诱人的可能性
that the future could, in principle, be known.
即未来大体上是可预测的
The more careful your measurements are today,
你测量得越仔细
the better you can predict what will happen tomorrow.
对未来的预测就越精准
But Newtonianism had a dangerous consequence.
但牛顿主义有个危险的后果
If a nice mathematical system that worked in a similar way to my orrery,
如果一个类似星象仪运行的数学系统
did sometimes become unpredictable,
出现某种未被预知的情况
scientists assumed some malign outside force was causing it.
科学家会认为是恶意的外力导致的
Perhaps dirt had got in?
也许里面有了污垢
Perhaps the cogs were wearing out?
也许齿轮已经被磨平
Or perhaps someone had tampered with it?
或者也许有人为干预
Basically we used to think,
我们习惯性地认为
if you saw very irregular behaviour in some problem you're working on,
如果我们所研究的系统出现任何异常变动
this must be the result of some sort of random outside influences,
肯定是受到随机性外力因素干扰
it couldn't be internally generated.
而不会是由内部产生的
It wasn't an intrinsic part of the problem,
突变不是系统内部自发产生的
it was some other thing impacting on it.
而是受到外力作用的结果
Looked at from this point of view,
以该观点的立场看
the whole idea of self-organisation seemed absurd.
自组织的观点就很荒谬
The idea that patterns of the kind Turing and Belousov had found
认为图灵和别洛乌索夫发现的模式
could appear of their own accord without any outside influence,
是未受外力干扰而自行产生的观点
was a complete taboo.
在当时完全是个禁忌
The only way for self-organisation to be accepted
自组织被接受的唯一途径
was for the domineering Newtonian view to collapse.
就是牛顿理论统治地位的瓦解
But that seemed very unlikely.
但这显然不可能
After all, by the late '60s it had delivered
毕竟 直至20世纪60年代末
all the wonders of the modern age.
现代科技的璀璨都是牛顿理论带来的
Beautiful, beautiful.
太美了 太美了
Ain't that something magnificent desolation?
这满目创痍着实壮观啊
But then, at the same time as the moon mission,
但是之后 就在进行登月计划的同时代
a small group of scientists, all ardent Newtonians,
一小群狂热的牛顿主义科学家
quite unexpectedly found something wasn't right. Not right at all.
十分意外地发现有什么东西彻底错了
During the second half of the 20th century,
20世纪下半叶
a devil was found in the detail.
人们发现了一个细节错误
A devil that would ultimately shatter the Newtonian dream
正是这个细节 击碎了牛顿学说的美梦
and plunge us literally into chaos.
让我们骤然陷入一片混沌
Ironically, the events that forced scientists to take self-organisation
讽刺的是 让科学家接受自组织观点的
seriously was the discovery of a phenomenon known as chaos.
正是一种称为混沌现象的发现
Chaos is one of the most over-used words in English,
Chaos是英语常用词
but in science it has a very specific meaning.
但其在科学里有特定含义
It says that a system that is completely described
它表示一个完全由数学方程
by mathematical equations
描述的系统
is more than capable of being unpredictable
即使不存在外在干扰
without any outside interference whatsoever.
也是不可预测的
There's a widespread misapprehension that chaos is just somehow saying,
人们对于混沌存在一种广泛的误解
the very familiar fact, that everything's complicated.
认为其就是大家熟知的 万物皆复杂
I mean, the nitwit chaoticist in Jurassic Park,
比如侏罗纪公园里那笨蛋混沌理论家
was under that confusion.
就有这样的误解
It's something much simpler and yet much more complicated than that.
实际上混沌理论既比那简单又比那复杂
It says, some very, very simple rules or equations,
该理论认为 某些非常简单的规则和方程
with nothing random in them, they're completely determined,
不存在任何随机因素 一切既定
we know everything about the rule,
而且都是我们熟知的规则
can have outcomes that are entirely unpredictable.
也可能会产生难以预测的结果
Chaos is one of the most unwelcome discoveries in science.
混沌是科学史上最不受欢迎的发现之一
The man who forced the scientific community to confront it
迫使科学界正视它的
was an American meteorologist called Edward Lorenz.
是位美国气象学家 爱德华德·洛伦斯
In the early 1960s he tried to find
20世纪60年代早期 他试图找到
mathematical equations that could help predict the weather.
可以预测天气的数学方程
Like all his contemporaries, he believed that in principle
与那个时代的所有人一样 他相信
the weather system was no different to my orrery.
气象系统原理上与星象仪无异
A mechanical system that could be described
都是可以用数学描述
and predicted mathematically.
和预测的机械系统
But he was wrong.
但事实并非如此
When Lorenz wrote down what looked like perfectly simple
当洛伦斯用看似很简单的
mathematical equations to describe the movement of air currents,
数学方程来描述气流运动时
they didn't do what they were supposed to.
所得结果与实际大相径庭
They made no useful predictions whatsoever.
没有获得任何有用的预测