宇宙时空之旅（2014）

Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey S01E08

Part 1 April 25, 2021, 12:40 p.m.

当我们把星光从天空
We pulled the stars from the skies...
带到了地面上
and brought them down to Earth.
代价是什么
But at what cost?
当我们点亮这些灯光
When we turned on all these lights...
我们就丢失了某些宝贵的东西
we lost something precious.
满天繁星
The stars.
曾几何时当照亮黑夜的只有火光的时候
A long time ago, in a world lit only by fire,
我们与满天繁星的关系其实更加
our relationship with the stars was far more...
亲密
personal.
岁月交替
For thousands of generations,
我们凝视着繁星好像我们的命运受之掌控
we watched the stars as if our lives depended on it.
是的没错
Because they did.
跟那时候同我们人类竞争的动物相比
We humans were not the biggest, the strongest,
我们人类不是最大的最强壮的或最快的
nor the fastest of all the animals we competed against.
可是在另一点上我们却极具优势
But we did have one thing going for us...
我们有智慧
our intelligence.
一个很明显的体现就是我们善于认出图案
One aspect of that was a genius for pattern recognition.
一夜又一夜我们凝视着满天繁星
Night after night, we watched the stars.
随着时间推移我们的祖先发现
And over time, our ancestors noticed
地球上的万事万物之变吉事凶事之兆
that the motions of the stars across the nights of the year
竟可以用
foretold changes on Earth
头顶的斗转星移来解释
that threatened or enhanced our chances for survival.
在那个没有电影电视
In a time when our imaginations
没有电子设备的时代
were the only stage where stories came to life,
当我们头脑中的故事
before there were movies or TVs
只能停留在想象中的时代
or electronic devices of any kind,
每一个人类文明都把天上的点点连起来
every human culture connected the dots
形成他们自己的图案
to form their own pictures.
这些图案慢慢地变成了一本故事书的插图
These images became the illustrations of a storybook
在更深的层次来说这本书是一本生存手册
that, on a deeper level, was also a survival manual.
而随着文明的不同天上的繁星
The names and personalities of the gods, heroes,
是有着不同名称和身份的诸神英雄
farm animals or familiar objects
甚至牲畜或者熟悉的物件
varied from culture to culture.
但这当中一群优雅的星组成的星团
But there was one particularly gorgeous group of stars
它被古希腊人和我们现代人称为
known to the Ancient Greeks and to us today
昴星团
as the Pleiades,
这是一个形成于一亿年之前的星团
a star cluster formed about 100 million years ago.
这其中的每一个都差不多比太阳亮40倍
Each of them is some 40 times brighter than our Sun.
而这当中最亮的一颗昴宿六
And Alcyone, the most luminous,
比我们的太阳要亮近1000倍
outshines our Sun 1,000 times.
多少年以来昴星团一直被世界各地的人们
For ages, the Pleiades have been used as an eye test
用来做视力测验
for people all over the world.
如果你能看到至少六颗
If you could see at least six of them,
那你的视力就是正常
you were considered normal.
如果你能看到比7颗更多
If you saw more than seven,
那你就是战士和侦察兵的理想人选
you were an ideal candidate for a warrior or scout.
在不列颠群岛的古凯尔特人和德鲁伊人中
Among the Ancient Celts and Druids of the British Isles,
昴星团被认为对狩猎有着重要意义
the Pleiades were believed to have a haunting significance.
当昴星团在天空中达到
On the night of the year that they reach
每年最高的那个晚上
the highest point in the sky at midnight,
人们认为死者的灵魂将会在地表上徘徊
the spirits of the dead were thought to wander the Earth.
很多人认为这是Samhain
This is believed to be the origin of the holiday
这个节日的起源
once known as Samhain,
现在被称作万圣节
now called Halloween.
关于昴星团里的星星如何飞上天
All over the Earth, our ancestors told
世界各地的不同文化
wonderful stories to explain
都有自己的精彩故事
how the Pleiades came to be in the sky.
对于北美洲的基奥瓦人来说
For the Kiowa people of North America,
故事差不多是这样的
it happened something like this.
很久很久以前有一群美丽的姑娘
Long, long ago, some young women
为了在繁星下自♥由♥地舞蹈
snuck away from their campsite
偷偷地从营地溜走
to dance freely beneath the stars.
巨石救救我们
Rock, save us!
巨石可怜可怜我们
Rock, take pity on us!
巨石听到了她们的祈求就慢慢长高
The rock heard their cries and grew taller.
直到变成今日所见的魔鬼峰
Until it became what is today known as the Devil's Tower.
这些少女们就变成了昴星团中的星
The maidens were transformed into the stars of the Pleiades,
在冬日的夜晚悬挂在峰顶之上
which may be seen hanging above the tower in midwinter.
古希腊人也把那七颗明珠看作七位少女
The Ancient Greeks also saw those seven jewels as seven maidens,
阿特拉斯的七个女儿
the seven daughters of Atlas,
然而追逐她们的不是巨熊
pursued not by bears, but by...
却是有一天出来散步
Orion the hunter,
然后偷看到她们的猎人俄里翁
who spied them when he was out walking one day.
俄里翁被欲望冲昏了头脑
Orion became mad with desire.
整整七年他一刻不停地追逐着她们
For seven years, he chased them relentlessly.
少女筋疲力尽时 -宙斯帮帮我们
Exhausted... - Zeus, help us.
她们向宙斯祈求解救
...they prayed to Zeus for deliverance.
众神之王宙斯可怜她们
Zeus, the king of the gods, felt sorry for them,
便把七姐妹变成了昴星团中的七颗明星
and transformed those seven maidens into the Pleiades.
但是神明们却总是反复无常
But the gods are, if anything, capricious.
当俄里翁被一只巨蝎蜇死之后
When Orion was killed by the sting of a scorpion,
宙斯把升到了天上的一个可以继续追逐
Zeus placed him in the sky where he could resume his pursuit
美丽的七姐妹的位置
of the seven gorgeous sisters.
我们的祖先
Our ancestors,
他们用想象力编织出了精彩的故事
they wove brilliantly imaginative stories.
但是这些故事却与梦一样没办法拉近我们
But they can bring us no closer to the stars
和繁星的距离
than our dreams.
直到几千年之后
It took yet another few thousand years
才有三位聪慧过顶的科学家解开了
until three brilliant scientists unlocked the secrets
恒星本来面目
of the true lives of the stars.
在1901年
In 1901,
哈佛大学还是男人的天下
Harvard was a man's world.
但一位名叫爱德华·查尔斯·皮克林的天文学家
But an astronomer named Edward Charles Pickering
破了陈规
broke that rule.
皮克林的办公室就在走廊那头
Oh, Pickering's office is just down the hallway.
那边的那扇门是他放
And that door over there leads to the room
他的计算器的屋子
where he keeps his computers.
我们应该叫这些女人"计算器"吧
We're supposed to call those women "Computers," But, uh,
但是我却听过不止一人叫这些女的
I've heard more than one fellow refer to those gals
"皮克林的后宫"
as "Pickering's Harem."
皮克林集结了一些妇女
Pickering assembled a team of women
来对恒星进行定位和分类的工作
to map and classify the types of stars.
而其中一个人为我们理解恒星中的物质
One of them provided the key to our understanding
做出了重要贡献
of the substance of the stars.
另一个人想出了一种计算
And another devised a way for us to calculate
宇宙大小的方法
the size of the universe.
由于某些原因
For some reason,
你可能从没听说过她们中的任何一人
you probably never heard of either of them.
唉
Wonder why.
这是整个女性团队的队长安妮·詹普·坎农
That's Annie Jump Cannon, the leader of the team.
在她退休以前
Before she was through,
她对将近二十五万颗恒星进行了分类
she catalogued a quarter of a million stars.
11号♥是一个B7型
Number 11 is a B7.
这是昴星团中的昴宿六
That's Alcyone in the Pleiades.
在坎农年轻的时候由于一次猩红热
Cannon lost her hearing during a bout of scarlet fever
她失去了听力
when she was a young woman.
12号♥是个B6型
Number 12 is a B6.
这是亨利埃塔·斯万·勒维特她也是聋人
That's Henrietta Swan Leavitt. She's also deaf.
而她是这个房♥间中的另一个伟大的科学家
And she's the other great scientist in the room.
勒维特发现了测量到恒星距离的方法
Leavitt discovered the law that astronomers still use
还有宇宙大小的方法
more than a century later
而这些方法在一个多世纪以后
to measure the distances to the stars
还在被天文学家所使用
and the size of the cosmos itself.
安妮·坎农寄出了一张圣诞贺卡
Annie Jump Cannon sent out a Christmas card
她在这贺卡上解释了她和姐♥妹♥们♥在做的事情
explaining what she and her sisters were actually doing.
来自恒星的光可以穿过
The light from a star is allowed
望远镜中所安装的折射棱镜她写道
to fall through a prism placed in the telescope, she wrote.
这样放大之后就可以看到星光分成了一条带
Thus magnified, the starlight is split up into a band
这条带显示其包含的颜色
showing its component colors,
其中的红色和紫色分列在色带的两端