与摩根·弗里曼一起穿越虫洞（2010）

Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman S03E09

Part 5 April 19, 2021, 2:46 p.m.

大自然将会告诉你的
to what nature's trying to tell you
本质真♥相♥
to discover fundamental truth.
杰夫认为大多数的物理学家
Jeff believes most physicists
没能全面了解时间的本质
have failed to fully understand the nature of time
这都是因为他们坚持要做实验
because of the way they insist on doing experiments --
在巨型加速器中撞击粒子
smashing particles together in giant accelerators.
或许，不用将粒子撞成小块
Maybe, instead of smashing particles to bits,
我们只需要给它们一点点助力
we just need to give them a little push.
何尝不让更多的物理学家去玩玩冰壶这样的温柔的运动
What if more physicists took up the gentle sport of curling?
正如你看到的
As you can see
我们的运动员在这里做的
what our athletes are doing here,
他们把冰壶扔出去，再一点点的扫
they set the stone going and they sweep a little bit
试图控制冰壶的前进方向
to try to direct the stone going somewhere.
某种意义上来说
In a sense,
这样扫算是一种非常温柔的接触
this sweeping is kind of like a very gentle interaction.
实际上你并没有碰到冰壶
You're not actually touching the stone.
你只是把冰面摩擦得更光滑
You're kind of making the ice a little bit smoother
或融化掉一点
or melting a little bit
这样来使冰壶朝一个方向前进
so it would tend to go in one direction.
杰夫认为你通过观察“冰壶”的运动模式
Jeff believes you can understand everything
就能够了解宇宙中时间如何在
about the way time really works in the universe
万物上发挥作用的
by watching curling.
就像你可以使用艾萨克牛顿时期的物理
And you can begin at the beginning,
在冰壶开始时计算冰壶的最终位置
with the idea of time Isaac Newton had.
那么冰壶从
So, the stone starts
曾经确定的空间位置
from some definite place in the past,
滑向现在可以确定的地点
it goes to some definite place in the present,
甚至未来的确定的地点
and it goes to a definite place in the future.
这样，从经典物理学的角度出发
So, from that perspective of classical physics,
宇宙看起来就像是一台大型机器
the universe looks like it's a big machine,
这个机器就是巨大的而又完美精确的时钟
like a big, very perfectly tuned clock.
可是接下来的大约一个世纪前
But then, about a century ago,
出现了量子力学
along came Quantum Mechanics.
它通过揭示亚原子世界的面纱
It took away all that certainty from the universe
抽走了宇宙中所有的确定性
by unmasking the subatomic world.
如果这些冰壶是原子
If these curling stones were atoms,
那么这项运动的规则就会发生极大的改变
the rules of the game would change dramatically.
量子世界不同于宏观世界
So, the quantum world is different.
它对事物的预测
It makes different predictions
完全不同于经典物理学
from the classical view of things.
在量子力学中
In Quantum Mechanics,
你可以把这些冰壶以同样的方式开始抛出
you could start these stones the same
接下来你会发现，不可思议的是，一个滑向了左边
and you notice that, incredibly, one stone goes to the left
另一个滑向右边
and the other stone goes to the right.
在微观的原子世界
In the microscopic world of atoms,
一切都无法确定
nothing is known for sure.
原子不是颗粒、确定的物体
Atoms are not solid, defined objects.
它们是你会在哪里、在何时最大可能性
They are waves of probabilities that tell you where,
发现它们的概率波
when you look for a particle, you are most likely to find it.
但在20世纪60年代，量子学大♥师♥亚基尔·阿哈罗诺夫
But in the 1960s, quantum guru Yakir Aharonov
首先提出问题：为什么原子不能预测
dared to ask why atoms are so unpredictable,
为什么这么难确定
why it's so hard to pin down
它们在什么时候干什么
what they're doing at any given moment.
而他发现的答案
And the answer, he discovered,
正是因为“未来”和“过去”
was because the future and the past are both involved
同时影响了“现在”
in creating the present.
亚基尔表明他可以调整量子力学
Yakir showed that he could reformulate Quantum Mechanics
通过在完全平等的基础上
in a way that dealt with the past
处理“过去”和“未来”
and the future on exactly equal footing.
未来的信息，现在是不可能知道的
Future information, which is impossible to know now,
但原则上
in principle,
也许未来的信息早已和现在息息相关
maybe that's already relevant to the present moment.
杰夫和亚基尔在过去二十年里
Jeff and Yakir have searched for evidence
寻找支持这一革命性想法的证据
of this revolutionary idea for the past two decades.
他们学会了用非常温柔的方法去测量验证
They've learned to be very gentle in their measurements.
当一个亚原子粒子被直接观测时
A subatomic particle will move or disappear
它会移♥动♥或者消失
if it's observed directly.
这就像把一个粒子放在一个盒子里
It's as if they have to put a particle in a box,
不去观察，允许其持续存在
not look at it, and allow it to carry on existing
当然是以概率波的形式
as they spread out a wave of probability.
当他们这么做的时候
When they do that,
他们开始看到“未来”对于“现在”的影响
they can begin to see the effect of the future on the present.
这样，我们有随着时间前进的红盒子
So, we have the red boxes that are going forward in time.
现在你需要考虑向后发展的状态
And now you have to think about the backward evolving state.
我们可以用个蓝盒子来表示
So we're gonna represent that by blue boxes.
同一个粒子，对吧？我们有一个粒子
Same particle, right? We have one particle.
但它来自未来，我们说的“现在”
But coming from the future, we're saying the present
是通过
is created out of a combination
整合向前和向后的变化而创造出来的
of the forward evolving and the backward evolving.
正如听起来的这么激进
As radical as it sounds,
杰夫、亚基尔和他们的同事
Jeff, Yakir, and their colleagues
已经在实验室中测试了这种观点
have now tested this idea in the lab.
他们给亚原子粒子施加了一系列的
They give a series of very gentle magnetic nudges
轻柔的磁力
to subatomic particles.
他们2点的时候对其进行了测量
They measure them at 2:00...
然后2点30分的时候
and then at 2:30.
他们做了很多组这样的实验
They do this over and over again.
有一些但不是所有的粒子
Some but not all of the particles
在3点的时候也被测量了
are also measured again at 3:00.
他们发现在3点的时候测量的
And what they found is that taking their measurement at 3:00
似乎会影响到2点30分测量到的
seemed to influence the apparently random readings
随机读数
they got at 2:30.
未来似乎影响了现在
The future seemed to affect the present,
虽然未来对于现在还没发生过
even though it hadn't happened yet.
如果你尝试理解现在这一刻
If you're trying to understand the present moment,
在我们知道之前，过去也和这一刻相关
the past is relevant, as we knew before,
而未来对于现在的影响
but the future is just as relevant to the present
就像现在对于过去的影响
as the past.
至今
So far,
这些实验仅在
these experiments have only been carried out
微观水平上进行
on the microscopic level,
未来对于现在的影响是很微妙的
and the effects of the future on the present are very subtle.
但对于杰夫来说，这说明
But to Jeff, it suggests that buried somewhere
宇宙中所有粒子的随机运动中
in the apparently random motion of all the particles
埋藏着宇宙的命运
in the Universe there is such a thing as cosmic destiny.
这是一片流动的海洋
There's an ocean flowing here.
交叉的水流
There's a current flowing
从过去流向未来，也从未来流向过去
from past to future and from future to past.
宇宙可能已经有了自己的命运
The Universe may already have a destiny.
但身为凡人的我们能否知道呢？
But can we mere mortals ever know it?
以为科学家认为他发现了
One scientist thinks he's discovered
人类知识的数学极限
the mathematical limit of human knowledge.
科学家们已经花了三千多年
Scientists have spent 3,000 years
来尽可能多的了解我们生活的世界
trying to learn as much as they can about the world we live in.
我们已经做得很不错了
We've done pretty well.
我们知道行星、恒星和星系如何运作
We understand how planets, stars, and galaxies work.
但要知道整个宇宙的命运
But to know the fate of the entire universe,
想想我们还要有多少需要知道的
just imagine how much more there is to know.
那么也许是时候要问我们自己一个重要的问题：
So perhaps it's time to ask ourselves an important question.
是否有一些东西我们无法了解？
Are there some things we just aren't meant to understand?
理论物理学家汤姆·班克斯
Theoretical physicist Tom Banks
认为理解所有的最好办法是
believes the best way to understand eternity
计算我们能够知道多少
is to calculate how much we can ever know.
我们能测量多少就意味着我们能知道多少
And what we can know is what we can measure.
你可以看到我身后的太平洋
So, you can see the Pacific Ocean is here behind me,
太平洋是非常大的
and the Pacific Ocean is huge.
我们不可能用尺子丈量它
We couldn't possibly measure it with rulers,
于是我们用三角法、
so we measure it by using trigonometry,
各种数学来测量
all kinds of math.
太平洋太大
The Pacific Ocean may be massive,