演講MP3+雙語文稿:我們?nèi)绾卫锰祗w物理學來研究地球問題

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聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學習使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:我們?nèi)绾卫锰祗w物理學來研究地球問題，希望你會喜歡！

【演講者及介紹】Federica Bianco

TED研究員Federica Bianco是一位跨學科的科學家，她是一位不能靜止不動的科學家。

【演講主題】我們?nèi)绾卫锰祗w物理學來研究地球問題

How we use astrophysics to study earthbound problems

【中英文字幕】

翻譯者Theo Jong 校對者Yolanda Zhang

00:13

I am an astrophysicist. I research stellar explosions across the universe. But I have a flaw: I'm restless, and I get bored easily. And although as an astrophysicist, I have the incredible opportunity to study the entire universe, the thought of doing only that, always that, makes me feel caged and limited. What if my issues with keeping attention and getting bored were not a flaw, though? What if I could turn them into an asset?

我是一名天體物理學家，研究宇宙中的恒星爆炸。但是我有個缺點： 我呆不住，而且很容易厭煩。雖然作為一個天體物理學家，我有很好的機會去研究整個宇宙。但是一想到只能且一直做這一件事，我就感覺被禁錮，被制約。但是，如果我注意力不集中、 容易厭煩的毛病 不是一個缺點，又會怎樣呢？ 如果我可以把它們變成 優(yōu)點，會怎樣呢？

00:45

An astrophysicist cannot touch or interact with the things that she studies. No way to explode a star in a lab to figure out why or how it blew up. Just pictures and movies of the sky. Everything we know about the universe, from the big bang that originated space and time, to the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies, to the structure of our own solar system, we figured out studying images of the sky. And to study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists are experts at extracting simple models and solutions from large and complex data sets. So what else can I do with this expertise?

天體物理學家不能和研究對象 進行接觸或者交流，沒辦法在實驗室引爆一顆恒星 來探明其爆炸的原因或方式，而只能依靠天空 的圖片和影像進行推理。我們對宇宙所知道的一切，從創(chuàng)造了時間和空間的大爆炸 到恒星和星系的形成與演變，到我們自己太陽系的結構，都是我們通過研究天空 的圖像得出的結論。為了研究整個宇宙這樣復雜的系統(tǒng)，天體物理學家十分善于 從龐大復雜的數(shù)據(jù)集中 找出簡單的模型和方案。那我還能靠這個專長做什么？

01:28

What if we turned the camera around towards us? At the Urban Observatory, that is exactly what we are doing. Greg Dobler, also an astrophysicist and my husband, created the first urban observatory in New York University in 2013, and I joined in 2015. Here are some of the things that we do. We take pictures of the city at night and study city lights like stars. By studying how light changes over time and the color of astronomical lights, I gain insight about the nature of exploding stars. By studying city lights the same way, we can measure and predict how much energy the city needs and consumes and help build a resilient grid that will support the needs of growing urban environments.

如果我們把鏡頭轉(zhuǎn)到自己身上，又會發(fā)生什么呢？ 這正是我們在城市觀測臺做的事。我的丈夫，格雷格?多布勒，也是一名天體物理學家, 2013年在紐約市建立了 第一個城市觀測臺，而我在2015年加入。下面是一些我們做的工作。我們?yōu)橐归g的城市拍照，像研究恒星一樣研究城市的燈光。通過研究光線隨時間的變化，以及天體光線的顏色，我窺見恒星爆炸的深層原理。同樣地，通過研究城市燈光，我們可以估算城市 需要和消耗的電力，可以幫助構建彈性輸電網(wǎng)，以此支持電力需求 和城市發(fā)展環(huán)境的需要。

02:14

In daytime images, we capture plumes of pollution. Seventy-five percent of greenhouse gases in New York City come from a building like this one, burning oil for heat. You can measure pollution with air quality sensors. But imagine putting a sensor on each New York City building, reading in data from a million monitors. Imagine the cost. With a team of NYU students, we built a mathematical model, a neural network that can detect and track these plumes over the New York City skyline. We can classify them -- harmless steam plumes, white and evanescent; polluting smokestacks, dark and persistent -- and provide policy makers with a map of neighborhood pollution.

在日間圖片中，我們捕捉污染的痕跡。紐約市百分之七十五的溫室氣體 來自于像這樣 燃燒石油供暖的建筑。我們可以用空氣質(zhì)量感應器 測量污染程度，但是假設在紐約市 每一棟建筑上都放一個感應器，從無數(shù)個檢測器上讀取數(shù)據(jù)會怎樣？ 想象一下這樣做的成本。我們和紐約大學一個學生團隊 一起建立了一個數(shù)學模型，一個覆蓋紐約城市輪廓線，能夠偵測并追蹤 污染痕跡的神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡。我們可以把這些痕跡分類： 無害的水蒸汽痕跡是白色的，很快就會消失； 有污染性的煙塵是黑色的，會長期存在—— 所以我們給政策制定者繪制了 一張周邊地區(qū)的污染分布地圖。

02:59

This cross-disciplinary project created transformational solutions. But the data analysis methodologies we use in astrophysics can be applied to all sorts of data, not just images. We were asked to help a California district attorney understand prosecutorial delays in their jurisdiction. There are people on probation or sitting in jail, awaiting for trial sometimes for years. They wanted to know what kind of cases dragged on, and they had a massive data set to explore to understand it, but didn't have the expertise or the instruments in their office to do so. And that's where we came in. I worked with my colleague, public policy professor Angela Hawken, and our team first created a visual dashboard for DAs to see and better understand the prosecution process. But also, we ourselves analyzed their data, looking to see if the duration of the process suffered from social inequalities in their jurisdiction. We did so using methods that I would use to classify thousands of stellar explosions, applied to thousands of court cases. And in doing so, we built a model that can be applied to other jurisdictions who are willing to explore their biases.

這個跨學科的項目催生了 可轉(zhuǎn)換的解決方案，但是我們在天體物理學中 使用的數(shù)據(jù)分析方法，可以被應用于各種數(shù)據(jù)，不僅僅是圖像。有人請我們?nèi)椭永Ｄ醽?的一位地方檢察官，來研究他們管轄范圍內(nèi) 的拖延起訴問題。被判緩刑或坐牢的人，有時要等上幾年才會受到審判。他們想知道哪種案件會拖延，他們有一個巨大的數(shù)據(jù)集 需要探索和研究，但是他們沒有專業(yè)技能，辦公室里也沒有相應的儀器。而這就是我們來的原因。我和我的同事，公共政策專家 安吉拉?霍肯一起工作，我們的團隊首先打造了 一個可視化的操作界面，讓地方檢察官看到 并更好地理解訴訟流程。但是我們自己也分析了他們的數(shù)據(jù)，希望能查明在他們管轄范圍中 訴訟流程的耗時 是否受社會不公影響。我們采取的方法，是我給數(shù)以千計 恒星爆炸分類時用的，而這個方法又被應用到 數(shù)以千計的案件中。通過這種方法，我們創(chuàng)建了一個可以 被應用到其他地區(qū)的模型，只要他們愿意探究其趨勢。

04:09

These collaborations between domain experts and astrophysicists created transformational solutions to help improve people's quality of life. But it is a two-way road. I bring my astrophysics background to urban science, and I bring what I learn in urban science back to astrophysics.

區(qū)域?qū)＜液吞祗w物理學家的合作，產(chǎn)生了具有轉(zhuǎn)變意義的解決方案，以此幫助改善人們的生活質(zhì)量。但這是一條雙向道。我把我的天體物理學背景知識 應用到城市科學中，同時把學到的知識 用回到天體物理學中。

04:27

Light echoes: the reflections of stellar explosions onto interstellar dust. In our images, these reflections appear as white, evanescent, moving features, just like plumes. I am adapting the same models that detect plumes in city images to detect light echoes in images of the sky.

光有回聲： 是恒星爆炸在星際塵埃上 留下的反射痕跡。在我們的圖像中，這些反射呈現(xiàn)出白色，帶有逐漸消失，正在移動的特征，就像污染痕跡。我正在把利用城市圖像 檢測污染痕跡的模型，改造成利用星空圖 檢測光回聲的相似模型。

04:52

By exploring the things that interest and excite me, reaching outside of my domain, I did turn my restlessness into an asset. We, you, all have a unique perspective that can generate new insight and lead to new, unexpected, transformational solutions.

通過探索使我感興趣又激動的事物，走出我的專業(yè)領域，我確實把我呆不住 的性格變成了一個優(yōu)點。我們都有一種獨特的視角，可以帶來新的深刻見解，從而找到新的，難以預料的，具有轉(zhuǎn)換意義的解決方案。

05:10

Thank you.

謝謝。

05:12

(Applause)

（掌聲）