一本搞笑的新自助指南里的頂級(jí)“壞主意”

一本搞笑的新自助指南里的頂級(jí)“壞主意”

Best known as the brains behind the beloved webcomic xkcd, Randall Munroe has recently published a book – “How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems” – all about foolish ideas and the wonderful science behind them. As ever, all of this inadvisable advice is painstakingly calculated and playfully explained with the distinctive stick-people illustrations that make xkcd so lovable in the first place.

蘭德爾·門羅最著名的作品是廣受歡迎的網(wǎng)絡(luò)漫畫《xkcd》，他最近出版了一本書——《如何:為常見的現(xiàn)實(shí)世界問(wèn)題提供荒謬的科學(xué)建議》——書中講述了愚蠢的想法及其背后的奇妙科學(xué)。和以往一樣，所有這些不明智的建議都是精心計(jì)算出來(lái)的，并通過(guò)獨(dú)特的插圖進(jìn)行了有趣的解釋，正是這些插圖讓xkcd開始變得如此可愛。

If you've ever wondered whether astronaut Chris Hadfield could fly a plane from England to France in the Channel Tunnel, or if it’s possible to predict the weather using pixels on your smartphone, then Munroe is your guy.

如果你想知道宇航員克里斯·哈德菲爾德是否能駕駛飛機(jī)從英國(guó)通過(guò)英吉利海峽隧道飛到法國(guó)，或者是否有可能使用智能手機(jī)的像素來(lái)預(yù)測(cè)天氣，那么門羅就是你要找的人。

“I feel like I’m always coming up with bad ideas for how to do things,” Munroe told IFLScience. “Often, they sound like bad ideas and turn out to be bad ideas. But the process of analyzing and trying to figure out whether they're bad ideas or not can teach you something really interesting.”

門羅告訴IFLScience:“我覺得我總是會(huì)想出一些糟糕的方法來(lái)做事情。”通常，它們聽起來(lái)像是壞主意，結(jié)果卻變成了壞主意。但分析并試圖找出它們是否是壞主意的過(guò)程，可以教會(huì)你一些真正有趣的東西。”

“Then occasionally, something that sounds like a ridiculous idea does turn out to be better than it sounded at first. You wouldn’t know that if you didn’t take it seriously for a minute and try thinking about it,” he explained.

“有時(shí)候，一個(gè)聽起來(lái)很荒謬的想法會(huì)比它一開始聽起來(lái)更好。如果你不認(rèn)真思考一分鐘，你就不會(huì)知道。”他解釋道。

While the advice is undoubtedly absurd, the thought experiments help to unearth some fascinating facts and otherwise unknown insights. According to the Munroe school of thought, science is at its most engaging at the most absurd ends of the possible.

雖然這些建議無(wú)疑是荒謬的，但思想實(shí)驗(yàn)有助于揭示一些有趣的事實(shí)和一些未知的見解。根據(jù)門羅學(xué)派的觀點(diǎn)，科學(xué)是在可能最荒謬的情況下最引人入勝的。

Take, for example, Munroe’s friend who text him saying he’s got a nasty ant infestation at his house. Not satisfied with any sensible solutions, Munroe headed towards the decidedly bad idea of whether it would be feasible to protect the house with a moat of lava.

舉個(gè)例子，門羅的一個(gè)朋友給他發(fā)短信說(shuō)他家里的螞蟻橫行成災(zāi)。由于對(duì)任何合理的解決方案都不滿意，門羅想到了一個(gè)壞主意:用熔巖護(hù)城河來(lái)保護(hù)房子是否可行。

Well, this was a plainly terrible idea. But as he explains in the new book, this bad idea led him on a whole trail of discovery, from the ingredients of lava to the bizarre insects that actually live on recently cooled lava flows called lava crickets. Then comes the task of constructing a lava-proof moat and the energy needed to maintain a hot pot of nicely heated liquid lava (which, according to his calculations, could tip your daily energy bill into the millions of dollars, depending on the desired heat of the lava and size of the moat).

這顯然是個(gè)糟糕的主意。但正如他在新書中所解釋的那樣，這個(gè)糟糕的想法引導(dǎo)他踏上了一條完整的發(fā)現(xiàn)之路，從熔巖的成分到奇異的昆蟲，它們實(shí)際上生活在最近冷卻的熔巖流中，這種昆蟲被稱為熔巖蟋蟀。然后是構(gòu)建lava-proof護(hù)城河的任務(wù)和維護(hù)所需要的能量的火鍋好加熱液體熔巖(根據(jù)他的計(jì)算,可能會(huì)使你的日常能源法案到數(shù)百萬(wàn)美元,取決于所需的熱熔巖和護(hù)城河的大小)。

By his own admission, Munroe typically likes to tackle these ideas by himself in true nerdy fashion. However, for this book, a few of the ideas required a helping hand from experts to develop, including an astrophysicist, a robot ethicist, an astronaut, and Serena Williams.

門羅自己也承認(rèn)，他通常喜歡自己以一種真正書呆子的方式來(lái)處理這些想法。然而，在這本書中，一些想法需要專家的幫助，包括一位天體物理學(xué)家、一位機(jī)器人倫理學(xué)家、一位宇航員和塞雷娜·威廉姆斯。