TED2011
Aaron O'Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object
艾伦·奥凯奈尔：了解可见的量子物体
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物理学家根据怪异的量子力学原理来解释亚原子微粒的运动，这完全不同于日常规模的物体。在一次突破性的实验中，艾伦·奥凯奈尔通过制造出一个肉眼可视的，但也证实了同时在两个地方出现的物体，来模糊了它们之间的区别。在演讲中他建议了一种很饶有兴趣的方法来解读他的成果。
Aaron O'Connell - Physicist
Aaron O'Connell is the first person to experimentally induce and measure quantum effects in the motion of a humanmade object, bridging the quantum and classical worlds. Full bio
Aaron O'Connell is the first person to experimentally induce and measure quantum effects in the motion of a humanmade object, bridging the quantum and classical worlds. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
This is a representation of your brain,
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这是大脑的描绘图。
00:18
and your brain can be broken into two parts.
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你的大脑可以被分为两个部分。
00:21
There's the left half, which is the logical side,
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左脑，主要负责理性方面，
00:23
and then the right half,
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而右脑，
00:25
which is the intuitive.
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主要负责直觉。
00:27
And so if we had a scale to measure the aptitude of each hemisphere,
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如果我们用刻度线来测量脑半球的能力的话，
00:30
then we can plot our brain.
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并标记我们的大脑。
00:32
And for example, this would be somebody who's completely logical.
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比如说，这表示某人完全的理性。
00:35
This would be someone who's entirely intuitive.
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这就表示着某人完全的感性。
00:39
So where would you put your brain on this scale?
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那你会把你的大脑放在线上的哪里呢？
00:42
Some of us may have opted for one of these extremes,
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一些人可能会选这极端情况的一种，
00:45
but I think for most people in the audience,
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但是我觉得大多数听众，
00:47
your brain is something like this --
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你的大脑位置应该大致像这样--
00:49
with a high aptitude in both hemispheres at the same time.
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两个脑半球同时有着很高的潜力。
00:52
It's not like they're mutually exclusive or anything.
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它们不太可能会互相的排斥或其他什么的。
00:54
You can be logical and intuitive.
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你可以既理性又感性。
00:56
And so I consider myself one of these people,
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我自认为是一个
00:59
along with most of the other experimental quantum physicists,
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和大多数其他的实验量子物理学家一样，
01:02
who need a good deal of logic
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有着很好的逻辑思维
01:04
to string together these complex ideas.
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能把那些复杂的想法串连起来。
01:06
But at the same time, we need a good deal of intuition
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但是同时，我们也需要一个好的直觉
01:09
to actually make the experiments work.
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让实验能切实的进行下去。
01:11
How do we develop this intuition? Well we like to play with stuff.
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那我们如何来提高这种直觉力呢？嗯我们喜欢研究东西。
01:14
So we go out and play with it, and then we see how it acts,
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我们本身研究和捣鼓东西，然后我们会看它怎么反应。
01:17
and then we develop our intuition from there.
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接着我们从中提升我们的直觉力。
01:20
And really you do the same thing.
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实际上你也做同样的事情。
01:22
So some intuition
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有一些你可能
01:24
that you may have developed over the years
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培养了很多年了的直觉
01:26
is that one thing is only in one place at a time.
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像一个事物只能同时出现在一个方位。
01:30
I mean, it can sound weird to think about
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我的意思是，这会很奇怪，要你去考虑一个事物可以
01:33
one thing being in two different places at the same time,
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同时出现在两个不同的地方，
01:37
but you weren't born with this notion, you developed it.
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但是你不是天生就有这种概念，你是后天培养的。
01:40
And I remember watching a kid playing on a car stop.
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我记得看到过一个小孩在阻车器上玩。
01:43
He was just a toddler and he wasn't very good at it, and he kept falling over.
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他还只是个学步而且并不擅长这个的小孩，他就一直摔倒。
01:46
But I bet playing with this car stop taught him a really valuable lesson,
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但是我打赌和阻车器玩耍给他上了很有价值的一课，
01:49
and that's that large things don't let you get right past them,
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就是大型的物体不会让你轻易的穿过，
01:53
and that they stay in one place.
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而且它们停留在一个地方。
01:56
And so this is a great conceptual model to have of the world,
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这是世上拥有的一个很具备概念性的模型，
01:59
unless you're a particle physicist.
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除非你是粒子物理学家。
02:01
It'd be a terrible model for a particle physicist,
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对于粒子物理学家这也会是一个很糟糕的模型，
02:03
because they don't play with car stops,
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因为他们不研究阻车器，
02:05
they play with these little weird particles.
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他们研究那些很小的奇怪的微粒。
02:08
And when they play with their particles,
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当他们研究他们的微粒的时候，
02:10
they find they do all sorts of really weird things --
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他们觉得他们在做各种真正奇怪的事情--
02:12
like they can fly right through walls,
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好像他们能穿墙，
02:15
or they can be in two different places at the same time.
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或者他们能同时出现在两个地方。
02:19
And so they wrote down all these observations,
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他们记录下这些发现的时候，
02:22
and they called it the theory of quantum mechanics.
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他们以此起名为量子力学理论。
02:26
And so that's where physics was at a few years ago;
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这就是几年前物理学的前沿；
02:29
you needed quantum mechanics
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你需要量子力学
02:31
to describe little, tiny particles.
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来描述细小，微小的粒子。
02:33
But you didn't need it
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但是你不需要它
02:35
to describe the large, everyday objects around us.
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来描述那些巨大的，周围日常的物体。
02:39
This didn't really sit well with my intuition,
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这并不很符合我的直觉认知，
02:42
and maybe it's just because I don't play with particles very often.
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也许是因为我不太时常研究微粒的缘故吧。
02:45
Well, I play with them sometimes,
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嗯，我还是有时候研究它们的，
02:47
but not very often.
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只是不太平常而已。
02:49
And I've never seen them.
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而且我也从来没有看到过它们。
02:51
I mean, nobody's ever seen a particle.
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我指，没人能看见微粒。
02:54
But it didn't sit well with my logical side either.
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但是这也不符合我的逻辑认知。
02:57
Because if everything is made up of little particles
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因为如果所有事物都是由微粒组成的
03:00
and all the little particles
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而每个微粒
03:02
follow quantum mechanics,
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都遵循量子力学理论的话，
03:04
then shouldn't everything just follow quantum mechanics?
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那所有事物不也应该遵循量子力学理论吗？
03:09
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.
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我找不到为什么它不遵循的原因。
03:12
And so I'd feel a lot better about the whole thing
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所以我对于整件事情会了解的更好
03:14
if we could somehow show
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如果我们用某种方式来表明
03:16
that an everyday object
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日常的每件事物
03:18
also follows quantum mechanics.
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也都遵循量子力学理论。
03:20
So a few years ago, I set off to do just that.
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不久之前，我开始着手。
03:23
So I made one.
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我制造出了这个。
03:26
This is the first object
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这是第一个你能看的见
03:28
that you can see
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同时也是
03:30
that has been in a mechanical quantum superposition.
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量子力学叠加的产物。
03:33
So what we're looking at here
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这里我们看到的
03:35
is a tiny computer chip.
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是一个电脑微型芯片。
03:37
And you can sort of see this green dot right in the middle.
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在中间你大概能看到的那个绿点。
03:40
And that's this piece of metal I'm going to be talking about in a minute.
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那就是我接下去要讲的金属。
03:43
This is a photograph of the object.
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这是它的照片。
03:45
And here I'll zoom in a little bit. We're looking right there in the center.
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聚焦一点。我们看到正中心的那点。
03:48
And then here's a really, really big close-up of the little piece of metal.
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这则是一个很近，很近距离观测到的金属片。
03:51
So what we're looking at is a little chunk of metal,
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我们看到的是一小块金属，
03:53
and it's shaped like a diving board, and it's sticking out over a ledge.
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它的外形像一个跳水板，并且它伸出了一端。
03:56
And so I made this thing
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我用几乎和制造电脑芯片
03:58
in nearly the same way as you make a computer chip.
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同样的方法制造出这金属。
04:00
I went into a clean room with a fresh silicon wafer,
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我在无菌室操作一片硅晶片，
04:03
and then I just cranked away at all the big machines for about 100 hours.
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接着我周转于所有这些大型机器中大约100个小时。
04:06
For the last stuff, I had to build my own machine --
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为了最后的结果，我不得不制造自己的机器--
04:08
to make this swimming pool-shaped hole
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让这泳池型的洞
04:11
underneath the device.
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在设备的下方。
04:13
This device has the ability
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这个设备有能力
04:15
to be in a quantum superposition,
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来进行量子叠加，
04:17
but it needs a little help to do it.
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但是它需要些帮助来完成这步骤。
04:19
Here, let me give you an analogy.
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来，让我给你打个比方。
04:21
You know how uncomfortable it is to be in a crowded elevator?
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你知道在一个拥挤的电梯里是多么不舒服吗？
04:24
I mean, when I'm in an elevator all alone, I do all sorts of weird things,
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我指，当我一个人在电梯里，我能做各种奇怪的事情，
04:27
but then other people get on board
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但是当其他人进来的时候
04:29
and I stop doing those things
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我就停止做这些事，
04:31
because I don't want to bother them,
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因为我不想打扰到其他人，
04:33
or, frankly, scare them.
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或者，实话说，吓到其他人。
04:36
So quantum mechanics says
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所以量子力学表明
04:38
that inanimate objects feel the same way.
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非生命体也变现出同样的情况。
04:41
The fellow passengers for inanimate objects
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那些非生命体的乘客
04:43
are not just people,
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不仅仅是人，
04:45
but it's also the light shining on it
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但是它还包括照射它的光
04:47
and the wind blowing past it and the heat of the room.
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吹拂过它的风和空间内的热度。
04:50
And so we knew, if we wanted to see
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所以，如果我们想目睹
04:52
this piece of metal behave quantum mechanically,
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这片金属表现出量子力学的特性，
04:55
we're going to have to kick out all the other passengers.
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我们就不得不剔除所有其他的乘客。
04:57
And so that's what we did.
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这就是我们曾做的。
04:59
We turned off the lights,
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我们关闭灯光，
05:01
and then we put it in a vacuum and sucked out all the air,
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接着我们把它放入抽真空机中并抽出所有的空气，
05:03
and then we cooled it down
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接着我们将它冷却
05:05
to just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.
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到绝对零度以上一点点。
05:07
Now, all alone in the elevator,
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现在，在电梯里，
05:09
the little chunk of metal is free to act however it wanted.
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小金属片可以做任何它想做的事。
05:11
And so we measured its motion.
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我们测量了它的运动。
05:13
We found it was moving in really weird ways.
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我们发现它用很古怪的方式在运动。
05:15
Instead of just sitting perfectly still, it was vibrating,
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它是在震动，而不是完全的静止。
05:18
and the way it was vibrating was breathing something like this --
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它震动的方式是像这种--
05:21
like expanding and contracting bellows.
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像一张一合的风箱。
05:23
And by giving it a gentle nudge,
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只要给它一个轻微的撞击，
05:25
we were able to make it both vibrate
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我们就能让它震动
05:27
and not vibrate
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的同时
05:29
at the same time --
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也不震动--
05:31
something that's only allowed with quantum mechanics.
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某些只在量子力学范围下才会发生的事。
05:34
So what I'm telling you here is something truly fantastic.
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我在这里告诉大家的是一些很奇妙的事情。
05:37
What does it mean for one thing
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一个事物震动的
05:39
to be both vibrating and not vibrating
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同时也不震动
05:41
at the same time?
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这是什么意思？
05:43
So let's think about the atoms.
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让我们考虑下原子。
05:45
So in one case:
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一个例子：
05:47
all the trillions of atoms that make up that chunk of metal
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所有万亿个形成金属片的原子
05:50
are sitting still
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正保持静止
05:52
and at the same time those same atoms
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同时同样的这些原子
05:54
are moving up and down.
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正在上下移动。
05:56
Now it's only at precise times when they align.
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只有在特定精确时间，它们是一致的。
05:59
The rest of the time they're delocalized.
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余下的时间它们则是不定域的。
06:01
That means that every atom
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这意味着每个原子
06:03
is in two different places at the same time,
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在同一时间在两个不同的地方，
06:05
which in turn means the entire chunk of metal
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进一步说明整个金属片
06:08
is in two different places.
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在两个位置。
06:10
I think this is really cool.
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我认为这个真的很酷。
06:12
(Laughter)
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(笑声)
06:14
Really.
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真的。
06:16
(Applause)
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（掌声）
06:19
It was worth locking myself in a clean room to do this for all those years
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我这些年把自己锁在无菌室所做的事都是很值得的。
06:24
because, check this out,
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因为，看这个，
06:26
the difference in scale
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单个原子
06:28
between a single atom and that chunk of metal
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和金属片的比例差
06:30
is about the same as the difference
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大约和整片金属片和你这个个体的
06:32
between that chunk of metal and you.
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比例差是一样的。
06:34
So if a single atom can be in two different places at the same time,
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所以如果单个原子能同时处于不同的两个位置，
06:37
that chunk of metal can be in two different places,
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那金属片也能处于不同的两个位置，
06:40
then why not you?
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那么为什么你不能呢？
06:42
I mean, this is just my logical side talking.
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我指的，这只是我的理性思考的逻辑。
06:46
So imagine if you're in multiple places at the same time,
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那想想如果你能同时处于多个位置，
06:50
what would that be like?
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那会是什么样子的？
06:53
How would your consciousness
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你的认知将如何处理
06:55
handle your body being delocalized in space?
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你自身在空间中的不定域问题呢？
06:59
There's one more part to the story.
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这是故事的一个部分。
07:01
It's when we warmed it up,
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当我们把它加热，
07:03
and we turned on the lights and looked inside the box,
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并打开灯光观察盒子里面的时候，
07:06
we saw that the piece metal was still there in one piece.
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我们看到金属片依旧只是一块。
07:10
And so I had to develop this new intuition,
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所以我不得不形成一个新的直觉，
07:13
that it seems like all the objects in the elevator
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似乎所有电梯中的物体
07:16
are really just quantum objects
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实际上都被塞进一个极小空间中的
07:18
just crammed into a tiny space.
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量子物体。
07:20
You hear a lot of talk
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大家听过很多
07:22
about how quantum mechanics says that everything is all interconnected.
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关于量子物理学如何解释万物是互相联系的。
07:25
Well, that's not quite right.
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嗯，这不是完全正确的；
07:27
It's more than that; it's deeper.
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它要比这个更广泛，更深奥。
07:30
It's that those connections,
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正是这些联系，
07:32
your connections to all the things around you,
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你和你周边的这些联系，
07:35
literally define who you are,
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真正的定义了你是谁。
07:38
and that's the profound weirdness of quantum mechanics.
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这才是量子力学的深奥和不可思议。
07:41
Thank you.
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谢谢
07:43
(Applause)
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（掌声）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Aaron O'Connell - PhysicistAaron O'Connell is the first person to experimentally induce and measure quantum effects in the motion of a humanmade object, bridging the quantum and classical worlds.
Why you should listen
Growing up reading philosophy, playing guitar, and generally not thinking about science, Aaron O’Connell never expected to revolutionize the world of physics. But an inspiring stuffed-monkey-shot-from-a-cannon demonstration and a series of positive research experiences as an undergraduate propelled him to graduate school at UCSB.
While there, in an experiment remarkable both for its conceptual simplicity and technical difficulty, O’Connell was the first person to measure quantum effects in an object large enough to see with the naked eye. Named Breakthrough of the year by Science Magazine, the experiment shattered the previous record for the largest quantum object, showing decisively that there is no hard line between the quantum and everyday worlds.
Aaron O'Connell | Speaker | TED.com