TEDSalon London Spring 2011
Honor Harger: A history of the universe in sound
Honor Harger:聲音中的宇宙史
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藝術家兼技術專家 Honor Harger 聆聽恒星、行星和脈衝星發出的奇異而美妙的聲音。在她的作品中，她記錄下遠古天體所發出的無線電波，并將它們轉化成聲音，包括“你能聽到的最古老的歌”——自大爆炸遺留下的宇宙射線的聲音。
Honor Harger - Artist
Honor Harger explores the sounds of the sky, using art to connect her audience to the universe. Full bio
Honor Harger explores the sounds of the sky, using art to connect her audience to the universe. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:21
Space,
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太空，
00:23
we all know what it looks like.
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我們都知道它的樣子。
00:25
We've been surrounded by images of space
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太空的圖景一直環繞著
00:27
our whole lives,
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我們整個一生，
00:29
from the speculative images
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從科幻小說中
00:31
of science fiction
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推測出的景象，
00:33
to the inspirational visions of artists
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到藝術家靈感觸發的圖景，
00:36
to the increasingly beautiful pictures
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乃至越來越美麗的照片
00:39
made possible by complex technologies.
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這得益于複雜的技術手段。
00:42
But whilst we have
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儘管我們
00:44
an overwhelmingly vivid
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已經生動地瞭解了
00:46
visual understanding of space,
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太空看上去是怎樣的，
00:48
we have no sense of what space sounds like.
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但我們對太空聽上去如何卻一無所知。
00:51
And indeed, most people associate space with silence.
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事實上，大多數人都認為太空是寂靜無聲的。
00:55
But the story of how
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但是我們
00:57
we came to understand the universe
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認識宇宙的過程中
00:59
is just as much a story of listening
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傾聽所占的比重
01:01
as it is by looking.
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與觀測是同樣的。
01:04
And yet despite this,
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但是儘管如此，
01:06
hardly any of us have ever heard space.
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我們卻幾乎從來沒有聽見過太空的聲音。
01:09
How many of you here
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在座的有多少人
01:11
could describe the sound
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可以描述一下
01:13
of a single planet or star?
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一顆行星或恒星的聲音？
01:15
Well in case you've ever wondered,
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如果你想知道的話，
01:17
this is what the Sun sounds like.
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這就是太陽的聲音。
01:19
(Static)
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（靜音）
01:33
(Crackling)
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（劈啪聲）
01:37
(Static)
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（靜音）
01:43
(Crackling)
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（劈啪聲）
01:47
This is the planet Jupiter.
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這是木星。
01:50
(Soft crackling)
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（輕柔的劈啪聲）
02:10
And this is the space probe Cassini
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這是卡西尼航天探測器
02:13
pirouetting through the ice rings of Saturn.
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正旋轉著穿過土星的冰環
02:17
(Crackling)
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（啵啵聲）
02:37
This is a a highly condensed clump
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這是一個高度壓縮的
02:40
of neutral matter,
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中子聚合
02:42
spinning in the distant universe.
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旋轉在遙遠的宇宙中。
02:46
(Tapping)
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（敲擊聲）
03:04
So my artistic practice
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所以說我的藝術創作
03:06
is all about listening
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就是聆聽
03:08
to the weird and wonderful noises
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就是聆聽這些奇怪而美妙的聲音
03:11
emitted by the magnificent celestial objects
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正是發出了這些聲音的巨大天體
03:14
that make up our universe.
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組成了我們的宇宙。
03:17
And you may wonder,
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可能你會問，
03:19
how do we know what these sounds are?
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我們是怎麼知道這些聲音的？
03:21
How can we tell the difference
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我們如何能區分
03:23
between the sound of the Sun
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太陽的聲音
03:25
and the sound of a pulsar?
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脈衝星的聲音？
03:27
Well the answer
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答案就是
03:29
is the science of radio astronomy.
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射電天文學。
03:31
Radio astronomers
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射電天文學家們
03:33
study radio waves from space
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研究來自太空的無線電波
03:35
using sensitive antennas and receivers,
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他們使用靈敏的天線和接收器，
03:38
which give them precise information
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從而獲得準確的信息
03:40
about what an astronomical object is
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瞭解到天體的狀況
03:43
and where it is in our night sky.
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以及在我們夜空中的位置。
03:45
And just like the signals
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正如那些
03:47
that we send and receive here on Earth,
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我們在地球上收發的信號，
03:50
we can convert these transmissions into sound
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我們也能把這些電波轉化為聲音，
03:53
using simple analog techniques.
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只需一些簡單的模擬技術。
03:56
And therefore, it's through listening
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所以，通過聆聽
03:59
that we've come to uncover
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我們逐漸揭開
04:01
some of the universe's most important secrets --
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一些最重要的宇宙奧秘——
04:04
its scale, what it's made of
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它的範圍，組成構造，
04:07
and even how old it is.
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甚至它的年齡。
04:09
So today, I'm going to tell you a short story
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所以，今天我要展示給大家的，
04:12
of the history of the universe through listening.
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就是透過聆聽瞭解宇宙的歷史。
04:15
It's punctuated
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它包括
04:17
by three quick anecdotes,
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3小段，
04:19
which show how accidental encounters
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展示出那些偶然聽到的
04:21
with strange noises
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奇怪聲音是如何
04:23
gave us some of the most important information
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讓我們瞭解到關於太空的
04:26
we have about space.
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一些最為重要的信息。
04:28
Now this story doesn't start
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這個故事並不是來自
04:30
with vast telescopes
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大型的望遠鏡
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or futuristic spacecraft,
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或非常先進的宇宙飛船，
04:35
but a rather more humble technology --
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而是來自一種相當平凡的器材——
04:38
and in fact, the very medium
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而事實上，正是這種器材
04:40
which gave us the telecommunications revolution
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給我們帶來了電信革命
04:43
that we're all part of today:
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今天的我們都是這個革命的一部份：
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the telephone.
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那就是電話。
04:47
It's 1876, it's in Boston,
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那是1876年，波士頓，
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and this is Alexander Graham Bell
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這位就是貝爾（Alexander Graham Bell）
04:52
who was working with Thomas Watson
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他和Thomas Watson一起
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on the invention of the telephone.
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發明了電話機。
04:57
A key part of their technical set up
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他們的技術設計的關鍵部份
05:00
was a half-mile long length of wire,
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是一條半英里長的電線，
05:02
which was thrown across the rooftops
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這條線橫跨過波士頓
05:04
of several houses in Boston.
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好幾家房屋的屋頂。
05:07
The line carried the telephone signals
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這條線承載了電話信號
05:10
that would later make Bell a household name.
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它使得貝爾後來成為一個家喻戶曉的名字。
05:13
But like any long length of charged wire,
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但是就像任何長距離的帶電電線，
05:16
it also inadvertently became
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這條線也成為一條意料之外的
05:18
an antenna.
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天線。
05:20
Thomas Watson
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Thomas Watson
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spent hours listening
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經常連續數小時聆聽
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to the strange crackles and hisses
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那些奇怪的劈啪聲和嘶嘶聲
05:26
and chirps and whistles
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各種鳴音和哨音
05:29
that his accidental antenna detected.
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這些都是他那個無心之作的天線探測到的。
05:32
Now you have to remember,
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你們要記得，
05:34
this is 10 years before
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直到十年之後
05:36
Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of radio waves --
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赫茲才證明了無線電波的存在——
05:40
15 years before Nikola Tesla's four-tuned circuit --
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十五年之後泰斯拉（美國電機工程師）才發明了四調諧電路——
05:43
nearly 20 years before Marconi's first broadcast.
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近二十年後，馬可尼才首次進行無線廣播。
05:47
So Thomas Watson wasn't listening to us.
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所以Thomas Watson聽到的聲音並不是人為的。
05:50
We didn't have the technology
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那時還沒有技術
05:52
to transmit.
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去廣播。
05:54
So what were these strange noises?
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那麼這些奇怪的噪音是什麽呢？
05:58
Watson was in fact listening
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Watson事實上聽到的
06:00
to very low-frequency radio emissions
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是非常低頻率的無線電輻射，
06:02
caused by nature.
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是自然界產生的。
06:04
Some of the crackles and pops were lightning,
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有些咔嚓和噼啪聲是閃電，
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but the eerie whistles
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但是那些陰森森的哨音
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and curiously melodious chirps
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以及有著奇怪旋律的鳴音
06:13
had a rather more exotic origin.
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則有著非常奇異的源頭。
06:16
Using the very first telephone,
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就是使用第一部電話機，
06:18
Watson was in fact
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Watson事實上
06:20
dialed into the heavens.
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撥通了天堂的電話。
06:22
As he correctly guessed,
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而且正如他所猜想的，
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some of these sounds were caused
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其中一些聲音來自
06:26
by activity on the surface of the Sun.
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太陽表面的活動。
06:29
It was a solar wind
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那是太陽風
06:31
interacting with our ionosphere
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與我們的電離層發生相互作用
06:33
that he was listening to --
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他所聽到的
06:35
a phenomena which we can see
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就是我們能看到的一種現象
06:37
at the extreme northern and southern latitudes of our planet
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在地球的南北高緯度上
06:40
as the aurora.
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就是極光。
06:42
So whilst inventing the technology
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於是就在發明了
06:45
that would usher in the telecommunications revolution,
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引發電信革命的技術手段的同時，
06:49
Watson had discovered
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Watson也發現了
06:51
that the star at the center of our solar system
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我們太陽系中心的恒星
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emitted powerful radio waves.
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發出的強力的無線電波。
06:57
He had accidentally been the first person
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他不經意地成為第一個人
07:00
to tune in to them.
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調通了它們的頻道。
07:02
Fast-forward 50 years,
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快進50年，
07:04
and Bell and Watson's technology
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貝爾和Watson的技術
07:07
has completely transformed
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徹底地改變了
07:09
global communications.
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全世界的通訊狀況。
07:11
But going from slinging some wire
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但是從拉起一條電線
07:13
across rooftops in Boston
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跨過波士頓的幾個房頂，
07:15
to laying thousands and thousands of miles of cable
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演變到鋪設數千英里的線纜
07:18
on the Atlantic Ocean seabed
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在大西洋底，
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is no easy matter.
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並不是一個簡單的過程。
07:22
And so before long,
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所以很快地，
07:24
Bell were looking to new technologies
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貝爾就在探索新的技術
07:26
to optimize their revolution.
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來優化他們的革命。
07:29
Radio could carry sound without wires.
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無線電可以無需電線就可以承載聲音。
07:32
But the medium is lossy --
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但是載體會有耗損——
07:34
it's subject to a lot of noise and interference.
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容易有噪音和干擾。
07:38
So Bell employed an engineer
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因此貝爾雇傭了一名工程師
07:40
to study those noises,
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來研究這些噪音，
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to try and find out where they came from,
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試圖找到它們的來源，
07:44
with a view towards building
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從而可以建立起
07:46
the perfect hardware codec, which would get rid of them
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完美的硬件解碼器能擺脫這些噪音，
07:49
so they could think about using radio
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因此他們可能想到使用無線電
07:51
for the purposes of telephony.
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用在電話技術上。
07:54
Most of the noises
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大部份的噪音
07:56
that the engineer, Karl Jansky, investigated
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經過工程師 Karl Jansky的研究後發現
07:59
were fairly prosaic in origin.
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其源頭都很普通。
08:01
They turned out to be lightning
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或者是閃電
08:03
or sources of electrical power.
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或者是來自其他電源。
08:06
But there was one persistent noise
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但是有一個持續存在的噪音
08:09
that Jansky couldn't identify,
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Jansky無法辨認，
08:11
and it seemed to appear
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這種噪音似乎在
08:13
in his radio headset
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他的無線電聽筒中
08:15
four minutes earlier each day.
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每天都提早4分鐘出現。
08:18
Now any astronomer will tell you,
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現在任何一個天文學家都可以告訴你，
08:20
this is the telltale sign
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這顯然標示了
08:22
of something that doesn't originate from Earth.
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該訊號並非來自地球。
08:25
Jansky had made a historic discovery,
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Jansky的這一發現具有歷史意義，
08:29
that celestial objects could emit radio waves
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太空中的天體既發射無線電波，
08:32
as well as light waves.
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也發射光波。
08:34
Fifty years on
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50年來，
08:36
from Watson's accidental encounter with the Sun,
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從Watson無意之中收聽到太陽算起，
08:39
Jansky's careful listening
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Jansky的認真聆聽
08:41
ushered in a new age of space exploration:
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開啟了空間探索的新紀元：
08:44
the radio astronomy age.
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射電天文學時代。
08:46
Over the next few years,
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在接下來的數年間，
08:48
astronomers connected up their antennas to loudspeakers
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天文學家們將他們的天線連上揚聲器
08:52
and learned about our radio sky,
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認識到我們的無線電天空，
08:54
about Jupiter and the Sun,
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認識了木星和太陽，
08:56
by listening.
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就是通過聆聽。
08:58
Let's jump ahead again.
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讓我們再跳前一段。
09:00
It's 1964,
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這是1964年，
09:02
and we're back at Bell Labs.
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我們回到貝爾實驗室。
09:04
And once again,
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再一次，
09:06
two scientists have got a problem with noise.
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兩個科學家也遇到了噪音的問題。
09:09
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
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Arno Penzias 和Robert Wilson
09:12
were using the horn antenna
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正使用喇叭天線
09:14
at Bell's Holmdel laboratory
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在貝爾的Holmdel實驗室（位於新澤西）
09:16
to study the Milky Way
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研究銀河
09:18
with extraordinary precision.
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他們的精確度是超乎尋常的。
09:20
They were really listening
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他們真的是以高保真的方式
09:22
to the galaxy in high fidelity.
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傾聽整個銀河系。
09:24
There was a glitch in their soundtrack.
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在他們錄製的音軌中有一個小差錯。
09:27
A mysterious persistent noise
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一個揮之不去的神秘噪音
09:30
was disrupting their research.
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干擾著他們的研究。
09:32
It was in the microwave range,
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這個噪音在微波範圍，
09:34
and it appeared to be coming
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而且它似乎從各個方向
09:36
from all directions simultaneously.
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同時出現。
09:38
Now this didn't make any sense,
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這根本就說不通。
09:40
and like any reasonable engineer or scientist,
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就像任何理性的工程師或科學家，
09:43
they assumed that the problem must be the technology itself,
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他們以為問題一定處在技術本身，
09:46
it must be the dish.
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一定是天線的問題。
09:48
There were pigeons roosting in the dish.
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有鴿子棲息在天線上。
09:51
And so perhaps once they cleaned up the pigeon droppings,
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所以可能一旦他們清掃乾淨鴿子糞，
09:54
get the disk kind of operational again,
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讓天線重新運轉，
09:56
normal operations would resume.
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就可以恢復正常的運行。
09:59
But the noise didn't disappear.
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但是那個噪音并沒有消失。
10:02
The mysterious noise
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這個神秘的噪音
10:04
that Penzias and Wilson were listening to
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也就是Penzias和Wilson聽到的
10:07
turned out to be the oldest and most significant sound
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原來是人類能聽到的最為古老
10:10
that anyone had ever heard.
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也最為重要的聲音。
10:12
It was cosmic radiation
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那就是宇宙輻射
10:14
left over from the very birth of the universe.
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它產生自宇宙誕生的一刹那。
10:18
This was the first experimental evidence
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這是第一個實驗證據
10:21
that the Big Bang existed
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證明了大爆炸的存在
10:23
and the universe was born at a precise moment
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證明了宇宙是在某一確切的時間點誕生的
10:26
some 14.7 billion years ago.
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大約147億年前。
10:31
So our story ends
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所以我們的故事就要結束在
10:33
at the beginning --
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這個最開始的時刻——
10:35
the beginning of all things, the Big Bang.
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也就是整個世界的最開始，大爆炸。
10:38
This is the noise that Penzias and Wilson heard --
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這就是Penzias 和 Wilson 聽到的那個噪音——
10:41
the oldest sound that you're ever going to hear,
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你所能聽到的最古老的聲音，
10:44
the cosmic microwave background radiation
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宇宙微波背景輻射
10:47
left over from the Big Bang.
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是宇宙大爆炸遺留下來的。
10:49
(Fuzz)
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（滋滋聲）
11:04
Thanks.
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謝謝大家。
11:06
(Applause)
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（觀眾掌聲）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Honor Harger - ArtistHonor Harger explores the sounds of the sky, using art to connect her audience to the universe.
Why you should listen
Honor Harger is a New Zealand-born artist and curator who has a particular interest in artistic uses of technologies. She's the director of Lighthouse, an arts agency in Brighton, UK. Her artistic practice is produced under the name r a d i o q u a l i a together with collaborator Adam Hyde. One of their main projects is Radio Astronomy , a radio station broadcasting sounds from space.
From a great interview with Harger from Lift '11:
What does it mean to listen to space?
Whilst our project uses what we describe as "sounds from space", it is important to understand that stars and planets are not directly audible. Sound waves can not propagate in the vacuum of space. However, it is possible for radio waves emitted from celestial bodies, such as Jupiter and the Sun, to be heard by using radio technology. In our galaxy, the Sun is the strongest source of radio waves - so it's the most powerful transmitter in the radio sky. Jupiter also sends us strong radio signals.
What we hear is very curiously linked with our experience of radio here on earth -- the sounds are a bit like the sound of static between the stations.
Photo: Matt Locke / Flickr CC
Honor Harger | Speaker | TED.com