TEDGlobal 2012
Andrew Blum: Discover the physical side of the internet
安德鲁·布鲁姆：因特网，究竟是什么？
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因松鼠咀嚼电缆而导致网络离线，记者安德鲁·布鲁姆开始想了解互联网是由什么构成的。于是，他开始去寻找因特网 - 组成网络的海底电缆，秘密交换机和其他物理数位。
Andrew Blum - Network author
For his new book, "Tubes," Andrew Blum visited the places where the internet exists in physical form: the cables and switches and servers that virtually connect us. Full bio
For his new book, "Tubes," Andrew Blum visited the places where the internet exists in physical form: the cables and switches and servers that virtually connect us. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
I've always written primarily about architecture,
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我主要会写些关于建筑
00:18
about buildings, and writing about architecture
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关于楼房的东西
00:21
is based on certain assumptions.
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那些作品是基于某些假设。
00:24
An architect designs a building, and it becomes a place,
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建筑师设计一座大楼 变成一个地点
00:26
or many architects design many buildings, and it becomes
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或很多建筑师设计很多座大楼
00:28
a city, and regardless of this complicated mix of forces
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变成一个城市
先不去考虑这些复杂的力量掺杂在一起
先不去考虑这些复杂的力量掺杂在一起
00:32
of politics and culture and economics that shapes
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比如政治的 文化的 经济的， 它们塑造
00:34
these places, at the end of the day, you can go
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这些地点， 最终你都能
00:37
and you can visit them. You can walk around them.
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去参观它们。
你可以在它们周围走一走
你可以在它们周围走一走
00:40
You can smell them. You can get a feel for them.
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你可以闻一闻它们的气息。
你可以感受一下它们
你可以感受一下它们
00:41
You can experience their sense of place.
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你可以体验一下它们的存在
00:45
But what was striking to me over the last several years
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但近年来让我吃惊的是
00:47
was that less and less was I going out into the world,
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我越来越少出门走向世界
00:51
and more and more, I was sitting in front of my computer screen.
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越来越多地坐在我的电脑屏幕前
00:54
And especially since about 2007, when I got an iPhone,
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特别是从大概2007年开始，那时我有了一台iPhone
00:58
I was not only sitting in front of my screen all day,
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我不止整天坐在自己的电脑屏幕前面
01:00
but I was also getting up at the end of the day
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我还在一天结束的时候
01:02
and looking at this little screen that I carried in my pocket.
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盯着我放在口袋里带着的这个小屏幕
01:06
And what was surprising to me was how quickly
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让我吃惊的是
01:08
my relationship to the physical world had changed.
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我和实体世界的关系多么迅速地发生了改变
01:11
In this very short period of time, you know, whether you
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在很短的时间里，你知道，
01:13
call it the last 15 years or so of being online, or the last,
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不管你是说过去在线的15年
01:17
you know, four or five years of being online all the time,
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或是近期总是在线的四五年
01:19
our relationship to our surroundings had changed in that
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我们和周围的关系已经大为改变：
01:23
our attention is constantly divided. You know,
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我们的注意力一直受到分散
01:24
we're both looking inside the screens and we're looking
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我们既看着这些屏幕
01:27
out in the world around us.
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我们也看着身边的世界
01:29
And what was even more striking to me, and what I really
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让我更加吃惊 更不安的是
01:31
got hung up on, was that the world inside the screen
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屏幕里的世界
01:34
seemed to have no physical reality of its own.
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似乎没有任何实体存在。
01:38
If you went and looked for images of the Internet,
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如果你去找因特网的影像
01:41
this was all that you found, this famous image by Opte
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这就是你会找到的
这张非常有名的欧普特影像
这张非常有名的欧普特影像
01:44
of the Internet as the kind of Milky Way, this infinite expanse
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就像银河系一样 无限延伸
01:47
where we don't seem to be anywhere on it.
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我们似乎不在上面
01:49
We can never seem to grasp it in its totality.
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我们永远都不能抓住它的整体
01:52
It's always reminded me of the Apollo image of the Earth,
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它常让我想起阿波罗号所拍的地球照片
01:55
the blue marble picture, and it's similarly meant to suggest,
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那张蓝色大理石也似乎意味着
01:58
I think, that we can't really understand it as a whole.
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我认为，我们不能真正的理解地球这个整体
02:01
We're always sort of small in the face of its expanse.
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我们在无限之下显得非常渺小
02:04
So if there was this world and this screen, and if there was
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所以即使存在这样的网络世界和这屏幕上的世界
02:08
the physical world around me, I couldn't ever get them
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如果它真的是围绕着我的实体世界
02:11
together in the same place.
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我甚至不能在同一个地方找到它
02:14
And then this happened.
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然后发生了一件事
02:17
My Internet broke one day, as it occasionally does,
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我的因特网某天断线了
它有时会这样
它有时会这样
02:19
and the cable guy came to fix it, and he started with
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电线维修员来修理 他开始着手
02:22
the dusty clump of cables behind the couch,
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先从沙发后面的布满灰尘的电线堆里
02:24
and he followed it to the front of my building and into the basement and out to the back yard,
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沿着它到了我房子的前面下了地下室到了后院外面
02:28
and there was this big jumble of cables against the wall.
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墙上有很大一捆杂乱的电线
02:30
And then he saw a squirrel running along the wire,
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然后他看到一只松鼠沿着电线跑动
02:33
and he said, "There's your problem.
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他说 “那就是问题所在
02:36
A squirrel is chewing on your Internet." (Laughter)
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有松鼠在咀嚼着你的因特网“ (有松鼠在咀嚼着因特网的事)(笑声)
02:40
And this seemed astounding. The Internet is
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真让人吃惊 因特网是
02:43
a transcendent idea. It's a set of protocols that has changed
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一个卓越的构思 它是一系列的协议改变了
02:47
everything from shopping to dating to revolutions.
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一切从购物到约会到革命的事
02:50
It was unequivocally not something
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它绝然不是
02:53
a squirrel could chew on. (Laughter)
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一只松鼠可以咀嚼的事(笑声)
02:56
But that in fact seemed to be the case.
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但事实上情况就是如此
02:58
A squirrel had in fact chewed on my Internet. (Laughter)
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真的有只松鼠在咀嚼我的因特网(笑声)
03:01
And then I got this image in my head of what would happen
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我头脑中就有这么一幅将可能发生的画面
03:03
if you yanked the wire from the wall and if you started
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如果你从墙上把电线扯下来 如果你试着
03:06
to follow it. Where would it go?
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沿着它走 会到哪里呢
03:07
Was the Internet actually a place that you could visit?
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因特网真是一个你可以到达的地方吗
03:11
Could I go there? Who would I meet?
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我能到那吗 我会和谁见面
03:12
You know, was there something actually out there?
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真的有这么一个地方吗
03:15
And the answer, by all accounts, was no.
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答案是人人都说没有
03:18
This was the Internet, this black box with a red light on it,
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这就是因特网 这个带着红色灯的黑盒子
03:21
as represented in the sitcom "The IT Crowd."
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正如情景喜剧“IT狂人”里所显示的
03:25
Normally it lives on the top of Big Ben,
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通常它会放在大笨钟的最高处
03:28
because that's where you get the best reception,
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因为那里是接收信号最好的地方
03:31
but they had negotiated that their colleague could borrow it
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但他们谈到过他们的同事可以
03:35
for the afternoon to use in an office presentation.
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在某个下午将它借去在办公室展示的时候使用
03:38
The elders of the Internet were willing to part with it
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因特网的资深用户愿意和它分开
03:40
for a short while, and she looks at it and she says,
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一会儿 她看着盒子说
03:43
"This is the Internet? The whole Internet? Is it heavy?"
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”这就是因特网吗 整个因特网 它重吗“
03:46
They say, "Of course not, the Internet doesn't weigh anything."
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他们回答 ”当然不重 因特网没有任何重量“
03:50
And I was embarrassed. I was looking for this thing
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我感到很羞愧 我正在找的东西
03:53
that only fools seem to look for.
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只有傻瓜才会去寻找
03:55
The Internet was that amorphous blob, or it was a silly
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因特网是无形的 或者它是
03:58
black box with a blinking red light on it.
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一个闪着红灯的黑盒子
04:00
It wasn't a real world out there.
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它不是一个真实的世界
04:02
But, in fact, it is. There is a real world of the Internet out there,
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但事实上它是一个真实的世界
确实有因特网的真实世界
确实有因特网的真实世界
04:06
and that's what I spent about two years visiting,
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也就是我花费了过去两年时间到访的
04:07
these places of the Internet. I was in large data centers
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因特网的所在地
我在大型的数据中心
我在大型的数据中心
04:11
that use as much power as the cities in which they sit,
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它们使用和所在城市一样多的能源
04:14
and I visited places like this, 60 Hudson Street in New York,
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我参观了类似这样的地方，比如纽约的哈德逊街60号
04:17
which is one of the buildings in the world,
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它是一栋大楼
04:18
one of a very short list of buildings, about a dozen buildings,
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名单中仅有的十几座中的其中一座
04:21
where more networks of the Internet connect to each other
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那里是大量的网络连接彼此
04:24
than anywhere else.
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的地方——比别处的连接更多
04:25
And that connection is an unequivocally physical process.
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这样的连接确实是个有形的过程
04:28
It's about the router of one network, a Facebook or
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那关乎着网络的路由器 比如面书或
04:30
a Google or a B.T. or a Comcast or a Time Warner, whatever it is,
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谷歌或B.T.或康卡斯特或时代华纳 不管是什么
04:33
connecting with usually a yellow fiber optic cable up into
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通常连接着黄色的光纤电缆
04:36
the ceiling and down into the router of another network,
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上至天花板一直到其他网络路由器
04:39
and that's unequivocally physical, and it's surprisingly intimate.
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那通常都是有形的且是密切联系的
04:43
A building like 60 Hudson, and a dozen or so others,
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像哈德逊街60号的大楼和其他十几栋或其他大楼
04:46
has 10 times more networks connecting within it
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里面有超过十倍那么多的网络连接着它
04:49
than the next tier of buildings.
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相较其他大楼而言
04:50
There's a very short list of these places.
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这些大楼不是很少
04:52
And 60 Hudson in particular is interesting because it's home
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哈德逊街60号特别有趣是因为它是
04:55
to about a half a dozen very important networks,
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近六个重要网络连接的总部
04:58
which are the networks which serve the undersea cables
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这些网络连接海底电缆
05:00
that travel underneath the ocean
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网络穿过海底
05:03
that connect Europe and America and connect all of us.
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连接欧洲和美洲 连接我们所有人
05:05
And it's those cables in particular that I want to focus on.
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我特别想谈谈那些电缆
05:08
If the Internet is a global phenomenon, if we live
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如果因特网是个全球现象 如果我们活
05:12
in a global village, it's because there are cables underneath
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在地球村里 那是因为有电缆
05:15
the ocean, cables like this.
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在海底 像这样的电缆
05:17
And in this dimension, they are incredibly small.
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从这个角度看 他们真的非常小
05:20
You can you hold them in your hand. They're like a garden hose.
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你可以用手握着它们 他们就像花园软管一样
05:23
But in the other dimension they are incredibly expansive,
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但从另一个角度看 他们非常广阔
05:27
as expansive as you can imagine.
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就如你能想象的那般广阔
05:28
They stretch across the ocean. They're three or five
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它们在大海里延伸 它们有三或五
05:31
or eight thousand miles in length, and
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或八千英里那么长
05:34
if the material science and the computational technology
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如果说材料科学和计算机技术
05:36
is incredibly complicated, the basic physical process
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是无比复杂的 当中的基本物理过程
05:40
is shockingly simple. Light goes in on one end of the ocean
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却是惊人的简单 灯光从海的一边进去
05:43
and comes out on the other, and it usually comes
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再从另一边出来 通常是从
05:47
from a building called a landing station that's often
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一座叫作坐落站的大楼出来
05:49
tucked away inconspicuously in a little seaside neighborhood,
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常在临近海边不显眼的地方妥善保存起来
05:52
and there are amplifiers that sit on the ocean floor
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在海床设有增强器
05:55
that look kind of like bluefin tuna, and every 50 miles
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它们看起来像蓝鳍吞拿 每50英里
05:58
they amplify the signal, and since the rate of transmission
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它们会增强信号 由于传播速度
06:01
is incredibly fast, the basic unit is a 10-gigabit-per-second
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无比迅速 基本单位是每秒10千兆比特
06:04
wavelength of light, maybe a thousand times your own
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光波 也许是你连接速度的一千倍
06:07
connection, or capable of carrying 10,000 video streams,
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或能承载1万个视频流
06:10
but not only that, but you'll put not just one wavelength of light
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但不止那样 你不会只把一个光波
06:13
through one of the fibers, but you'll put maybe
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放在一条光纤里 你也许会在一根光纤里放
06:16
50 or 60 or 70 different wavelengths or colors of light
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50或60或70个不同波长或颜色的光波
06:19
through a single fiber, and then you'll have maybe
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然后你也许会
06:22
eight fibers in a cable, four going in each direction.
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在一个电缆里放8个光纤 四个又分散到不同方向
06:25
And they're tiny. They're the thickness of a hair.
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它们很细小 就像头发那么粗
06:28
And then they connect to the continent somewhere.
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它们可以连接到大陆的某个地方
06:30
They connect in a manhole like this. Literally,
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它们会在沙井里面连接起来 像这样。 实际上
06:33
this is where the 5,000-mile cable plugs in.
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这是5千英里电缆接入的地方
06:36
This is in Halifax, a cable that stretches from Halifax to Ireland.
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这里是哈利法克斯 电缆从这里延伸到爱尔兰
06:40
And the landscape is changing. Three years ago,
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景观在变化 三年前
06:43
when I started thinking about this, there was one cable
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当我开始思考这个问题的时候 有一条电缆
06:45
down the Western coast of Africa, represented
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连接到非洲的西岸
06:48
in this map by Steve Song as that thin black line.
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也就是Steve Song这个地图上的小黑线
06:51
Now there are six cables and more coming, three down each coast.
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现在已经有六条电缆 还会有更多 三条连接到东岸
06:56
Because once a country gets plugged in by one cable,
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因为一旦一个国家连接了一条电缆
06:59
they realize that it's not enough. If they're going to build
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他们会意识到这是不足够的 如果他们想在
07:00
an industry around it, they need to know that their connection
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电缆周围建立工业 他们需要知道他们的连接
07:03
isn't tenuous but permanent, because if a cable breaks,
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不是脆弱的而是永久的 因为如果一个电缆断了
07:06
you have to send a ship out into the water, throw
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你得派船到海中央
07:08
a grappling hook over the side, pick it up, find the other end,
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扔个抓钩 钩起一头电缆 再勾起另一头
07:11
and then fuse the two ends back together and then dump it over.
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然后把两端焊接在一起 再把它丢到海里
07:14
It's an intensely, intensely physical process.
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这真是个很折腾的物理过程
07:18
So this is my friend Simon Cooper, who until very recently
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这是我的朋友Simon Cooper 他最近
07:23
worked for Tata Communications, the communications wing
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在Tata通讯公司工作 Tata通讯部
07:25
of Tata, the big Indian industrial conglomerate.
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大型印度工业企业集团
07:28
And I've never met him. We've only communicated
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我和他没有见过面 我们只是
07:31
via this telepresence system, which always makes me
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视频通话 这常让我觉得
07:35
think of him as the man inside the Internet. (Laughter)
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他是因特网里面的人 (笑声)
07:39
And he is English. The undersea cable industry
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他是英国人 海底电缆工业
07:42
is dominated by Englishmen, and they all seem to be 42.
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是由英国人主导的 他们大多看起来像42岁
07:46
(Laughter) Because they all started at the same time
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(笑声) 因为他们都在同一时间入行
07:49
with the boom about 20 years ago.
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从20年前的兴盛时期开始的
07:51
And Tata had gotten its start as a communications business
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Tata是以通讯业起家的
07:54
when they bought two cables, one across the Atlantic
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一开始他们买了两条电缆 一条横跨大西洋
07:57
and one across the Pacific, and proceeded to add pieces
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一条横跨太平洋并继续完善它们
08:00
onto them, until they had built a belt around the world,
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直到它们连接了整个世界
08:04
which means they will send your bits to the East or the West.
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这意味着他们会把你的比特信息传送到东方或西方
08:06
They have -- this is literally a beam of light around the world,
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他们有真的是有一束环绕地球的光
08:08
and if a cable breaks in the Pacific, it'll send it around
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如果有电缆在太平洋中断开了 它会把光发送到
08:10
the other direction. And then having done that,
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另一个方向 这么做以后
08:13
they started to look for places to wire next.
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他们就开始寻找下一个连线的地方
08:17
They looked for the unwired places, and that's meant
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他们会寻找没有连线的地方 那意味着
08:20
North and South, primarily these cables to Africa.
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北方或者南方 首先要连去非洲
08:23
But what amazes me is Simon's incredible geographic imagination.
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让我惊奇的是Simon有非凡的地理想象力
08:26
He thinks about the world with this incredible expansiveness.
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他想象中的世界无限延伸
08:29
And I was particularly interested because I wanted to see
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我非常好奇是因为我想看看
08:33
one of these cables being built. See, you know, all the time
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这些电缆是怎么建起来的 一直以来
08:35
online we experience these fleeting moments of connection,
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上网的时候我们可以体验到这种一闪而过的迅速连网
08:38
these sort of brief adjacencies, a tweet or a Facebook post
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这些轻易连接 一个推特或 一个面书贴子
08:41
or an email, and it seemed like there was a physical corollary to that.
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或是一封电邮 似乎都有一个实体存在
08:45
It seemed like there was a moment when the continent
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似乎有这么一个时刻当大陆
08:47
was being plugged in, and I wanted to see that.
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被连接起来 我想看看那个过程
08:49
And Simon was working on a new cable,
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Simon在负责者一条新电缆
08:52
WACS, the West Africa Cable System, that stretched
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西非电缆体系(WACS)
08:54
from Lisbon down the west coast of Africa,
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从里斯本延伸到非洲西海岸
08:56
to Cote d'Ivoire, to Ghana, to Nigeria, to Cameroon.
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到科特迪瓦 加纳 奈及利亚 及喀麦隆
08:59
And he said there was coming soon, depending
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他说很快就会开始搭建 取决于
09:01
on the weather, but he'd let me know when,
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天气 他会告诉我具体时间
09:04
and so with about four days notice, he said to go
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大概提前4天 他通知我前往
09:07
to this beach south of Lisbon, and a little after 9,
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里斯本南部的这个海滩 大概9点以后
09:10
this guy will walk out of the water. (Laughter)
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有个人从海里走出来(笑声)
09:13
And he'll be carrying a green nylon line, a lightweight line,
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他会带着绿色的尼龙绳 非常轻的绳子
09:18
called a messenger line, and that was the first link
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那叫做悬缆线 那线首先连接
09:20
between sea and land, this link that would then be
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大海和陆地 接着会被
09:23
leveraged into this 9,000-mile path of light.
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连接到这9千英里的光的通道
09:27
Then a bulldozer began to pull the cable in from this
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接着推土机开始把电缆拉起来
09:29
specialized cable landing ship, and it was floated
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通过这艘专门的电缆安装船 电缆会浮动在
09:33
on these buoys until it was in the right place.
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这些浮标上直到它在正确的位置
09:36
Then you can see the English engineers looking on.
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接着你会看见一个英国工程师在探视
09:38
And then, once it was in the right place, he got back
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一旦电缆放对了地方 他就回到
09:41
in the water holding a big knife, and he cut each buoy off,
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水中手握一把大刀 切掉每个浮标
09:44
and the buoy popped up into the air, and the cable
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浮标升上天空 电缆
09:47
dropped to the sea floor, and he did that all the way out
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掉进海床 他沿途一直这么做
09:49
to the ship, and when he got there,
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直到船变边 到了船边
09:51
they gave him a glass of juice and a cookie,
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他们递给他一杯果汁和一块曲奇
09:53
and then he jumped back in, and he swam back to shore,
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接着他再跳到水中 游回岸边
09:55
and then he lit a cigarette. (Laughter)
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然后他点了根烟 (笑声)
10:03
And then once that cable was on shore,
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当电缆拉到海岸边
10:05
they began to prepare to connect it to the other side,
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他们准备把它连接到另一端
10:09
for the cable that had been brought down from the landing station.
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连接从陆地站拉过来的电缆
10:12
And first they got it with a hacksaw, and then they start
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一开始他们带着钢锯
10:15
sort of shaving away at this plastic interior with a --
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然后刮掉塑料内层
10:17
sort of working like chefs, and then finally they're working
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像厨师一样工作 最后
10:20
like jewelers to get these hair-thin fibers to line up
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他们像珠宝商一样把像头发般细小的纤维绑在
10:22
with the cable that had come down,
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拉下来的电缆上
10:24
and with this hole-punch machine they fuse it together.
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用这台打孔机把他们焊在一起
10:27
And when you see these guys going at this cable with a hacksaw,
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当你看到这些人用钢锯处理电缆的时候
10:30
you stop thinking about the Internet as a cloud.
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你不会把因特网想象像云一样虚无
10:33
It starts to seem like an incredibly physical thing.
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它似乎变成了非常有形的东西
10:37
And what surprised me as well was that as much as this
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让我同样吃惊的是
10:39
is based on the most sophisticated technology, as much
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基于这无比复杂的技术
10:42
as this is an incredibly new thing, the physical process
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这是无比新兴的事物 它的物理过程
10:45
itself has been around for a long time, and the culture is the same.
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本身是需要很长的时间 背后的文化是一样的
10:49
You see the local laborers. You see the English engineer
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你看到了当地的劳工 你看到英国工程师
10:51
giving directions in the background. And more importantly,
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在后方给出指示 更重要的是
10:54
the places are the same. These cables still connect
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很多地方是一样的 电缆依旧连接着
10:57
these classic port cities, places like Lisbon, Mombasa,
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这些经典的港口城市 像里斯本 蒙巴萨
11:00
Mumbai, Singapore, New York.
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孟买 新加坡 纽约
11:03
And then the process on shore takes around three or four days,
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岸上的过程需时三或四天
11:07
and then, when it's done, they put the manhole cover
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做好后 他们把沙井盖
11:11
back on top, and they push the sand over that,
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盖上 把沙推到上面掩盖
11:14
and we all forget about it.
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把这一切都忘掉
11:17
And it seems to me that we talk a lot about the cloud,
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似乎我们老在讲云端的东西
11:19
but every time we put something on the cloud,
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每次我们把一些东西放到云端里
11:21
we give up some responsibility for it.
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我们丢下了一些责任
11:24
We are less connected to it. We let other people worry about it.
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我们很少去关注它 我们让其他人去担心它
11:27
And that doesn't seem right.
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那是不对的
11:29
There's a great Neal Stephenson line where he says
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著名的尼尔·斯蒂芬森曾经说过
11:31
that wired people should know something about wires.
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连网的人应该知道网线的事
11:35
And we should know, I think, we should know
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我们应该知道 我认为 我们应该知道
11:38
where our Internet comes from, and we should know
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我们的英特网从哪里来 我们应该知道
11:40
what it is that physically, physically connects us all.
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是什么东西实体上连接着我们所有人
11:45
Thank you. (Applause)
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谢谢(掌声)
11:48
(Applause)
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(掌声)
11:50
Thanks. (Applause)
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谢谢(掌声)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Andrew Blum - Network authorFor his new book, "Tubes," Andrew Blum visited the places where the internet exists in physical form: the cables and switches and servers that virtually connect us.
Why you should listen
In his book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, Andrew Blum wanted to capture the "spirit of place" of the Internet. Because as far-reaching and virtual as our connection to the Net is, the signals travel on good old-fashioned cabling, glass fibers jacketed in polymer, running through conduit under streets. The immaterial Internet runs on a very material, industry-like infrastructure. So that when Alaska senator Ted Stevens called the Internet "a series of tubes" ... well, he was kind of right, and he did inspire the title of this utterly fascinating book, which explores the switches, data centers, sea crossings and many, many tubes that make up our online reality.
Blum is a writer for Newsweek, and has written for Wired, Popular Science, Metropolis and more.
Learn more about Tubes:
Read excerpts on submarine cables and Internet exchange points (like 60 Hudson in NYC).
Browse book club materials (from the Amherst Reads book club)
Listen to Andrew Blum's audio interview on Fresh Air
Andrew Blum | Speaker | TED.com