什么是宇宙的声音？一段音乐之旅 – Matt Russo

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什么是宇宙的声音？一段音乐之旅 - Matt Russo

外太空真的像传说中那样，是一个寂静无声的地方吗？或许不是。马特·拉索，一位天体物理学家和音乐家，为我们带来了一段穿越宇宙的音乐之旅，揭示了在行星轨道背后隐藏的节奏与和谐。他说，宇宙中充满了音乐，我们只需要去聆听。

00:00
I'd like you all to close your eyes, please ... and imagine yourself sitting in the middle of a large, open field with the sun setting on your right. And as the sun sets, imagine that tonight you don't just see the stars appear, but you're able to hear the stars appear with the brightest stars being the loudest notes and the hotter, bluer stars producing the higher-pitched notes.
请各位闭上眼镜，并想象着，你正坐在一片广阔的田野上，身旁是下落的夕阳。日落之后，请想象今夜你不仅能看到星光闪现，你还能听到它们闪现的声音。最亮的星星将成为了最响亮的音符，而星星愈炽热、愈蓝它的音调愈高。

00:47
And since each constellation is made up of different types of stars, they'll each produce their own unique melody, such as Aries, the ram.
由于不同星系的组成各不相同，每个星系都有它们独特的旋律，比如白羊座的旋律像公羊一样。

00:59
(Music)

01:01
Or Orion, the hunter.
猎户座的旋律像猎人一般。

01:03
(Music)

01:07
Or even Taurus, the bull.
而金牛座的旋律像公牛似的。

01:08
(Music)

01:14
We live in a musical universe, and we can use that to experience it from a new perspective, and to share that perspective with a wider range of people. Let me show you what I mean.
我们生活在充满旋律的宇宙中，借此，我们可以通过新的角度来感受宇宙并与更多的人分享这种角度。让我来告诉你们。

01:25
(Music ends)

01:26
Now, when I tell people I'm an astrophysicist, they're usually pretty impressed. And then I say I'm also a musician -- they're like, "Yeah, we know."
现在，当我告诉别人我是一个天体物理学家时，他们通常会对我印象深刻。而当我说我还是一位音乐家时，他们会说“我们知道。”

01:34
So everyone seems to know that there's this deep connection between music and astronomy. And it's actually a very old idea; it goes back over 2,000 years to Pythagoras. You might remember Pythagoras from such theorems as the Pythagorean theorem --
好像每个人都知道音乐和天文学之间有很密切的联系。这不是一个新的概念；最早提出这个概念的是两千多年前的毕达哥拉斯。你可能听过这个名字比如毕达哥拉斯定理。

01:48
(Laughter)

01:49
And he said: "There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres." And so he literally thought that the motions of the planets along the celestial sphere created harmonious music. And if you asked him, "Why don't we hear anything?" he'd say you can't hear it because you don't know what it's like to not hear it; you don't know what true silence is. It's like how you have to wait for your power to go out to hear how annoying your refrigerator was. Maybe you buy that, but not everybody else was buying it, including such names as Aristotle.
毕达哥拉斯认为：几何存在于琴弦的震动中，音乐存在于球面上的空间。他还认为，
天幕上行星的运动创造了和谐的音乐。如果你要问他 “为什么我们什么都听不到？”他会告诉你，你之所以听不到，是因为你生来与它相伴，你不知道真正的寂静是怎样的。就像你要等到了停电，才会知道你的冰箱是多么的吵。也许你能接受这样的想法，但并不是所有人都可以，比如亚里士多德。

02:25
Exact words.
亚里士多德的原话是

02:26
(Laughter)

02:27
So I'll paraphrase his exact words. He said it's a nice idea, but if something as large and vast as the heavens themselves were moving and making sounds, it wouldn't just be audible, it would be earth-shatteringly loud. We exist, therefore there is no music of the spheres. He also thought that the brain's only purpose was to cool down the blood, so there's that ...
我来分析一下他的原话，他说，这是一个不错的观点。但是当浩瀚辽阔的天体在运动和发出声音时，这些声音将不会是听得到这么简单，这些声音将会震碎地球。我们还活着这说明天体之间不存在音乐。他还认为人脑的唯一作用就是理智和冷静，所以...

02:49
But I'd like to show you that in some way they were actually both right. And we're going to start by understanding what makes music musical. It may sound like a silly question, but have you ever wondered why it is that certain notes, when played together, sound relatively pleasing or consonant, such as these two --
不过我想说从某种角度上来说两者都是对的。我们先来看一下是什么造就了音乐。这个问题可能听起来挺傻的，但你可曾想过，为什么某些音符一起演奏的时候，听起来异常和谐动人？比如这样——

03:07
(Music)

03:10
while others are a lot more tense or dissonant, such as these two.
而另一些音符组合起来就会不太和谐，比如这样。

03:16
Right? Why is that? Why are there notes at all? Why can you be in or out of tune? Well, the answer to that question was actually solved by Pythagoras himself. Take a look at the string on the far left. If you bow that string, it will produce a note as it oscillates very fast back and forth.
对吧？为什么呢？这些音符为何存在呢？为什么你能感受到这些曲调呢？其实，这个问题的答案毕达哥拉斯已经告诉我们了。看看最左边的琴弦。如果你拨动它，它会快速地来回震动于是就产生了音符。

03:37
(Musical note)

03:40
But now if you cut the string in half, you'll get two strings, each oscillating twice as fast. And that will produce a related note. Or three times as fast, or four times --
如果你把这根弦剪成两段就会有两根琴弦，各自以原来两倍的速度震动。这样就有了另一个音符。这个是三倍速，这是四倍速的—— （音乐）

03:59
And so the secret to musical harmony really is simple ratios: the simpler the ratio, the more pleasing or consonant those two notes will sound together. And the more complex the ratio, the more dissonant they will sound. And it's this interplay between tension and release, or consonance and dissonance, that makes what we call music.
其实和谐音乐的秘籍就是简单的配比：两个音符震动频率的比率越简单，它们一起演奏时也就越和谐。如果比率约复杂，听起来也就越不和谐。正是这种紧张和放松，或者说和谐与不和谐之间的组合，造就了音乐。

04:41
But there's more. 不过还有更重要的东西。

04:43
(Laughter)

04:45
So the two features of music we like to think of as pitch and rhythms, they're actually two versions of the same thing, and I can show you.
我们认为音乐有两个特征：音调和节奏他们其实是同一个东西的两种说法，你们看。

04:53
(Slow rhythm)（慢节奏）

04:54
That's a rhythm right? Watch what happens when we speed it up.
这是一个节奏，对吧？看看加速后会发生什么。

04:59
(Rhythm gets gradually faster)（节奏逐渐加快）

05:02
(High pitch)（高音调）

05:06
(Lowering pitch)（低一点的音调）

05:09
(Slow Rhythm)（慢节奏）

05:13
So once a rhythm starts happening more than about 20 times per second, your brain flips. It stops hearing it as a rhythm and starts hearing it as a pitch.
所以只要一个节奏的频率达到了每秒二十次的时候你的大脑就分辨不出来了。你不再认为这是一个节奏它变成了音调。

05:22
So what does this have to do with astronomy? Well, that's when we get to the TRAPPIST-1 system. This is an exoplanetary system discovered last February of 2017, and it got everyone excited because it is seven Earth-sized planets all orbiting a very near red dwarf star. And we think that three of the planets have the right temperature for liquid water. It's also so close that in the next few years, we should be able to detect elements in their atmospheres such as oxygen and methane -- potential signs of life. But one thing about the TRAPPIST system is that it is tiny. So here we have the orbits of the inner rocky planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and all seven Earth-sized planets of TRAPPIST-1 are tucked well inside the orbit of Mercury. I have to expand this by 25 times for you to see the orbits of the TRAPPIST-1 planets. It's actually much more similar in size to our planet Jupiter and its moons, even though it's seven Earth-size planets orbiting a star.
那这和天文学有什么关系呢？我们在发现TRAPPIST-1行星系时了解到两者的联系。TRAPPIST-1行星系是一个在2017年2月被发现的系外行星系。这让每个人都十分激动，因为这个星系是由七颗地球一般大小的行星，以及一颗红矮星组成的。我们猜测其中的三颗行星的温度适宜能让液态水存在。并且未来几年，我们就可以检测它们大气的成分是否包括氧气和甲烷，这些生命存在的必要条件。但是TRAPPIST-1行星系很小。这个是我们在太阳系中的类地行星的轨道，水星，金星，地球，还有火星。但TRAPPIST-1星系里七颗地球大小的行星的轨道能全部塞进水星的轨道里。我要把这张图放大二十五倍你们才能看到TRAPPIST-1的行星。这比我们的木星及其卫星小多了，虽然它的轨道上有七颗地球大小的行星。

06:24
Another reason this got everyone excited was artist renderings like this. You got some liquid water, some ice, maybe some land, maybe you can go for a dive in this amazing orange sunset. It got everyone excited, and then a few months later, some other papers came out that said, actually, it probably looks more like this.
另一个令人振奋的原因是一些画家描绘出这样的画面。你能在这些行星上看到液态水，冰山，还有陆地你可以在夕阳的余晖中潜水。这让所有人都很激动，但几个月之后，有些人发表了论文表示实际上的情况应该是这样——

06:50
So there were signs that some of the surfaces might actually be molten lava and that there were very damaging X-rays coming from the central star -- X-rays that will sterilize the surface of life and even strip off atmospheres. Luckily, just a few months ago in 2018, some new papers came out with more refined measurements, and they found actually it does look something like that.
有迹象表明那里的某些地面上只有熔岩，它们还遭受着来自恒星的破坏性极强的X射线这些X射线会涂炭生灵甚至摧毁大气层。不过幸运的是 2018年的上半年，又有人发表了一些论文通过更精细的衡量，他们发现那里实际的情况应该是这样的。

07:16
So we now know that several of them have huge supplies of water -- global oceans -- and several of them have thick atmospheres, so it's the right place to look for potential life. But there's something even more exciting about this system, especially for me. And that's that TRAPPIST-1 is a resonant chain. And so that means for every two orbits of the outer planet, the next one in orbits three times, and the next one in four, and then six, nine, 15 and 24. So you see a lot of very simple ratios among the orbits of these planets. Clearly, if you speed up their motion, you can get rhythms, right? One beat, say, for every time a planet goes around. But now we know if you speed that motion up even more, you'll actually produce musical pitches, and in this case alone, those pitches will work together, making harmonious, even human-like harmony.
我们知道有几颗行星有大量的水、有环绕的海洋、而其中几个行星还有稠密的大气层，我们极有可能在这里找到生命的踪迹但关于这个星系还有更激动人心的事情特别是于我而言。 TRAPPIST-1星系实际上是一个共振链。也就是说，对于每两颗外行星下一颗行星运行的速度是这一颗的三倍，再下一颗是这颗的四倍，然后是6倍，9倍，15倍以及24倍。所以这些行星的轨道之间就有许多简单的比率。显然，如果它们的运动加速就会出现节奏，对吧？一个鼓点意味着一颗行星从旁边经过。我们知道如果这种运动加速，你会听到高音，在这种情况下，这些高音融合在一起会和谐共鸣，像人演奏得一样和谐。

08:13
So let's hear TRAPPIST-1. The first thing you'll hear will be a note for every orbit of each planet, and just keep in mind, this music is coming from the system itself. I'm not creating the pitches or rhythms, I'm just bringing them into the human hearing range. And after all seven planets have entered, you're going to see -- well, you're going to hear a drum for every time two planets align. That's when they kind of get close to each other and give each other a gravitational tug.
让我们一起听一下 TRAPPIST-1的声音吧。你首先听到的是每个行星轨道对应的音符请记住，音乐是从星系里传来的。而不是我创造的。我只是把它们转换到了人类听力范围内。等到七颗行星都出现时，你将会看到—— 每当两颗行星交汇时你会听到鼓点。这时候它们的距离很近，它们之间的引力作用也更大。（一个音符）（两个音符）（三个音符）（四个音符）（五个音符）（六个音符）（七个音符）（鼓点）（音乐结束）。

10:20
And that's the sound of the star itself -- its light converted into sound.
以上就是这些行星的声音它们的星光转换成了声音。

10:25
So you may wonder how this is even possible. And it's good to think of the analogy of an orchestra. When everyone gets together to start playing in an orchestra, they can't just dive into it, right? They have to all get in tune; they have to make sure their instruments resonate with their neighbors' instruments, and something very similar happened to TRAPPIST-1 early in its existence. When the planets were first forming, they were orbiting within a disc of gas, and while inside that disc, they can actually slide around and adjust their orbits to their neighbors until they're perfectly in tune. And it's a good thing they did because this system is so compact -- a lot of mass in a tight space -- if every aspect of their orbits wasn't very finely tuned, they would very quickly disrupt each other's orbits, destroying the whole system. So it's really music that is keeping this system alive -- and any of its potential inhabitants.
也许你会好奇这些是如何产生的。你可以通过类比管弦乐队来找到答案。当所有人聚在一起演奏时，他们肯定不能只顾着自己，对吧？他们要相互配合，他们要确保他们的乐器和周围人的乐器相互协调，而在TRAPPIST-1刚形成的时候情况也差不多。在这些行星诞生之初，它们在气体轨道中运行，其中，它们是可以移动的，它们可以根据相邻的行星调整轨道位置直到它们的相对位置趋于完美。这是件好事因为这个星系有点拥挤—— 巨大的行星被挤在一个狭窄的空间中如果这些行星轨道没有处于一个恰当的位置它们很快便会摧毁其它行星的轨道最终导致整个星系的灭亡。所以正是音律的和谐使得这个星系得以生存并让它成为了可栖居的地方。

11:20
But what does our solar system sound like? I hate to be the one to show you this, but it's not pretty.
那太阳系的音律是怎样的呢？我不太想给你们展示因为这个音律并不那么动听。

11:29
So for one thing, our solar system is on a much, much larger scale, and so to hear all eight planets, we have to start with Neptune near the bottom of our hearing range, and then Mercury's going to be all the way up near the very top of our hearing range. But also, since our planets are not very compact -- they're very spread out -- they didn't have to adjust their orbits to each other, so they're kind of just all playing their own random note at random times. So, I'm sorry, but here it is.
一方面，太阳系的规模远超TRAPPIST-1星系。为了能听到所有八颗行星的音律，我们要从海王星，低音开始，然后一直到水星，这几乎涵盖了我们的听力范围。不过，由于太阳系浩瀚无边，行星们各自分散开了它们不必相互调整轨道，所以它们就像随机弹奏音符一般，像这样：

11:57
(Tone)That's Neptune.（音符）这是海王星。

12:00
(Two tones)Uranus.（两个音符）天王星。

12:03
(Three tones)Saturn.（三个音符）土星。

12:06
(Four tones)Jupiter. And then tucked in, that's Mars.
（四个音符）木星。然后是火星。

12:11
(Five tones)Earth.（五个音符）地球。

12:12
(Six tones)

12:15
(Seven tones)Venus. （七个音符）金星。

12:18
(Eight tones)And that's Mercury -- OK, OK, I'll stop.
（八个音符）这是水星，好吧，我会停下来的。

12:24
So this was actually Kepler's dream. Johannes Kepler is the person that figured out the laws of planetary motion. He was completely fascinated by this idea that there's a connection between music, astronomy and geometry. And so he actually spent an entire book just searching for any kind of musical harmony amongst the solar system's planets and it was really, really hard. It would have been much easier had he lived on TRAPPIST-1, or for that matter ... K2-138. This is a new system discovered in January of 2018 with five planets, and just like TRAPPIST, early on in their existence, they were all finely tuned. They were actually tuned into a tuning structure proposed by Pythagoras himself, over 2,000 years before. But the system's actually named after Kepler, discovered by the Kepler space telescope. And so, in the last few billion years, they've actually lost their tuning, quite a bit more than TRAPPIST has, and so what we're going to do is go back in time and imagine what they would've sounded like just as they were forming.
这实际上是开普勒的梦想。约翰内斯·开普勒他发现了行星的运动规律。他深陷于这样一个想法：音乐、天文学和几何学之间相互关联所以他用了整整一本书来探索太阳系行星之间的音律和谐。这是一项很艰难的工作。除非他住在TRAPPIST-1星系，或者是 K2-138星系。该星系于2018年1月被发现，由五颗行星构成，和TRAPPIST星系一样，在它们存在之初，它们之间就拥有和谐的音律了。它们的音调变成了在两千多年前毕达哥拉斯提出的一种音律结构，但这个星系实际上是用开普勒的名字命名的，因为它们是通过开普勒天文望远镜被发现的。不过，在过去的几十亿年里它们的音调实际上已经消失了，只比TRAPPIST的音调存在的时间稍长一些，我们要做的是追溯过去，并且想象它们的音调，想象它们初始时是怎样的。

13:50
(Music)

15:08
(Music ends)

15:10
(Applause)

15:18
Thank you.

15:20
Now, you may be wondering: How far does this go? How much music actually is out there? And that's what I was wondering last fall when I was working at U of T's planetarium, and I was contacted by an artist named Robyn Rennie and her daughter Erin. Robyn loves the night sky, but she hasn't been able to fully see it for 13 years because of vision loss. And so they wondered if there was anything I could do. So I collected all the sounds I could think of from the universe and packaged them into what became "Our Musical Universe." This is a sound-based planetarium show exploring the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos. And Robyn was so moved by this presentation that when she went home, she painted this gorgeous representation of her experience. And then I defaced it by putting Jupiter on it for the poster.
现在，你可能在想这个项目的进展如何宇宙中到底有多少音乐？这也是我在思考的。上个秋天我在多伦多大学天文馆工作的时候，画家罗宾·伦尼和她的女儿艾琳联系了我。罗宾热爱夜空，但是她有十三年不能好好地欣赏夜空了。因为她的视力受损，所以她们想向我寻求帮助。所以我就收集了我能想到的关于宇宙的所有声音并且把它们打包成专辑-- “我们的音乐宇宙”。这是一场基于声音的天文演出，探索了宇宙的节奏与和谐。罗宾被这场演出深深打动，她回到家后，创作了这幅生动的画来表达了她的观后感。不过我把木星加到这个海报上之后它变丑了。

16:09
(Laughter)

16:11
So ... in this show, I take people of all vision levels and bring them on an audio tour of the universe, from the night sky all the way out to the edge of the observable universe. But even this is just the start of a musical odyssey to experience the universe with new eyes and with new ears, and I hope you'll join me.
所以.. 在这场演出中我邀请了拥有不同视力水平的人，为他们带来了一段宇宙音乐之旅，从夜空一直延伸到可观测的宇宙边缘。但这只是这段旅程的开始。如果你想要从新的角度来体验宇宙，我希望你能加入我。谢谢。（掌声）