TED演讲:创造历史的黑洞图像(3)

We had to get lucky in a lot of different ways. And sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good.

在很多方面我们都需要幸运的眷顾。有时，运气比正确操作更重要。

In this case, we were both, I like to think. But light had to come from the black hole.

我认为这一次，我们不但操作正确，运气也很好。但我们需要接收来自黑洞的光线。

It had to come through intergalactic space, through the Earth's atmosphere, where water vapor¹ can absorb it,

它必须穿过星际空间。穿过地球的大气层，中途还有可能被水蒸气吸收，

and everything worked out perfectly², the size of the Earth at that wavelength³ of light, one millimeter wavelength,

但一切都非常完美。地球的大小，在波长一毫米的光线下，

was just right to resolve that black hole, 55 million light-years away. The universe was telling us what to do.

正好能够展现5500万光年外那个黑洞的样子。宇宙正在告诉我们应该做什么。

So you started capturing huge amounts of data. I think this is like half the data from just one telescope.

所以你们开始收集海量的数据。这些只是其中一台望远镜所收集的数据的一半？

Yeah, this is one of the members of our team, Lindy Blackburn,

是的，这是我们小组的一员，林迪·布莱克本，

and he's sitting with half the data recorded at the Large Millimeter Telescope, which is atop a 15,000-foot mountain in Mexico.

在他旁边的是大型毫米波望远镜记录下的一半的数据，这架望远镜位于墨西哥一座近5000米高的山上。

And what he's holding there is about half a petabyte.

他手上拿着的数据大约有拍字节的一半。

Which, to put it in terms that we might understand, it's about 5,000 people's lifetime selfie budget.

用易于想象的东西来比喻的话，大约能存放5千人一辈子的自拍照。

It's a lot of data. So this was all shipped, you couldn't send this over the internet.

数据非常多。所以只能通过线下运输，你们没办法在互联网上传输。

All this data was shipped to one place and the massive computer effort began to try and analyze⁴ it.

所有的数据都被运送到一个地方，然后计算机开始解析这些数据。

And you didn't really know what you were going to see coming out of this.

当时你并不知道最终的结果是什么样的。

The way this technique works that we used --

我们是这么工作的。

imagine taking an optical mirror and smashing it and putting all the shards⁵ in different places.

想象打碎一面镜子，然后把所有的碎片四散开来。

The way a normal mirror works is the light rays bounce off the surface,

普通镜子的工作原理是通过镜面反射，

which is perfect, and they focus in a certain point at the same time.

所有的光在同时聚焦在某个特定的点。

We take all these recordings⁶, and with atomic clock precision we align⁷ them perfectly, later in a supercomputer.

我们有了所有的数据，在原子钟精度的帮助下，我们将这些数据准确输入超级计算机。

And we recreate kind of an Earth-sized lens. And the only way to do that is to bring the data back by plane.

然后我们重构了一个地球大小的透镜。只能通过飞机运送数据。

1 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 wavelength   

n.波长

参考例句：

• The authorities were unable to jam this wavelength.当局无法干扰这一波长。
• Radio One has broadcast on this wavelength for years.广播1台已经用这个波长广播多年了。

4 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

5 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

6 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

7 align   

vt.使成一线，结盟，调节；vi.成一线，结盟

参考例句：

• Align the ruler and the middle of the paper.使尺子与纸张的中部成一条直线。
• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals.有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。