定制学 L8-U3-P3 The History of Our World

写在前面

原视频来自 TED 讲座 David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes, March 2011，字幕 (subtitle) 参考自官方网站。

注：本文在字幕基础上会有一些笔者个人的笔记，而且字幕会根据笔者听记和具体课程内容进行修改，如有错误敬请告知。

Introduction: Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

导言: 通过一段令人惊叹的演示，David Christian 在引人入胜的 18 分钟里向我们讲述了从宇宙大爆炸到互联网时代的完整宇宙史，这就是 “大历史”。演讲者尝试从宏观的角度看待复杂性、生命、人性，以及人类在宇宙时间线上那点微不足道的跨度，试图给我们带来启发。

Video 1

本节共 1 小节，时长 01:52。

First, a video.

Yes, it is a scrambled egg.

But as you look at it, I hope you'll begin to feel just slightly uneasy.

Because you may notice that what's actually happening is that the egg is unscrambling itself.

And you'll now see the yolk and the white have separated.

And now they're going to be poured back into the egg.

And we all know in our heart of hearts that this is not the way the universe works.

scrambled egg 炒蛋
uneasy adj. (对某事正确与否) 不确信的，(对做某事) 没有把握的；不安的，心神不宁的；(状态或关系) 不稳定的
unscramble v. 使 (信息、信号等) 恢复原状，解码；整理，使 ... 条理化，理清
in one's heart of hearts 在某人内心深处

A scrambled egg is mush -- tasty mush -- but it's mush.

An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing that can create even more sophisticated things, such as chickens.

And we know in our heart of hearts that the universe does not travel from mush to complexity.

And, in fact, this gut instinct is reflected in one of the most fundamental laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy.

What that says basically is that the general tendency of the universe

is to move from order and structure to lack of order, lack of structure -- in fact, to mush.

And that's why that video feels a bit strange.

mush n. 糊状物；多愁善感的作品 v. 把 ... 碾碎
gut instinct 直觉 instinct n. 本能；天性，天分；直觉 gut adj. 直觉的，感性的，非理性的 n. 肠；内脏；(非正式、常用复数) 胆量；(非正式) 肚腩 v. 摧毁 (建筑物的) 内部；取出 ... 的内脏 (以便烹饪)
law /lɔː/ n. (科学) 定律，(自然) 规律；(行为) 准则，(组织的) 戒律；法律，法规；法学；法律行业
thermodynamics /ˌθɜːrmoʊdaɪˈnæmɪks/ n. 热力学
entropy /ˈentrəpi/ n. (热力学) 熵，体系混乱程度的度量；混乱无序的状态

And yet, look around us.

What we see around us is staggering complexity.

Eric Beinhocker estimates that in New York City alone, there are some 10 billion SKUs, or distinct commodities, being traded.

That's hundreds of times as many species as there are on Earth.

And they're being traded by a species of almost seven billion individuals,

who are linked by trade, travel, and the Internet into a global system of stupendous complexity.

staggering adj. 非常惊人的 (very surprising)
commodity /kəˈmɑːdəti/ n. 商品；日用品
stupendous /stuːˈpendəs/ adj. 令人震惊的；惊人般巨大的 (surprisingly impressive or large)

此处第三条中的 Eric Beinhocker 是一名来自英国的经济学家，著有 The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics (简称《财富的起源》) 一书，并在该书中阐述了复杂经济学这一经济学框架。
此处第三条中的 SKU 指 Stock Keeping Unit (库存单位)，每一款商品或服务都要对应唯一的 SKU。

Video 2

本节共 2 小节，时长 06:05。

So here's a great puzzle:

In a universe ruled by the second law of thermodynamics,

how is it possible to generate the sort of complexity I've described,

the sort of complexity represented by you and me and the convention center?

Well, the answer seems to be, the universe can create complexity, but with great difficulty.

In pockets, there appear what my colleague, Fred Spier, calls "Goldilocks conditions":

not too hot, not too cold, just right for the creation of complexity.

convention n. 大会；习俗，惯例；公约
in (one's) pocket 在 (某人的) 控制下，在 (某人的) 影响范围内；在口袋里
goldilocks /ˈɡoʊldɪlɑːks/ n. 金凤花

此处第六条中的 goldilocks 源于一名美国传统童话角色 “金凤花姑娘”，由于她喜欢一些不好不坏、不多不少的东西，所以常常被用来比喻 “刚刚好” 的事物。

And slightly more complex things appear.

And where you have slightly more complex things, you can get slightly more complex things.

And in this way, complexity builds stage by stage.

Each stage is magical because it creates the impression of something utterly new appearing almost out of nowhere in the universe.

We refer in big history to these moments as threshold moments.

And at each threshold, the going gets tougher.

The complex things get more fragile, more vulnerable;

the Goldilocks conditions get more stringent,

and it's more difficult to create complexity.

utterly adv. (表强调) 完全地，彻底地
out of nowhere 凭空出现
fragile /ˈfrædʒl/ adj. 脆弱的；易碎的 fragility /frəˈdʒɪləti/ n. 脆弱；易碎性；虚弱的状态
stringent /ˈstrɪndʒənt/ adj. (法律、规定或条件) 严格的；银根紧缩的

Now, we, as extremely complex creatures, desperately need to know this story of how the universe creates complexity despite the second law,

and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility.

And that's the story that we tell in big history.

But to do it, you have to do something that may, at first sight, seem completely impossible.

You have to survey the whole history of the universe.

So let's do it.

Let's begin by winding the timeline back 13.7 billion years, to the beginning of time.

survey /sərˈveɪ/ v. 调查，审视，勘测，房屋鉴定 /ˈsɜːrveɪ/ n. 调查，勘测，房屋鉴定
wind back 卷回，倒回，倒 (带)，倒转回

Around us, there's nothing.

There's not even time or space.

Imagine the darkest, emptiest thing you can

and cube it a gazillion times and that's where we are.

And then suddenly, bam! A universe appears, an entire universe. And we've crossed our first threshold.

The universe is tiny; it's smaller than an atom. It's incredibly hot.

It contains everything that's in today's universe, so you can imagine, it's busting.

And it's expanding at incredible speed.

cube v. 使变成原来的三次方；将 (食物) 切成方块 n. 立方体；立方，三次方
gazillion n. 极巨大的数量
bust v. 突然分解，突然破裂，突然受损；打破，猛烈打击，破坏；突袭 n. 突袭行动；半身像 adj. 破产的

And at first, it's just a blur, but very quickly distinct things begin to appear in that blur.

Within the first second, energy itself shatters into distinct forces including electromagnetism and gravity.

And energy does something else quite magical: it congeals to form matter,

quarks that'll create protons and leptons that include electrons.

And all of that happens in the first second.

blur n. 模糊不清的轮廓，模糊不清的区域 v. (使) 变模糊
electromagnetism /ɪˌlektroʊˈmæɡnətɪzəm/ n. 电磁；电磁学
congeal v. 凝固，凝结
lepton n. 轻子，轻粒子，一种不参与强相互作用、自旋为 1/2 的基本粒子；(希腊货币单位) 雷普顿 (等同于 1/100 德拉克马)

Now we move forward 380,000 years.

That's twice as long as humans have been on this planet.

And now simple atoms appear of hydrogen and helium.

planet n. 行星；地球 (尤指生存环境)
hydrogen /ˈhaɪdrədʒən/ n. 氢 helium /ˈhiːliəm/ n. 氦

Now I want to pause for a moment,

380,000 years after the origins of the universe, because we actually know quite a lot about the universe at this stage.

We know above all that it was extremely simple.

It consisted of huge clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms, and they have no structure.

They're really a sort of cosmic mush.

But that's not completely true.

Recent studies by satellites such as the WMAP satellite have shown that, in fact, there are just tiny differences in that background.

What you see here, the blue areas are about a thousandth of a degree cooler than the red areas.

These are tiny differences, but it was enough for the universe to move on to the next stage of building complexity. And this is how it works.

此处第一条中的 WMAP 指 Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (威尔金森微波各向异性探测器)，它是 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 美国国家航空航天局) 的人造卫星，用于观测宇宙微波背景辐射的微小变化。

Gravity is more powerful where there's more stuff.

So where you get slightly denser areas, gravity starts compacting clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms.

So we can imagine the early universe breaking up into a billion clouds.

And each cloud is compacted, gravity gets more powerful as density increases,

the temperature begins to rise at the center of each cloud,

and then, at the center, the temperature crosses the threshold temperature of 10 million degrees,

protons start to fuse, there's a huge release of energy, and -- bam! We have our first stars.

From about 200 million years after the Big Bang, stars begin to appear all through the universe, billions of them.

And the universe is now significantly more interesting and more complex.

compact v. 把 ... 紧紧压在一起；使紧密，使压缩，使简洁 adj. (东西) 小巧的；(人) 矮小结实的
break up 分开，分解，分散；分手；解散，散会，放假 break down 出现故障，垮掉，中止；失败，破裂，分解；捣毁，破除
fuse v. 熔合，融合，结合 n. 导火线；保险丝
star n. 恒星；星星，星状物；星号；星级 v. (使) 担任主演；标注星号

Stars will create the Goldilocks conditions for crossing two new thresholds.

When very large stars die, they create temperatures so high

that protons begin to fuse in all sorts of exotic combinations, to form all the elements of the periodic table.

If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring, it was forged in a supernova explosion.

exotic adj. 奇异的；异国的，外来的；异国情调的
forge v. 锻造；努力地缔造；伪造；稳步移动 n. 可以锻造的地点

So now the universe is chemically more complex.

And in a chemically more complex universe, it's possible to make more things.

And what starts happening is that, around young suns, young stars,

all these elements combine, they swirl around, the energy of the stars stirs them around,

they form particles, they form snowflakes, they form little dust motes, they form rocks,

they form asteroids, and eventually, they form planets and moons.

And that is how our solar system was formed, four and a half billion years ago.

Rocky planets like our Earth are significantly more complex than stars because they contain a much greater diversity of materials.

So we've crossed a fourth threshold of complexity.

sun n. 恒星；太阳；阳光，日光，太阳的光和热 asteroid n. 小行星 moon n. 行星的天然卫星；月亮
mote n. 尘埃，微粒

Video 3

本节共 2 小节，时长 04:21。

Now, the going gets tougher.

The next stage introduces entities that are significantly more fragile, significantly more vulnerable,

but they're also much more creative and much more capable of generating further complexity.

I'm talking, of course, about living organisms.

Living organisms are created by chemistry. We are huge packages of chemicals.

So, chemistry is dominated by the electromagnetic force.

That operates over smaller scales than gravity, which explains why you and I are smaller than stars or planets.

Now, what are the ideal conditions for chemistry?

What are the Goldilocks conditions? Well, first, you need energy, but not too much.

In the center of a star, there's so much energy that any atoms that combine will just get busted apart again.

But not too little.

In intergalactic space, there's so little energy that atoms can't combine.

What you want is just the right amount, and planets, it turns out, are just right, because they're close to stars, but not too close.

intergalactic /ˌɪntərɡəˈlæktɪk/ adj. 星系间的

You also need a great diversity of chemical elements, and you need liquids, such as water. Why?

Well, in gases, atoms move past each other so fast that they can't hitch up.

In solids, atoms stuck together, they can't move.

In liquids, they can cruise and cuddle and link up to form molecules.

hitch up 系上，系住，栓上，栓住，钩住；拉起，向上拉；(俚语) 结婚
cruise v. 以平稳的速度行驶；巡航；漫游，乘船游览，开车兜风
cuddle v. (亲切地、充满感情地) 搂抱，拥抱，怀抱 n. 拥抱 hug v. 拥抱，抱住；紧靠，紧贴 embrace v. (充满爱意或出于敬意地) 拥抱；欣然接受；囊括 n. 拥抱；欣然接受

Now, where do you find such Goldilocks conditions?

Well, planets are great, and our early Earth was almost perfect.

It was just the right distance from its star to contain huge oceans of liquid water.

And deep beneath those oceans, at cracks in the Earth's crust,

you've got heat seeping up from inside the Earth, and you've got a great diversity of elements.

So at those deep oceanic vents, fantastic chemistry began to happen, and atoms combined in all sorts of exotic combinations.

crust n. 地壳，(坚硬) 外壳；面包皮，馅饼皮，坚硬外皮
oceanic /ˌoʊʃiˈænɪk/ adj. 海洋的
vent n. 通风口，排气孔，烟囱的烟道，地壳裂缝处的火山口，小动物的肛门；情感发泄；服饰的开衩部位 (尤指上衣两旁或背部的开衩) v. 表达，发泄，吐露 (强烈感情)；给 ... 提供排放口，使空气进入 ... give (full) vent to one's feeling 某人 (充分地) 表达或宣泄情绪

But of course, life is more than just exotic chemistry.

How do you stabilize those huge molecules that seem to be viable?

Well, it's here that life introduces an entirely new trick.

You don't stabilize the individual;

you stabilize the template, the thing that carries information, and you allow the template to copy itself.

viable adj. 能正常发育的，可存活的；可行的

And DNA, of course, is the beautiful molecule that contains that information.

You'll be familiar with the double helix of DNA. Each rung contains information.

So, DNA contains information about how to make living organisms.

And DNA also copies itself.

So, it copies itself and scatters the templates through the ocean.

So the information spreads. Notice that information has become part of our story.

helix n. 螺旋，螺旋形
rung n. 梯级，阶梯的一级，椅子的横档 v.(+n) (ring 的过去分词) (使) 响起铃声；给 ... 打电话；(优美的声音) 回响，回荡

The real beauty of DNA though is in its imperfections.

As it copies itself, once in every billion rungs, there tends to be an error.

And what that means is that DNA is, in effect, learning.

It's accumulating new ways of making living organisms because some of those errors work.

So DNA's learning and it's building greater diversity and greater complexity.

And we can see this happening over the last four billion years.

in effect (强调看似不同但效果相同) 实际上 in fact (强调陈述内容的准确) 实际上

For most of that time of life on Earth, living organisms have been relatively simple -- single cells.

But they had great diversity, and, inside, great complexity.

Then from about 600 to 800 million years ago, multi-celled organisms appear.

You get fungi, you get fish, you get plants, you get amphibia, you get reptiles, and then, of course, you get the dinosaurs.

fungi pl. (fungus 的复数) 菌类；真菌，霉菌；蘑菇 (真菌的一种)
amphibia n. 两栖 (qī) 类，两栖纲 amphibian n. 两栖动物；水陆两用的交通工具

And occasionally, there are disasters.

65 million years ago, an asteroid landed on Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula,

creating conditions equivalent to those of a nuclear war, and the dinosaurs were wiped out.

Terrible news for the dinosaurs, but great news for our mammalian ancestors,

who flourished in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs.

And we human beings are part of that creative evolutionary pulse that began 65 million years ago with the landing of an asteroid.

peninsula /pəˈnɪnsələ/ n. 半岛
wipe out 消灭，彻底摧毁，使灭绝
mammalian adj. 哺乳类的
niche n. 合适的位置；壁龛 (kān)，(尤指山体的) 天然凹陷处 niche market 有利可图的市场

此处第二条中的 Yucatan Peninsula (尤卡坦半岛) 位于墨西哥湾与加勒比海之间，周围地带有众多玛雅文化的遗迹。
此处需要注意，虽然演讲者没有展开说明，但是其阐述的恐龙灭绝的因果链 “陨石撞击→恶劣环境→恐龙灭绝→哺乳类繁荣” 中每一条因果关系都不是唯一对应或强对应的，例如恶劣环境可能是加速恐龙灭绝的条件，但不一定是唯一的或主要的原因，而恐龙灭绝除了使哺乳类繁荣外，也可能使得其他物种得到发展。

Video 4

本节共 2 小节，时长 04:55。

Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago.

And I believe we count as a threshold in this great story. Let me explain why.

We've seen that DNA learns in a sense, it accumulates information. But it is so slow.

DNA accumulates information through random errors that just -- some of which just happen to work.

But DNA had actually generated a faster way of learning: it had produced organisms with brains, and those organisms can learn in real time.

They accumulate information, they learn.

The sad thing is, when they die, the information dies with them.

in real time 实时地，即时地

Now what makes humans different is human language.

We are blessed with a language, a system of communication, so powerful and so precise

that we can share what we've learned with such precision that it can accumulate in the collective memory.

And that means it can outlast the individuals who learned that information, and it can accumulate from generation to generation.

And that's why, as a species, we're so creative and so powerful, and that's why we have a history.

We seem to be the only species in four billion years to have this gift.

be blessed with sth. 幸运地享有某物 bless v. 祝福，降福于；祈求祝福，祈求保佑
outlast v. 比 ... 活得更长久，比 ... 更持久

I call this ability collective learning. It's what makes us different.

We can see it at work in the earliest stages of human history.

We evolved as a species in the savanna lands of Africa,

but then you see humans migrating into new environments,

into desert lands, into jungles, into the Ice Age tundra of Siberia -- tough, tough environment -- into the Americas, into Australasia.

Each migration involved learning -- learning new ways of exploiting the environment, new ways of dealing with their surroundings.

savanna /sə'vænə/ n. (通常指非洲的) 热带稀树草原
tundra n. 冻土带，冻原，苔原 (树木不生、底土常年冰冻)
Australasia /ˌɔːstrəˈleɪʃə/ n. (地区名) 澳大拉西亚
exploit /ɪkˈsplɔɪt/ v. 充分利用，剥削；开发，开拓；开采 n. 英勇事迹 explore /ɪkˈsplɔːr/ v. 探索，摸索；探测，考察，勘探；探险；探讨

此处第五条中的 Siberia (西伯利亚) 是指北亚地区的一片广阔地带，在石器时代以前就有人居住在这里。在末次冰期时代 (the last Ice Age)，由于气候寒冷，全球水位较低，如今的白令海峡在当时是一片陆地，西伯利亚和阿拉斯加由此连接，对于如今的美洲原住民来说，他们的祖先大部分都是从西伯利亚通过此处到达美洲的。
此处第五条中的 Australasia 在地理上有多种定义，一般指大洋洲的部分地区，包含澳大利亚、新西兰等国和附近的太平洋岛屿。

Then 10,000 years ago, exploiting a sudden change in global climate with the end of the last ice age, humans learned to farm.

Farming was an energy bonanza.

And exploiting that energy, human populations multiplied. Human societies got larger, denser, more interconnected.

And then from about 500 years ago, humans began to link up globally through shipping, through trains, through telegraph, through the Internet,

until now we seem to form a single global brain of almost seven billion individuals.

And that brain is learning at warp speed.

And in the last 200 years, something else has happened. We've stumbled on another energy bonanza in fossil fuels.

So fossil fuels and collective learning together explain the staggering complexity we see around us.

bonanza /bəˈnænzə/ n. 鸿运，幸运，带来好运之事；富矿带
warp speed 最快的速度 warp /wɔːrp/ v. (使) 翘曲，(使) 弯曲；使 (事情等) 变得不合情理；使 (性格) 变得乖戾 wrap /ræp/ v. 用 ... 包裹，用 ... 缠绕
stumble v. 踌躇，蹒跚而行；说话结巴，说错 tumble v. 摔倒；翻滚而下；暴跌，骤降 tremble v. 发抖，战栗；焦虑

So -- here we are, back at the convention center.

We've been on a journey, a return journey, of 13.7 billion years.

I hope you agree this is a powerful story.

And it's a story in which humans play an astonishing and creative role.

But it also contains warnings.

Collective learning is a very, very powerful force, and it's not clear that we humans are in charge of it.

I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

For a few days, the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction.

And the same weapons are still here, and they are still armed.

If we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us.

We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate

that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilizations to flourish over the last 10,000 years.

So what big history can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us,

but it can also show us our power with collective learning.

biosphere n. 生物圈，地球上受到生命活动影响的所有地区 (同义: ecosphere)
be on the verge/brink of sth. 处于某事即将发生的边缘 verge n. 事物的边缘 v. 濒临，接近 brink n. (尤指悬崖峭壁的) 边缘

此处第三条中的 the Cuban Missile Crisis (古巴导弹危机) 指 1962 年 (美苏冷战期间) 美国与苏联就苏联在古巴部署导弹一事进行的政治博弈，当时美苏两方都在古巴周围尝试使用核武器威慑对方，那时人类文明空前地接近毁灭的边缘，最终以双方妥协并撤除核武器结束。

And now, finally -- this is what I want.

I want my grandson, Daniel, and his friends and his generation, throughout the world, to know the story of big history,

and to know it so well that they understand both the challenges that face us and the opportunities that face us.

And that's why a group of us are building a free, online syllabus in big history for high-school students throughout the world.

We believe that big history will be a vital intellectual tool for them,

as Daniel and his generation face the huge challenges and also the huge opportunities ahead of them

at this threshold moment in the history of our beautiful planet.

I thank you for your attention.

Grammar & Speaking

洒洒水啦～