Einstein 100 - Theory of General Relativity

@iDT字幕组 听译 by欣欣 阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦 这个天才式人物 Albert Einstein, the icon of genius 为什么这么称呼他 是因为他发现质能方程吗 Why? Because he figured out E equals MC squared? 还是因为他不爱穿袜子呢 Because he didn't like socks? 都不四 是因为他提出了科学界最具影响力的理论 Nope! Because he came up with the most powerful idea in science 那就是"广义相对论" General relativity 他的伟大发现已经诞辰一百周年了 His masterpiece is now one hundred years old 当物理家们举觞相庆时 And while the physicists are partying 我们却百思不得其解这他哔--到底是什么鬼 The rest of us are left wondering what the fuck it's all about 其实是这样的 Well, here goes 他26岁时就提出了关于时间和空间的全新理论 At 26, he figured out nothing less than a new theory of space and time 【注1】 这个理论巧妙地简化了物理学 It led to a nifty way of simplifying physics 把空间与时间融合成一个概念 By treating space and time as one thing - 四维时空 space-time 但是阿尔伯特只是在热热身而已 But Albert was just warming up 他对牛顿神秘的"地心引力"并不满意 He wasn't happy with Isaac Newton's mysterious "force of gravity" 当然了 他就开始研究自己的新理论 Naturally, he started to work on his own theory 果然 他打破了牛顿经典力学 And sure enough, he cracked it 物质的存在导致时空弯曲 Mass causes space-time to curve 事物的自然运动规律是在四维时空沿着最简单的路径前进 The natural motion of things is to follow the simplest path through space-time 但因为有质量的物体弯曲了四维时空 But since objects with mass curve space-time 事物就会朝着质量最大的物体运动 Stuff moves towards the most massive objects 这就是你平时感受到的重力 That's what you feel as gravity 让你站立于地球之上的正是弯曲的时空 It is warped space and time that's keeping your feet on the ground "扭曲空间" WARPED SPACE 这个概念太科幻而不真实了 Might sound too sci-fi to be true 我们可以测量出星光的偏折度 We can measure the bending of starlight 当它通过太阳周围的扭曲空间的时候 As it passes through the warped space around the sun "时间扭曲"听起来就更荒唐了 WARPED TIME sounds even more ridiculous 但如果把一个精准的时钟拿到楼顶 But take an accurate clock to the top of a building 你会发现它会比在平地上走得稍稍快一点 And you'll see it runs slightly quicker than one on the ground 那是因为当你远离地球中心 That's because as you move away from the central of the planet 时空的弯曲就减少了 Space and time are less warped 最神奇的是 Most amazing of all 爱因斯坦的理论告诉我们宇宙也有起源 Einstein's theory told us that our universe has a beginning 宇宙万物都是由一个炙热稠密的点 Everything is expanding out from a hot dense origin 经过138亿年的时间膨胀而成的 13.8 billion years ago 但是这就有问题了 But here's the catch 我们发现宇宙膨胀的速度超过了爱因斯坦理论的预计 We've spotted that the universe is expanding faster than Albert's theory predicts 会不会是老爱因斯坦错了呢 Could the old genius be wrong? 为了解释他的假说 我们必须假设有一种未被检测到的能量 To stick with his idea, we've had to invent a made-up energy - 暗能量 Dark energy 这是为了解释这种加速的宇宙膨胀 To account for the speedy expansion 而且我们还要假设 And we've had to assume 有另外一种外来的暗物质我们同样没有检测到 There's an exotic form of dark matter we haven't detected yet, either 宇宙中95%的物质都属于这两种未知的物质 These two unknowns should make up 95% of the universe 但是我们从未观测出他们 Yet we've never detected them 这就是让物理学家们夜里辗转反侧的头疼事 That's the sort of thing that keeps physicists awake at night 所以他们现在就在计划一些大型实验 So they're plotting some seriously big experiments 让广义相对论接受终极测验 To put Albert's theory to the ultimate test 近百年来阿尔伯特大叔伟大的理论通过了每个能做的实验 For the last hundred years Uncle Albert's great theory has passed every test possible 如果它再次通过了 物理学界就会狂欢庆祝 If it succeeds again physicists will party 如果我们发现了它的局限性 广义相对论最终被证伪 If we find its limits and it finally fails 物理学家们同样会狂欢 They'll party too 物理学家们就是这么有趣的一群人 Physicists are funny like that