评论
打印
Suppose we’re working with aliens who live near Alpha Centauri to build a wormhole teleporter, so we can go visit them - for dinner, or interstellar diplomacy, or whatever.
假设我们正在与居住在半人马座阿尔法星（Alpha Centauri ）附近的外星人合作，建造一个虫洞（连接黑洞和白洞的时空隧道）传送器，这样我们就可以因晚餐，或者星际外交，或者其他任何事情去拜访他们。
Of course, we’ll need to be able to talk with them about what to make each side of the portal out of, how big to make the various pieces, and so on.
当然，我们需要能够与他们讨论如何制作入口站点的每一端，制作各种部件的尺寸有多大，等等。
But since we’ve never been to Alpha Centauri, and they’ve never been here, this is tricky
但由于我们从未去过半人马座阿尔法星，他们也从未到过这里，这很棘手
–I mean, if you tell me to make you an arc that’s 300 cubits long, and I don’t know what a cubit is, you’ll probably get an arc that’s not exactly what you were hoping for .
--我的意思是，如果你让我画一条300 腕尺长的弧线，而我不知道一腕尺是什么，你可能会得到一条并不完全是你所期待的弧线。
So we’ll have to build, from the ground up, an easily sharable way of communicating about the universe, where distances and such are based on ideas, rather than specific artifacts.
因此，我们必须从头开始，建立一种关于宇宙的易于共享的沟通方式，其中距离是基于想法，而不是特定的人工制品。
We’d probably start with basic materials, you know, like how instead of sending a vial with a chunk of lithium in it across interstellar space, we can just say “use the atom that has 3 protons, 3 neutrons, and 3 electrons."
我们可能会从基本的材料开始，比如，我们可以说“使用有3个质子、3个中子和3个电子的原子”，而不是把装有一大块锂的小瓶送到星际空间。
Water would be “the molecule that’s a combination of one atom with 8 protons and two atoms with 1 proton.” And so on.
水是指“一个原子和8个质子的结合，以及两个原子和1个质子的结合”。以此类推。
Once we have materials down, we can do clocks
一旦我们有了材料，我们就可以做时钟了
– we just tell the aliens that if they take the atom with 55 protons and 78 neutrons , make it emit a photon of light in a certain way, and wait for that photon to oscillate 9,192,631,770 times: that’s what we call one second.
-我们只是告诉外星人，如果他们拿着一个有55个质子和78个中子的原子，让它以某种方式发出光子，然后等待那个光子振荡9,192,631,770次:这就是我们所说的一秒。
Once we have clocks, we can do distances: just tell the aliens to see how far light goes in one 299,792,458th of a second –that’s what we call a meter.
一旦我们有了时钟，我们就可以计算距离：只需告诉外星人看看光在299,792,458秒内走了多远-这就是我们所说的米。
But this is when we would run into a massive roadblock – literally.
但这就是我们会遇到巨大路障的时候--真的是这样。
Pretty much the rest of our communication about the universe requires knowing what mass is,
我们关于宇宙沟通在很大程度上需要知道质量是什么，
and what we currently call a kilogram isn’t an idea we can just tell distant aliens, the way we can say “the atom with 3 protons”.
而我们现在所说的千克并不是一个我们可以只告诉遥远的外星人的想法，就像我们可以说“有3个质子的原子”一样。
A kilogram is just a particular lump of metal sitting in a particular room in a particular place on our planet ,
一千克只是放在我们星球上特定地方的特定房间里的一块特定的金属，
and if you want to know how many kilograms of say, antimatter, you have, you have to take it there and weigh them against each other .
如果你想知道你有多少千克的反物质，你必须把它拿到那里，然后把它们相互比较。
In the very near future, we’re going to settle on a more sensible way of talking about mass,
在不久的将来，我们将决定用一种更明智的方式来谈论质量，
so instead of saying “in order to build this teleporter you have to come to the part of earth with good cheese so we can show you our shiny lump of metal,” ,
所以我们不会说“为了建造这个传送器，你必须带着上美味的奶酪来到地球的那部分，这样我们就可以向你展示我们闪亮的金属块。”
we’ll either be telling the aliens to just get a pile of something like 21.5253873 septillion of the atom that has 14 protons and 14 neutrons,
我们要么告诉外星人，只需要得到一堆大约21.5253873的百万分之一的原子，这个原子有14个质子和14个中子，
or we’ll tell them to weigh how much mass an atom or molecule loses after emitting a photon of light that oscillates roughly 135.6392534 septillion septillion times each second. And use E equals mc squared.
我们要么告诉他们称一个原子或分子在每秒振荡大约 135.6392534次的光子后损失了多少质量。使用E等于mc的平方。
One of these two concepts will be our new kilogram.
这两个概念中的一个是新千克。
Whichever way it is, once we have our new way of communic ating about mass as an idea instead of an object, we’ll be able to build our wormhole teleporter with the alpha centaurians.
无论如何，一旦我们有了一种新的沟通方式，将质量作为一个想法而不是一个物体，我们就可以和半人马座阿尔法星人一起建造我们的虫洞传送机。
And then we can bring them here to earth, have dinner, and afterwards, show them the chunk of metal that used to be THE THING that we used to talk about the mass of all other things.
然后我们可以把他们带到地球上，吃晚饭，然后，给他们看那块金属，那曾经是我们谈论过的所有其他东西的质量。
