TED演讲：这是我们最后的世纪吗？(视频+文本）

英语自学网

         Martin Rees asks: Is this our final century?
        　　Speaking as both an astronomer and "a concerned member ofthe human race," Sir Martin Rees examines our planet and itsfuture from a cosmic perspective. He urges action to preventdark consequences from our scientific and technological development.
        　　Martin Rees, one of the world's most eminent astronomers, is a professor of cosmology andastrophysics at the University of Cambridge and the UK's Astronomer Royal. He is one of our keythinkers on the future of humanity in the cosmos.
        　　Speakers Martin Rees: Astrophysicist
        　　Why you should listen to him:
        　　Sir Martin Rees has issued a clarion call for humanity. His 2004 book, ominously titled Our FinalHour, catalogues the threats facing the human race in a 21st century dominated byunprecedented and accelerating scientific change. He calls on scientists and nonscientists alike totake steps that will ensure our survival as a species.
        　　One of the world's leading astronomers, Rees is a professor of cosmology and astrophysics atCambridge, and UK Astronomer Royal. Author of more than 500 research papers on cosmologicaltopics ranging from black holes to quantum physics to the Big Bang, Rees has received countlessawards for his scientific contributions. But equally significant has been his devotion to explaining thecomplexities of science for a general audience, in books like Before the Beginning and Our CosmicHabitat.
        　　"It is Sir Martin's eminent position as a leading cosmologist, studying the Universe, its birth andultimate fate, which makes his new pronouncements both important and thought-provoking."——BBC
        　　If you take 10,000 people at random, 9,999 have something in common: their interests inbusiness lie on or near the Earth's surface. The odd one out is an astronomer, and I am one of thatstrange breed. (Laughter) My talk will be in two parts. I'll talk first as an astronomer, and then as aworried member of the human race. But let's start off by remembering that Darwin showed howwe're the outcome of four billion years of evolution. And what we try to do in astronomy andcosmology is to go back before Darwin's simple beginning, to set our Earth in a cosmic context.
        　　And let me just run through a few slides. This was the impact that happened last week on a comet. If they'd sent a nuke, it would have been rather more spectacular than what actually happenedlast Monday. So that's another project for NASA. That's Mars from the European Mars Express, and at New
        　　Year. This artist's impression turned into reality when a parachute landed on Titan, Saturn's giantmoon. It landed on the surface. This is pictures taken on the way down. That looks like a coastline. It is indeed, but the ocean is liquid methane -- the temperature minus 170 degrees centigrade. Ifwe go beyond our solar system, we've learned that the stars aren't twinkly points of light. Eachone is like a sun with a retinue of planets orbiting around it. And we can see places where stars areforming, like the Eagle Nebula. We see stars dying. In six billion years, the sun will look like that. Andsome stars die spectacularly in a supernova explosion, leaving remnants like that.
        　　On a still bigger scale, we see entire galaxies of stars. We see entire ecosystems where gas is beingrecycled. And to the cosmologist, these galaxies are just the atoms, as it were, of the large-scaleuniverse. This picture shows a patch of sky so small that it would take about 100 patches like it tocover the full moon in the sky. Through a small telescope, this would look quite blank, but you seehere hundreds of little, faint smudges.
        　　Each is a galaxy, fully like ours or Andromeda, which looks so small and faint because its light hastaken 10 billion light-years to get to us. The stars in those galaxies probably don't have planetsaround them. There's scant chance of life there -- that's because there's been no time for thenuclear fusion in stars to make silicon and carbon and iron, the building blocks of planets and of life. We believe that all of this emerged from a Big
        　　Bang -- a hot, dense state. So how did that amorphous Big Bang turn into our complex cosmos?
            
            

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        　　I'm going to show you a movie simulation 16 powers of 10 faster than real time, which shows apatch of the universe where the expansions have subtracted out. But you see, as time goes on ingigayears at the bottom, you will see structures evolve as gravity feeds on small, denseirregularities, and structures develop. And we'll end up after 13 billion years with something lookingrather like our own universe. And we compare simulated universes like that -- I'll show you a bettersimulation at the end of my talk -- with what we actually see in the sky. Well, we can trace thingsback to the earlier stages of the Big Bang, but we still don't know what banged and why it banged.
        　　That's a challenge for 21st-century science. If my research group had a logo, it would be thispicture here: an ouroboros, where you see the micro-world on the left -- the world of the quantum -- and on the right the large-scale universe of planets, stars and galaxies. We know our universesare united though -- links between left and right. The everyday world is determined by atoms, howthey stick together to make molecules. Stars are fueled by how the nuclei in those atoms reacttogether. And, as we've learned in the last few years, galaxies are held together by the gravitationalpull of so-called dark matter: particles in huge swarms, far smaller even than atomic nuclei. Butwe'd like to know the synthesis symbolized at the very top. The micro-world of the quantum isunderstood. On the right hand side, gravity holds sway.
        　　Einstein explained that. But the unfinished business for 21st-century science is to link togethercosmos and micro-world with a unified theory -- symbolized, as it were, gastronomically at the topof that picture.
        　　(Laughter) And until we have that synthesis, we won't be able to understand the very beginning ofour universe because when our universe was itself the size of an atom, quantum effects couldshake everything.
        　　And so we need a theory that unifies the very large and the very small, which we don't yet have. One idea, incidentally -- and I had this hazard sign to say I'm going to speculate from now on -- isthat our Big Bang was not the only one. One idea is that our three-dimensional universe may beembedded in a high-dimensional space, just as you can imagine on these sheets of paper.
        　　You can imagine ants on one of them thinking it's a two-dimensional universe, not being aware ofanother population of ants on the other. So there could be another universe just a millimeter awayfrom ours, but we're not aware of it because that millimeter is measured in some fourth spatialdimension, and we're imprisoned in our three. And so we believe that there may be a lot more tophysical reality than what we've normally called our universe -- the aftermath of our Big Bang. Andhere's another picture. Bottom right depicts our universe, which on the horizon is not beyondthat, but even that is just one bubble, as it were, in some vaster reality. Many people suspect thatjust as we've gone from believing in one solar system to zillions of solar systems, one galaxy tomany galaxies, we have to go to many Big Bangs from one Big Bang, perhaps these many BigBangs displaying an immense variety of properties.
        　　Well, let's go back to this picture. There's one challenge symbolized at the top, but there's anotherchallenge to science symbolized at the bottom. You want to not only synthesize the very large andthe very small, but we want to understand the very complex. And the most complex things areourselves, midway between atoms and stars. We depend on stars to make the atoms we're madeof. We depend on chemistry to determine our complex structure. We clearly have to be large, compared to atoms, to have layer upon layer of complex structure. We clearly have to be small, compared to stars and planets -- otherwise we'd be crushed by gravity. And in fact, we aremidway. It would take as many human bodies to make up the sun as there are atoms in each ofus. The geometric mean of the mass of a proton and the mass of the sun is 50 kilograms, within afactor of two of the mass of each person here. Well, most of you anyway. The science ofcomplexity is probably the greatest challenge of all, greater than that of the very small on the leftand the very large on the right. And it's this science, which is not only enlightening ourunderstanding of the biological world, but also transforming our world faster than ever. And morethan that, it's engendering new kinds of change.
        　　And I now move on to the second part of my talk, and the book "Our Final Century" wasmentioned. If I was not a self-effacing Brit, I would mention the book myself, and I would add thatit's available in paperback.
        　　(Laughter)
        　　And in America it was called "Our Final Hour" because Americans like instant gratification.
        　　(Laughter)
            
            

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        　　But my theme is that in this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, butin new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps evenimplants into our brains, may change human beings themselves. And human beings, theirphysique and character, has not changed for thousands of years. It may change this century. It'snew in our history. And the human impact on the global environment -- greenhouse warming, mass extinctions and so forth -- is unprecedented, too. And so, this makes this coming century achallenge. Bio- and cybertechnologies are environmentally benign in that they offer marvelousprospects, while, nonetheless, reducing pressure on energy and resources. But they will have adark side. In our interconnected world, novel technology could empower just one fanatic, or someweirdo with a mindset of those who now design computer viruses, to trigger some kind ondisaster. Indeed, catastrophe could arise simply from technical misadventure -- error rather thanterror. And even a tiny probability of catastrophe is unacceptable when the downside could be ofglobal consequence.
        　　In fact, some years ago, Bill Joy wrote an article expressing tremendous concern about robotstaking us over, etc. I don't go along with all that, but it's interesting that he had a simple solution. Itwas what he called "fine-grained relinquishment." He wanted to give up the dangerous kind ofscience and keep the good bits. Now, that's absurdly naive for two reasons. First, any scientificdiscovery has benign consequences as well as dangerous ones.
        　　And also, when a scientist makes a discovery, he or she normally has no clue what the applicationsare going to be. And so what this means is that we have to accept the risks if we are going toenjoy the benefits of science. We have to accept that there will be hazards. And I think we have togo back to what happened in the post-War era, post-World War II, when the nuclear scientistswho'd been involved in making the atomic bomb, in many cases were concerned that they shoulddo all they could to alert the world to the dangers.
        　　And they were inspired not by the young Einstein, who did the great work in relativity, but by theold Einstein, the icon of poster and t-shirt, who failed in his scientific efforts to unify the physicallaws. He was premature. But he was a moral compass -- an inspiration to scientists who wereconcerned with arms control. And perhaps the greatest living person is someone I'm privileged toknow, Joe Rothblatt. Equally untidy office there, as you can see. He's 96 years old, and hefounded the Pugwash movement. He persuaded Einstein, as his last act, to sign the famousmemorandum of
        　　Bertrand Russell. And he sets an example of the concerned scientist. And I think to harness scienceoptimally, to choose which doors to open and which to leave closed, we need latter-daycounterparts of people like Joseph Rothblatt.
        　　We need not just campaigning physicists, but we need biologists, computer experts andenvironmentalists as well. And I think academics and independent entrepreneurs have a specialobligation because they have more freedom than those in government service, or companyemployees subject to commercial pressure. I wrote my book, "Our Final Century," as a scientist, just a general scientist. But there's one respect, I think, in which being a cosmologist offered aspecial perspective, and that's that it offers an awareness of the immense future. The stupendoustime spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture -- outside the American
        　　Bible Belt, anyway -- (Laughter) but most people, even those who are familiar with evolution, aren'tmindful that even more time lies ahead.
        　　The sun has been shining for four and a half billion years, but it'll be another six billion years beforeits fuel runs out. On that schematic picture, a sort of time-lapse picture, we're halfway. And it'll beanother six billion before that happens, and any remaining life on Earth is vaporized. There's anunthinking tendency to imagine that humans will be there, experiencing the sun's demise, but anylife and intelligence that exists then will be as different from us as we are from bacteria. Theunfolding of intelligence and complexity still has immensely far to go, here on Earth and probablyfar beyond. So we are still at the beginning of the emergence of complexity in our Earth andbeyond. If you represent the Earth's lifetime by a single year, say from January when it was madeto December, the21st-century would be a quarter of a second in June -- a tiny fraction of the year. But even in thisconcertinaed cosmic perspective, our century is very, very special, the first when humans canchange themselves and their home planet.
        　　As I should have shown this earlier, it will not be humans who witness the end point of the sun; itwill be creatures as different from us as we are from bacteria. When Einstein died in 1955, onestriking tribute to his global status was this cartoon by Herblock in the Washington Post. Theplaque reads,
        　　"Albert Einstein lived here." And I'd like to end with a vignette, as it were, inspired by this image. We've been familiar for 40 years with this image: the fragile beauty of land, ocean and clouds, contrasted with the sterile moonscape on which the astronauts left their footprints. But let'ssuppose some aliens had been watching our pale blue dot in the cosmos from afar, not just for 40 years, but for the entire 4.5 billion-year history of our Earth. What would they have seen? Overnearly all that immense time,
            
            

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        　　Earth's appearance would have changed very gradually. The only abrupt worldwide change wouldhave been major asteroid impacts or volcanic super-eruptions. Apart from those brief traumas, nothing happens suddenly.
        　　The continental landmasses drifted around. Ice cover waxed and waned. Successions of newspecies emerged, evolved and became extinct. But in just a tiny sliver of the Earth's history, thelast one-millionth part, a few thousand years, the patterns of vegetation altered much faster thanbefore.
        　　This signaled the start of agriculture. Change has accelerated as human populations rose. Thenother things happened even more abruptly. Within just 50 years -- that's one hundredth of onemillionth of the Earth's age -- the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to rise, andominously fast.
        　　The planet became an intense emitter of radio waves -- the total output from all TV and cell phonesand radar transmissions. And something else happened.
Metallic objects -- albeit very small ones, a few tons at most -- escaped into orbit around the Earth. Some journeyed to the moons and planets. A race of advanced extraterrestrials watching our solarsystem from afar could confidently predict Earth's final doom in another six billion years. But couldthey have predicted this unprecedented spike less than halfway through the Earth's life? Thesehuman-induced alterations occupying overall less than a millionth of the elapsed lifetime andseemingly occurring with runaway speed? If they continued their vigil, what might thesehypothetical aliens witness in the next hundred years? Will some spasm foreclose Earth's future?
        　　Or will the biosphere stabilize? Or will some of the metallic objects launched from the Earth spawnnew oases, a post-human life elsewhere?
        　　The science done by the young Einstein will continue as long as our civilization, but for civilization tosurvive, we'll need the wisdom of the old Einstein -- humane, global and farseeing. And whateverhappens in this uniquely crucial century will resonate into the remote future and perhaps farbeyond the Earth, far beyond the Earth as depicted here. Thank you very much.
        　　(Applause)
            
            

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        　　如果你随机挑选出10000个人，其中的9999个人会有如下共性：他们对商业的兴趣显而易见余下的那位怪人是天文学家，而我就是这个奇特物种中的一员。（笑声）我的发言将分为两部分。首先作为一个天文学家发言之后作为人类社会中忧心忡忡的一员让我们首先回顾达尔文所指出的：我们人类只是40亿年进化的产物。我们进行天文学和宇宙学研究要做的就是回溯到达尔文的理论原点将我们的地球置于宇宙的背景中。
        　　请允许我展示几张图片。这是发生在上周的一次撞击彗星实验。倘若他们发射的是颗核弹的话，其景象将会更加壮观。图片显示的是上周一的实景。那是NASA（美国国家航空航天局）的又一个项目。这张是在新年时由欧洲“火星快车号”探测器拍到的火星。艺术家的创想变成了现实，当一个着陆装置降落在土星的巨大的卫星泰坦（土卫六）上。它降落在土卫六的表面。这张图片拍摄于着陆途中。那些看起来像是海岸线。
        　　它们确实是，但“海洋”是液态的甲烷 - 温度是零下170摄氏度。如果我们放眼到太阳系之外，我们已经知道恒星并不是不断眨眼的光点。每一颗恒星都像太阳，伴有若干行星环绕。我们可以看到恒星形成的区域像天鹰星云（M16）。我们还能看到衰竭的恒星。六十亿年后，太阳将变成这样。有些恒星在壮观的超新星爆发中消亡，遗留下这样的残余。
        　　在更大的范围里，我们看到恒星组成的星系。我们看到完整的生态系统，看到气体被回收利用。对于宇宙学家来说，这些星系只不过是组成大规模宇宙空间的原子。这张照片展示了一小片天空，它是如此之小，需要用大约100块同样尺寸拼接在一起才能遮住天空中的满月。用台稍小的天文望远镜，这个区域看似空无一物。但是现在你能看到这里有成百个微小的暗淡色块。每个都是一个星系，类似我们的银河系或仙女星系。它们看似微小和暗淡是因为它们发出的光经历了上百亿光年才到达这里。那些星系中的恒星可能没有行星环绕。存在生命的可能性甚微 - 因为在那无足够的时间允许恒星进行核聚变，产生行星和生命所必需的构造元素，如硅、碳和铁等。我们相信所有这一切都源于一次大爆炸 - 一个极热、极密态。那么，那个无定形的大爆炸是如何演变成我们复杂的宇宙的呢？
        　　我将播放一段模拟影片，播放速度是实际时间的10的16次方倍速，演示宇宙的一小部分如何在膨胀中延展开来。你可以看到，底部显示的时间以十亿年为单位，随着引力逐渐作用于细微的不均匀密度分布，空间物质结构缓慢地演化出来。于是在历经130亿年之后大致有形似我们的宇宙般的结构显露出来。这样可以供我们对两者进行比较 - 在我的发言结束时我会向大家展示一个更好的模拟 - 用我们实际从天空看到的样子。好吧，我们可以追溯到大爆炸后的早期场景，但我们仍然不知道到底是什么爆炸了以及为什么会爆炸。
            
            

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        　　那将是21世纪科学面临的挑战。如果我的研究小组要选择个徽标的话，将会是这张图片：一条首尾相连的环形衔尾蛇，在左边是微观世界 - 即量子世界 - 而在右边是宏观的宇宙包括行星，恒星和星系。我们知道宇宙万物是联系在一体的 - 这张图片的左边连结到右边寻常世界决定于原子，即它们是如何结合在一起组成分子。恒星利用原子核的相互作用来提供燃料。我们近年来已了解到星系也是由所谓的暗物质的引力作用连系在一起。暗物质粒子比原子核要小很多，且大量密集。但是我们还需了解图上部的结合体（即蛇吞尾）的象征意义。微观的量子世界已被了解。右边的宏观世界中引力支配一切，爱因斯坦也已给出了解答。而二十一世纪科学尚需完成的任务是将宏观宇宙和微观量子世界用一个统一理论联系起来 - 正如在图的上部以美食的角度所象征的那样。（笑声）在我们找到那样的统一理论之前，我们无法理解宇宙最开端时的情况，因为当宇宙的尺度同一个原子大小相仿时，量子效应可以摧毁一切。
        　　所以我们需要一个将极大和极小统一起来的理论，目前我们还没能找到。顺便提一句，有一个想法是 - 我用这个警示标识表明我在此开始进行的是推测 - 即我们最初的大爆炸并非唯一的一个。我们的三维宇宙，可能是嵌入在一个更高维度的空间里，就像你可以想象一下这几张纸。其中一张纸上的蚂蚁认为纸就是它们的二维宇宙，而它无从知晓其它纸张（二维宇宙）上的别的蚂蚁。所以可能存在另一个宇宙，距离我们的只有一毫米远，但我们却不能感知它，因为那一毫米距离是某个四维空间维度的尺寸，而我们被禁锢在我们的三维空间里。所以我们相信应该有更多的物理事实存在于我们通常称为宇宙的地方之外。而宇宙是大爆炸的产物。这里有另一张图片。在其右下角描述的是我们的宇宙，也就是远端众多泡沫中的一个，但那也不过是更广阔现实中的一个泡沫。很多人猜想随着我们开始相信不止有一个太阳系而是有无数的其他类太阳系，不止有一个银河系而是有很多其他星系，我们甚至应该考虑不止有一个大爆炸而是许多大爆炸。或许这许多大爆炸展示出极其多样的物理特性。
        　　好吧，让我们回到这张图片。在其上部有一个符号化了的科学挑战。而在其下部同样有一个符号化了的科学挑战。除了用理论来一统极大和极小两个世界，我们还要理解其中的复杂性。而宇宙中最复杂的东西就是我们自己，我们处于原子和恒星之间。我们依赖恒星制造组成我们身体的各类原子。我们依赖化学反应来决定我们的复杂结构。相对于原子来说，我们是庞大的，具有多层的复杂结构；相对于恒星和行星来说，我们又是微小的，否则会被引力压垮。事实上，我们处于中间。要用每个人体内的原子数目那么多的人数加在一起才能达到太阳的质量级。太阳质量和质子质量的几何平均数是50千克，和在座的每个人的体重是一个数量级。当然，至少是大多数人对人的复杂性的科学研究可能是最具挑战的，比图左边的微观世界和图右边的宏观世界都更具挑战性。正是这样的科学研究，不仅在启迪我们对生物世界不断加深了解，而且也在更加快速地转变着我们的世界。以至于还产生了全新的改变。
        　　现在我将进入我演讲的第二部分，前面有人已提到了“我们最后的世纪”这本拙作。如果我不是一个谦逊的英国人的话，我会自己提到这本书，而且还会告诉大家它有平装版。
        　　（笑声）
        　　在美国这本书被称作“我们最后的一小时”因为美国人更注重及时行乐。（笑声）
        　　我的主旨是在最近这个世纪里，科学不仅比以往更快地改变着世界，而且以新的与以往不同的方式。定向药物，基因改良，人工智能，甚至大脑植入等等新科技将改变人类自身的样子。而人类的体型和性格等物理特质近千年来都保持着不变。在本世纪中改变即将来临。这将是历史的新的一页。同时人类给全球环境带来的冲击 - 温室效应，大规模杀伤武器等等 - 也是史无前例的。因此，新世纪将是人类面临的挑战。生物和网络技术为更好的改变环境提供了美妙的前景，得以减轻我们在能源方面的压力。但是它们也有其负面性。在如今相互连通的世界里，新奇的科技将使得一个狂热分子，或者若干个精神状态古怪的人能编制计算机病毒，造成某种程度上的灾难。确实的是，仅仅是技术事故都将导致严重的灾难 - 灾难往往是无心而为的结果。而当后果可能是全球性的灾难时，哪怕是非常小的概率也是无法被接受的。
        　　事实上在几年前，比尔乔伊在一篇文章中表达了对机器人将取代我们的极大关注，等等。我并不完全同意他的观点，但让人感兴趣的是他给出了一个简单的解决方案。他称之为精选的放弃。他想要做的是有选择地保留那些好的科技，而放弃那些可能导致危险的。然而，两个理由可以说明这是很幼稚的。第一，任何科学发现都有其有益的后果，也有其危险的一面。其二，当一个科学家做出一项发现时，他/她通常并不知道会产生哪些应用。所以这意味着我们不得不承担风险如果我们希冀于享受科技带来的利益。我们不得不接受科技可能带来危害。在这里让我们回顾一下战后发生的事情，在二战后，当那些参与研制原子弹的科学家们一直关切地认为他们应该尽其所能地警告世界核武器的危险性。
            
            

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        　　他们所受的启发并非来自于年轻时的爱因斯坦 - 即发明相对论时的他 - 而是老年时的爱因斯坦，他的招牌式海报和T恤衫，老年的他未能实现统一物理定律的愿望。他的理论尚未成熟。但是他却是一个道德楷模 - 激励着那些关心进行军备控制的科学家们。我有幸认识也许是尚在世的最伟大的人之一 - 乔洛特布拉德。正如你看到的那样，他的办公室也很凌乱。他已经96岁了，正是他发起了帕格沃什运动。他成功地劝说爱因斯坦最终在著名的伯特兰·罗素备忘录上签字。他也为有责任心的科学家们树立了楷模。我认为如果想最好地驾驭科学，也就是说选择开启哪些门而不去碰哪些门，我们需要当代的像乔帕格沃什这样的科学家。
        　　我们不仅需要参加竞选的物理学家，还需要有生物学家，计算机专家和环境保护者们共同参与。我认为专业学者和无党派企业家们有着特殊的义务，因为他们和政府部门工作人员或者那些有商业压力的公司雇员们相比有着更大的自由度。我以一个科学家的身份写的“我们最后的世纪”这本书，一个普通意义上的科学家。但是作为一个宇宙学家我同时也有着一个特别的视角，也就是对更广阔未来的洞察力。进化发展的巨大时间跨度现在已经是人类的共识 - 至少是超出了美国圣经带地区- （笑声）但是大多数人，就算是那些熟悉进化理论的人，也常常会忽视有更多的时间摆在我们的前面。
        　　太阳已经照耀了45亿年，直到它的燃料耗尽还会有60亿年的时间。在这张时间似乎是永恒的图解上，我们处于中途。还有60亿年时间地球上的一切生命才会蒸发。人们总是不加考虑地认为那时人类还会存在，去见证太阳的终结，事实上如果那时尚存智慧生命的话也会和我们有极大的不同，就像我们和细菌之间的不同。智能生命和复杂性的演变还有更远的路要走，不止在地球上，还在更遥远的地方。所以我们只是处在复杂性演变的开端，在地球上和地球之外。如果用一年来代表地球的整个历史进程，也就是说把地球诞生视为一月直到它毁灭为十二月， 21世纪相当于六月份中四分之一秒的时间 - 这象征性的一年中的短短一瞬。然而就算是从这一特殊视角来看，我们现在的世纪也是非常非常特殊的。它是首个人类可以改变自身和其家园的世纪。
        　　我前面曾指出的一点是，人类将不能见证太阳的最后生命时刻，那时的生物与我们的差别将和我们现在与细菌间的差别一样悬殊。当爱因斯坦在1955年去世时，一部漫画被用来表达对他全球地位的特别敬意，漫画作者是华盛顿邮报的赫布洛克。漫画中的文字是：“爱因斯坦曾生活在这里”。受这张漫画的启发，我用下面的文字来结束我的发言。四十年来我们已熟悉了这幅图片：柔美的陆地，海洋和云层与贫瘠的月面形成对比，而宇航员已在月面留下了足迹。让我们假想某些外星生物一直在观察着我们的暗蓝小点（地球），它们在遥远的某处，不只观察了四十年，而是历经地球发展史的整个45亿年。它们会看到过哪些景象呢？在几乎整个漫长的时间流逝中，地球表面的景象变化非常缓慢。仅有的全球范围的剧烈变动不过是由大的陨石撞击或超级火山喷发所引起。除去这些剧烈变动，一切都发生的较为平缓。
        　　大陆板块缓慢地漂移。冰盖交替覆盖和消融。新的物种交替产生，进化直至灭绝。但在地球历史的短短一瞬，其百万分之一的时间部分，也就不过是近几千年里，植被产生了比以往快得多的变化。这标志着人类农业的开端。变化随着人类人口数量的增加而加快了速度。接下来某些更加显著的变化发生了。在短短的50年时间里 - 那不过是地球年纪的一亿分之一 - 大气中的二氧化碳含量开始升高，而且是噩兆般的快速。地球开始发射出强烈的电磁波 - 其来源是所有的电视，手机和雷达信号传输。另外还有一些景象出现了。金属物体 -尽管个头不大，最多重几吨 - 被发射到了地球的轨道中（指人造卫星）。有些甚至被发射到月球或其他行星。地球外的高等生物在遥远的地方观察我们的太阳系的话，可以肯定地预期在60亿年的时间内地球将毁灭。但是他们是否能预期这种不到地球寿命的一半时发生的史无前例的生命活动高潮呢？这些由人类主导的改变虽然只是发生在生命历程中的不到百万分之一的时段内，却有着惊人的改变速度。如果他们持续地监视下去，这些假想中的外星生物将会在今后的一百年当中看到些什么呢？会否在一阵发作中丧失了地球的未来？又或者整个生物圈稳定下来？再或者由一些从地球发射出的金属物体将人类生命后的新的绿洲传播到其它地方？
        　　由年轻的爱因斯坦所做出的科学研究将随着人类文明的发展而持续下去。但是人类文明若想得以持续存在，我们需要老年爱因斯坦般的智慧 - 仁爱，全球观和远见卓识。在这个至为关键的世纪里无论发生什么都将在遥远的未来产生共鸣，而且可能远远超出地球的范围，远远超出在这里所描述的地球。非常感谢。
        　　（掌声）