TED - How the compass unlocked the world

Source

难点：词汇，语速

Structure

Transcript

Growing up in Missouri, they would kind of take us out into the woods, and they would give you a map, and they would give you a compass, and you had to find your way home. And without the compass, you can’t even read the map. That’s what I’m here to tell you. The compass is the key.

A compass is most simply a piece of metal that has been magnetized, so that it will turn towards the Earth’s magnetic pole. The one that we all think of is the pocket compass. It looks like a watch, right? You can hold it in your hand and watch the little needle bounce around until you find north.

Magnetism is still a pretty mysterious force to physicists, but what we do know for sure is that a compass works because the Earth is this giant magnet. And when you use a compass, you are in touch with the very center of our planet, where this kind of roiling ball of molten iron is spinning around and creating a magnetic field. Just like a magnet you can play with on your tabletop, it has a north pole and a south pole, and we use compasses to find our way north because of that fact.

The earliest known compass comes from about 200 BC in China. They figured out that some of the metal coming out of the ground was naturally magnetic, and so they fashioned this magnetized metal into this kind of ladle-looking thing, put it on a brass plate and then it would point north. It seems to have been primarily used to improve feng shui, so they could figure out what was the best way for energy to flow through their living spaces.

Sailors were probably the early adopters of the more portable versions of it, because no matter where the sun was, no matter what the condition of the stars were, they would always be able to find north.

Now, much later, the Europeans are the ones who innovate and come up with the compass rose. It essentially laid out what north, south, east and west looked like, and it also enabled you to kind of create new directions, like northwest, southeast, what have you. And for the first time, they knew where they were going. That’s kind of a big deal.

But also, I think it was part of this general reinvigoration of European science. You might know it as the Renaissance. Lots of new tools were invented, from the telescope to the microscope.

Maps got better because of compasses, right? Because then you start to understand which direction is which, you get a lot more detail, and that just kind of changes the human relationship to the world. The compass with a map is like a superpower. Everything that we think of as world history would not have taken place without the compass: the age of exploration, Magellan circumnavigating the globe, even the fact that we know it is a globe.

The compass ends up getting embedded in all these other tools, because it is such a functional object. So you might have it embedded in your multi-tool, you might have it embedded in your phone. The compass is everywhere, because it’s literally how we find our way across the face of the Earth. So you can go off and explore, and find out what is over that next hill or that next horizon, but you can also reliably find your way home.

Notes

• Missouri

  /mɪˈzʊri/ n. 密苏里（美国州名）

  

  Missouri (see pronunciations) is a state located in the Midwestern United States. It is the 21st most extensive, and the 18th most populous of the fifty states. The state comprises 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis.

• magnetize

  magnetize vt. 吸引；使磁化; vi. 磁化；受磁;
  magnetizing n. [物] 磁化; v. [物] 磁化（magnetize的ing形式）;
  magnetized adj. 已磁化的; v. 使……磁化，使……有磁性（magnetize 的过去式和过去分词）;

  magnetic adj. 有磁性的, 有吸引力的

  magnetism n. 磁性, 磁学; 个人吸引力, 个人魅力

  magnet n. 磁铁；磁石；磁体

• pocket compass /‘kʌmpəs/

  袖珍指南针

• bounce

  n. 弹力；活力；跳
  vt. 弹跳；使弹起
  vi. 弹起，反跳；弹跳；弹回 bounce around

• physicist

  /‘fɪzɪsɪst/ n. 物理学家

• roil

  vt. 搅混(液体); 使烦恼,使不安；使生气

  It’s a giant collection of clouds roiling around, lightning going on…
  它吸纳了周围紊乱的云，雷电轰鸣..

  It falls as snow. It roils in oceans. It floats gently through forests as mist.
  它像雪一样落下。它在海洋中激荡。它像薄雾般在森林中缓缓飘过。

  The immigration issue is roiling the European Union as well, and, today, Hungary intensified its crackdown.
  移民问题同样也在困扰欧盟，今天匈牙利加强了对移民的打击力度。

• molten

  adj. 熔化的；炽热的；铸造的
  v. 换毛；脱毛（molt的过去分词）

  Molten tin can get hotter than molten salt, but it cannot flow through metal pipes.
  相比熔融盐，熔融锡会产生更多的热能, 但这种材质不能在金属管道中流动。

  “Molten” is now usually used of hard materials liquified by very high heat, like lava, glass, and lead. Most other substances are “melted,” though some people like to refer to “molten cheese” and a popular dessert is called “molten chocolate cake,” perhaps to emphasize its gooey, lava-like character.

• tabletop

  n. 桌面

• fashion

  【熟词僻义】vt. 做成…的形状；使用；改变；塑造 v. make out of components (often in an improvising manner)
  “She fashioned a tent out of a sheet and a few sticks”

• ladle

  vt. 不分对象予以赠送；以杓舀取；n. 杓子；长柄杓

  

  The sour cream on the surface is carefully ladled out.
  表皮的酸奶油先被小心的舀出来。

  You take a big ladle of that masala sauce. Yep.
  你只要舀一勺香料酱。是的。

• brass plate

  铜板

• compass rose

  罗盘玫瑰

  A compass rose, sometimes called a windrose, or Rose of the Winds, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions: North, East, South, and West—and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass. Today, the idea of a compass rose is found on, or featured in, almost all navigation systems, including nautical charts, non-directional beacons (NDB), VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) systems, global-positioning systems (GPS), and similar equipment.

  

• what have you

  等等；诸如此类

• reinvigoration

  n. 重新振作

  But it’s Russia and the Russian artists who we have to thank for this reinvigoration.

  但我们必须感谢俄罗斯和俄罗斯艺术家，是他们带来了这场复兴。

  -> invigoration n. 鼓舞

  -> invigorate vt. 使生气勃勃;使精力充沛;使健壮; adj. 生气勃勃的;精力充沛的;健壮的

• The Age of Exploration

  大航海时期

• Magellan circumnavigating the globe

  麦哲伦环球航行

• horizon

  n. 地平线；眼界；范围；视野