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When we used to ask the question, "Are we alone?"
以前我们问“我们是孤独的吗？”的时候，
We used to ask the priests and the philosophers.
总会去问牧师或哲学家。
We used to ask them, "What should we believe?"
我们曾问他们“我们应该相信什么？”
But what any of us believe isn't going to change the way the Universe is.
但我们所相信的东西并不能改变这个宇宙的本质。
And so, the appropriate thing is to do a scientific exploration, to go and try and find out what is.
所以，合适的做法是进行科学探索，搞明白它到底是什么。
We want to know how we stack up against the cosmos.
我们想知道自己如何与宇宙对抗。
Are we unique? Are we one of many?
我们是独一无二的吗？还是芸芸众生中的一员？
And if we are one of many, how intelligent are we relative to something else out there?
如果我们只是芸芸众生中的一员，那与其他生物相比，我们的智商有多高？
Welcome to the Berkeley Forum.
欢迎来到伯克利论坛。
We're so lucky to be starting off this season with Dr. Jill Tarter tonight.
今晚，我们很幸运能够与吉尔博士开启本季的内容。
In 2004, she was named one of the "Time 100 Most Influential People in the World."
2004年，她被授予“时代周刊全球100位最具影响力人物”的头衔。
She has served as the President of the California Academy of Sciences.
她担任加州科学院院长一职。
She has an astroid named after her.
有一颗星球是以她命名的。
So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Jill Tarter to the stage.
话不多说，我们有请吉尔·塔特博士。
Thanks, Charlie. All right, are the mics working?
谢谢你，查理。好，麦克风没问题吧？
Yeah. Good.
没有。很好。
My name is Jill Tarter. My title is Emeritus Director of SETI Research.
我是吉尔·塔特。我是SETI研究的名誉主任。
I'm often introduced as being the woman who was the inspiration for Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster in the movie "Contact."
经常有人介绍我的时候说就是我启发了艾莉·阿萝薇，在《超时空接触》中，这一角色由朱迪·福斯特扮演。
18 hours, 36 minutes, 56.2 seconds.
18个小时，36分钟，56.2秒。
I was back visiting Cornell for some symposium.
那时候我回到了康奈尔大学参加一些研讨会。
When I got there, Ann Druyan, Carl's wife, and Carl took me off to the corner.
到那儿的时候，卡尔的妻子安·德鲁杨把我带到一边。
And Ann said, "Carl's writing a science fiction book. I think you might recognize one of the characters, but I think you're gonna like her."
安说，卡尔正在写一本科幻小说，我觉得你可能认识其中一个角色，而且你会喜欢她的。
Carl sent me a pre-publication copy.
小说出版前，卡尔先给我寄了一本。
I was going, "Wait, wait, Carl doesn't know this about me. How did he, how, how?"
我当时觉得，“等等等等，卡尔并不了解我的这些事情，他是怎么，怎么？”
And it turns out, when I was a fresh Ph.D., I got invited to a meeting in Washington, and I walked into a room of 80 female Ph.D.s in all kinds of STEM fields- life-changing experience for me.
原来我刚成为博士的时候，受邀去华盛顿参加一个会议，我走进了一个房间，那里面有80名STEM各个领域的女性博士，那次经历改变了我的一生。
I told Carl about this meeting and we did a little bit of amateur demographics, and it turned out that many of those women had their fathers die when they were young, just like me.
我跟卡尔说了这次经历，我们做了一些不专业的人口统计，结果发现这里面有很多女性跟我一样，都是幼年丧父。
When I was about eight years old, I was down in the Florida Keys.
大约八岁的时候，我住在佛罗里达群岛。
And I remember one night walking along the edge of the Gulf, holding my dad's hand and looking up in the sky, and seeing these magnificent stars.
我记得一天晚上，我和父亲在海湾散步，我牵着他的手仰望夜空，看到了那些壮观的星空。
And I just had this idea that on some planet around one of those stars, there would be a creature walking along the edge of an ocean with their parent.
我当时觉得，在这些星星中的某一个星球上，有一个生物也跟他们的父母一起在海边散步。
And I don't know what set of circumstances led me to have that particular worldview, but it's been with me for a long time.
我不知道是什么东西让我产生了那种世界观，但这个想法在我脑海中久久挥之不去。
And I said, "Okay, I'm gonna be an engineer."
那时我说“好吧，我要成为一名工程师。”
Then, sadly, my dad died a couple of years later.
然后可惜的是，我爸爸几年后就去世了。
And I had told my dad I was gonna be an engineer, and then I just got stubborn about it.
而我已经跟爸爸说过要当一名工程师，所以我便坚持着这个初心。
That was it. I've never had any other job except thinking about life beyond earth.
就这样，除了思考地球外的生物外，我从来没做过其他工作。
Over my career, we have discovered planets around other stars, exoplanets.
在我的职业中，我们发现了其他星球周围的行星，也就是外星行星。
When we started, we only knew about nine in our solar system.
开始的时候，我们只知道太阳系中九个这样的行星。
And then we demoted one of those.
然后我们还让其中一颗降级了。
But now we know that in the Milky Way galaxy, there are more planets than there are stars.
但现在我们知道，在银河系中，行星的数量比恒星还多。
And additionally, we now know about organisms that we call "extremophiles"- forms of life living in environments which, when I was a student, I was taught, utterly no chance, that's gonna be sterile.
此外，现在我们知道被称为“极端微生物”的有机体——上学的时候，学校告诉我们环境中的这种生命形式绝不可能拥有生殖能力。
No reason to look for life there. But of course, life is there.
往这个方向去寻找生命是毫无意义的。但其实，它是有生命的。
And now, it makes it just seem natural to ask the question, 'Well, with all that potentially habitable real estate out there, is any of it actually inhabited?'
现在，人们会很自然地会问这样一个问题：“那么，有那么多可能适合居住的地方，其中真的有某个地方有生物吗？”
SETI, the acronym, is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence- but that's actually a misnomer.
SETI这个首字母缩写指的是“搜寻地外文明”--但这个说法其实并不妥。
We don't know how to define intelligence.
我们不知道该如何定义文明。
We certainly don't know how to detect it at a distance.
自然也就不知道该如何远程探测到它。
What we can perhaps do is find evidence of someone else's technology that is detectable over these vast distances between the stars.
也许我们能做的事情之一，就是在遥远辽阔的恒星中，找到其他生物的技术存在的证据。
We've been looking for electromagnetic radiation, signals either at radio wavelengths or at optical wavelengths, but we're specifically looking for the kinds of signals that, as far as we know, nature can't produce, but our technologies do it all the time.
我们一直在寻找电磁辐射、无线电波长或光学波长的信号，但我们需要特别寻找一种据我们所知，大自然无法产生，但我们的技术会产生的信号。
