If you look deep into the night sky, you see stars,
抬头仰望夜空，你会看到星星。
and if you look further, you see more stars, and further, galaxies, and further, more galaxies.
如果你看得远一些，你会看到更多的星星，再远一些，你会看到星系，更远一些，你会看到更多的星系。
But if you keep looking further and further, eventually you see nothing for a long while,
但是如果你一直看下去，最终会有一段时间内你什么也看不到，
and then finally you see a faint, fading afterglow, and it's the afterglow of the Big Bang.
最终你会看到一阵微弱的，若隐若现的余辉，那是宇宙大爆炸的余辉。
Now, the Big Bang was an era in the early universe when everything we see in the night sky was condensed into an incredibly small,
大爆炸时期是宇宙的早期，那时候我们现在能看到的夜空中的一切还是一团极小的、
incredibly hot, incredibly roiling mass, and from it sprung everything we see.
极热的、滚滚的东西，而从那里产生了我们现在看得到的一切。
Now, we've mapped that afterglow with great precision, and when I say we, I mean people who aren't me.
如今，我们已经能够非常精确地测绘这个余辉，当我说“我们”的时候，其实并不包括我。
We've mapped the afterglow with spectacular precision, and one of the shocks about it is that it's almost completely uniform.
我们极其精确地测绘了这个余辉，其中一个让人非常震惊的发现是，它几乎是完全一致的。
Fourteen billion light years that way and 14 billion light years that way, it's the same temperature.
往这边140亿光年，往那边140亿光年，都是一样的温度。
Now it's been 14 billion years since that Big Bang, and so it's got faint and cold.
如今从大爆炸以来，130亿年已经过去了，它已经变得微弱、寒冷。
It's now 2.7 degrees. But it's not exactly 2.7 degrees. It's only 2.7 degrees to about 10 parts in a million.
现在是2.7度。但它并不是确切的2.7度。只有大约百万分之十的部分是2.7度。
Over here, it's a little hotter, and over there, it's a little cooler,
这边稍微热一些，那边稍微冷一些，
and that's incredibly important to everyone in this room, because where it was a little hotter, there was a little more stuff,
而这对在座的每一位都非常重要，因为那些稍微热一点的地方有更多的东西，
and where there was a little more stuff,
而有更多东西的地方，
we have galaxies and clusters of galaxies and superclusters and all the structure you see in the cosmos.
则有星系、星系团和超星系团，以及你在宇宙中看到的所有其他东西。
And those small, little, inhomogeneities, 20 parts in a million,
而那些小小的不均匀的东西，百万分之二十的部分，
those were formed by quantum mechanical wiggles in that early universe that were stretched across the size of the entire cosmos.
是由量子力学的作用形成的，是整个宇宙体系的早期宇宙。
That is spectacular, and that's not what they found on Monday; what they found on Monday is cooler.
这非常震撼，不过他们星期一发现的不是这个，他们星期一的发现更震撼。
So here's what they found on Monday: Imagine you take a bell, and you whack the bell with a hammer.
接下来我要讲的就是他们星期一的发现：想象一口钟，你用锤子敲了一下这口钟。
What happens? It rings. But if you wait, that ringing fades and fades and fades until you don't notice it anymore.
发生了什么？它发出了响声。但是如果你等着，这个响声会退去，慢慢退去，直到你完全听不见。

Now, that early universe was incredibly dense, like a metal, way denser, and if you hit it, it would ring,

早期的宇宙非常的致密，像一块金属，不过致密得多，如果你敲它，它会发出响声，
but the thing ringing would be the structure of space-time itself, and the hammer would be quantum mechanics.
发出的响声就是时空架构，而用的锤子就是量子力学。
What they found on Monday was evidence of the ringing of the space-time of the early universe,
他们星期一的发现就是找到了早期宇宙的时空响声的证据，
what we call gravitational waves from the fundamental era, and here's how they found it.
我们称之为引力波，它来自于一个非常重要的时期，他们是这样发现的。
Those waves have long since faded. If you go for a walk, you don't wiggle.
那些引力波早就已经退去了。如果你去散步，你不会晃来晃去。
Those gravitational waves in the structure of space are totally invisible for all practical purposes.
这些宇宙中的引力波在现实中是完全感受不到的。
But early on, when the universe was making that last afterglow,
但是在早期，也就是当宇宙在形成它的余辉时，
the gravitational waves put little twists in the structure of the light that we see.
这些引力波在我们所能看到的光的结构中加了点小漩涡。
So by looking at the night sky deeper and deeper, in fact, these guys spent three years on the South Pole
所以通过反复观察夜空，事实上，这些人在南极花了三年的时间，
looking straight up through the coldest, clearest, cleanest air they possibly could find looking deep into the night sky
抬头仰望夜空，那里有他们能找到的最寒冷、清澈和干净的大气，他们抬头仰望夜空
and studying that glow and looking for the faint twists
并研究那个余辉，寻找引力波的印迹，
which are the symbol, the signal, of gravitational waves, the ringing of the early universe.
也就是那些微弱的漩涡，早期宇宙的响声。
And on Monday, they announced that they had found it.
星期一，他们宣布他们找到了。
And the thing that's so spectacular about that to me is not just the ringing, though that is awesome.
最让我震惊的不只是这个响声，虽然这也非常棒。
The thing that's totally amazing, the reason I'm on this stage, is because what that tells us is something deep about the early universe.
最让我震惊的是，也是我在这个台上的原因，因为这告诉了我们更多关于早期宇宙的东西。
It tells us that we and everything we see around us are basically one large bubble
它告诉我们，我们周围看到的一切其实就是一个大泡泡，
and this is the idea of inflation— one large bubble surrounded by something else.
这也是宇宙暴涨理论认为的--一个被其他东西围绕的大泡泡。
This isn't conclusive evidence for inflation, but anything that isn't inflation that explains this will look the same.
这并不足以证明宇宙暴涨理论，不过任何试图解释此现象的非宇宙暴涨理论看上去也会差不多。
This is a theory, an idea, that has been around for a while, and we never thought we we'd really see it.
这是一个理论，一个想法，它已经存在了一段时间了，我们从来没有想过我们会真的看到它（被证明的一天）。
For good reasons, we thought we'd never see killer evidence, and this is killer evidence.
这是有原因的，因为我们觉得我们永远不会找到有说服力的证据，而这就是非常有说服力的证据。
But the really crazy idea is that our bubble is just one bubble in a much larger, roiling pot of universal stuff.
但是更疯狂的是，我们的泡泡只是一个更大的滚滚宇宙中的其中一个泡泡。
We're never going to see the stuff outside,
我们永远看不到外面的泡泡，
but by going to the South Pole and spending three years looking at the detailed structure of the night sky,
但是去南极并在那里待上三年，研究夜空的具体构成，
we can figure out that we're probably in a universe that looks kind of like that.
我们会发现我们大概就处在一个看上去像这样的宇宙里边。
And that amazes me. Thanks a lot.
而这让我震撼不已。非常感谢。