One of the most remarkable aspects of the human brain is its ability to recognize patterns and describe them.
人脑最神奇的功能之一就是识别出模式并把其描述出来的能力。
Among the hardest patterns we've tried to understand is the concept of turbulent flow in fluid dynamics.
流体动力学里湍流的概念就是我们探求过的最艰深的模式之一。
The German physicist Werner Heisenberg said, 'When I meet God, I'm going to ask him two questions: why relativity and why turbulence?
德国物理学家维尔纳·海森伯格曾说，“如果我碰到上帝，我会问他两个问题：为什么创造相对论？为什么创造湍流？
I really believe he will have an answer for the first.'
我相信他会对前者有个解释。”
As difficult as turbulence is to understand mathematically, we can use art to depict the way it looks.
因为用数学去理解湍流太困难，我们可以用艺术来描绘它的样子。
In June 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted the view just before sunrise from the window of his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence,
1899年6月，文森特·梵高在他位于普罗旺斯圣雷米的圣保罗疗养院的房间里，透过窗户画下了日出前的景象。
where he'd admitted himself after mutilating his own ear in a psychotic episode.
在一次精神病发作中，他自残耳朵，之后便自愿进入了该疗养院。
In 'The Starry Night,' his circular brushstrokes create a night sky filled with swirling clouds and eddies of stars.
在《星夜》中，他旋转的画笔创造了一个满是旋转的星云的夜空。
Van Gogh and other Impressionists represented light in a different way than their predecessors,
梵高和其他印象派画家对光线的表达采用了不同于前辈们的方法，
seeming to capture its motion, for instance, across sun-dappled waters,
他们好似能捕捉光线的动感，比如通过波光粼粼的水面表现光的跃动，
or here in star light that twinkles and melts through milky waves of blue night sky.
又如在《星夜》里用深蓝夜空中乳白色的波动来表现星星的闪烁。
The effect is caused by luminance, the intensity of the light in the colors on the canvas.
这种效果源于亮度的不同，即画布上不同颜色反光强度的不同。
The more primitive part of our visual cortex, which sees light contrast and motion, but not color,
我们视觉皮层中较初级的部分能区分光强以及感知光的运动但不能感知颜色，
will blend two differently colored areas together if they have the same luminance.
所以如果两个不同颜色的色块有相同的亮度，就会被混在一起。
But our brains' primate subdivision will see the contrasting colors without blending.
可是我们大脑中的灵长类部分能把不同颜色区分开来。
With these two interpretations happening at once, the light in many Impressionist works seems to pulse, flicker and radiate oddly.
当这两种功能同时发生，印象派的画作便流光溢彩地闪烁、跳跃了起来。
That's how this and other Impressionist works use quickly executed prominent brushstrokes to capture something strikingly real about how light moves.
梵高等印象派画家就是这样用犀利的笔触捕捉了光的动感，使得画作栩栩如生。

Sixty years later, Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov furthered our mathematical understanding of turbulence
六十年后，俄国数学家安德雷·柯尔莫哥洛夫推进了我们对湍流的数学理解，
when he proposed that energy in a turbulent fluid at length R varies in proportion to the 5/3rds power of R.
他提出：长度为R的湍流的能量与R的三分之五次幂成正比。
Experimental measurements show Kolmogorov was remarkably close to the way turbulent flow works,
实验测量显示柯尔莫哥洛夫的结果与湍流的实际运动规律极其近似，
although a complete description of turbulence remains one of the unsolved problems in physics.
然而，物理学界至今也未能完全地描述湍流。
A turbulent flow is self-similar if there is an energy cascade.
湍流是在不同能级上是自相似的。
In other words, big eddies transfer their energy to smaller eddies, which do likewise at other scales.
也就是说，大的涡流会把能量传给小的涡流，后者只是前者的缩小版。
Examples of this include Jupiter's Great Red Spot, cloud formations and interstellar dust particles.
这样的例子包括：木星的大红斑、云的形成以及星际尘埃。
In 2004, using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists saw the eddies of a distant cloud of dust and gas around a star,
2004年，通过哈勃太空望远镜，科学家观测到一颗遥远恒星周围的气体和尘埃云，
and it reminded them of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night.'
这让他们想到了梵高的《星夜》。
This motivated scientists from Mexico, Spain and England to study the luminance in Van Gogh's paintings in detail.
受到启发的墨西哥、西班牙和英国科学家们决定详细地研究梵高画作中的亮度。
They discovered that there is a distinct pattern of turbulent fluid structures close to Kolmogorov's equation hidden in many of Van Gogh's paintings.
他们发现，梵高的许多画作中都隐藏着显著的与柯氏方程相近的湍流结构的模式。
The researchers digitized the paintings, and measured how brightness varies between any two pixels.
研究者们把画作数字化，然后测量不同像素间的亮度差异。
From the curves measured for pixel separations,
从反应像素分离的曲线中
they concluded that paintings from Van Gogh's period of psychotic agitation behave remarkably similar to fluid turbulence.
他们得出结论，梵高精神焦虑时期的画作中表现出了与湍流极其相似的特性。
His self-portrait with a pipe, from a calmer period in Van Gogh's life, showed no sign of this correspondence.
他病情较稳定时期的那副拿着烟斗的自画像则并未出现类似现象。
And neither did other artists' work that seemed equally turbulent at first glance, like Munch's 'The Scream.'
其他艺术家那些第一眼看起来像是有湍流的作品亦是如此，比如蒙克的《尖叫》。
While it's too easy to say Van Gogh's turbulent genius enabled him to depict turbulence,
虽然我们不能就这样说梵高具有描绘湍流的天赋，
it's also far too difficult to accurately express the rousing beauty of the fact that in a period of intense suffering,
但是有一个美丽的事实同样难以解释清楚：在极度的痛苦中，
Van Gogh was somehow able to perceive and represent one of the most supremely difficult concepts nature has ever brought before mankind,
梵高不可思议地认识并表现出一种在人类之前就已出现的极其深奥的概念，
and to unite his unique mind's eye with the deepest mysteries of movement, fluid and light.
并用他独特的想象力去感受流光动影的终极秘密。