电是自然界最伟大的力量之一 Electricity is one of nature's greatest forces.
到二十世纪中叶 And by the middle of the 20th century,
我们已经开始利用它进行照明和供能了 we'd harnessed it to light and power our modern world.
经过几个世纪的科学探索和发明创造 Hundreds of years of scientific discoveries
人类即将步入现代社会 and inventions brought us here.
而正是因为一位不可多得的怪才 But it would take the eccentric genius of one man
电的真正潜力才开始显露出来 to unlock the full potential of electrical power.
1943年冬天 In the winter of 1943,
尼古拉・特斯拉眺望远方 Nikola Tesla looked out
最后一次凝望着曼哈顿的天际 across the Manhattan skyline for the very last time.
特斯拉出生于一个由蒸汽驱动 靠煤气照明的年代 Tesla had been born into a world powered by steam and lit by gas.
但此刻 他看到的是一个全新的世界 But before his eyes, he saw a new world.
一个改头换面的世界 A world transformed,
一个以电为动力的世界 a world powered by electricity.
一个属于他的世界 His world.
身体虚弱 孤独寂寞 Frail, lonely
对他的爱鸽之死仍念念不忘 and still mourning the death of one of his beloved pigeons,
这位卓越非凡却又古里古怪的天才 this extraordinary and eccentric genius
知道自己的使命已经完成 knew that his life's work was done
便躺在床上 等待大限来临 and he laid back on his bed to die.
三天之后 才有人发现他的遗体 It would be three days before anyone found his body.
两个世纪前 早期的电学家发现 Just over 200 years ago, early scientists
电不仅包括简单的静电 discovered electricity could be much more than simply a static charge.
它还能以持续电流的形式存在 It could be made to flow in a continuous current.
但是 他们还将发掘出一个更为重要的事实 But they were about to discover something profound.
电与磁其实是紧密相连的 That electricity is connected to magnetism.
驾驭好电和磁的关系 Harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity
将会彻底地改变世界 would completely transform the world
让我们产生几乎无穷无尽的电能 and allow us to generate seemingly limitless amounts of electrical power.
在本集中 我们将讲述科学家和工程师 This is the story of how scientists and engineers
是如何探寻电的本质 unlocked the nature of electricity
并利用电 开拓出一个属于发明创造的新纪元的 and then used it in an extraordinary century of innovation and invention.
以及与此有关的一场 But not before one of the most shocking
极富盛名的工程竞争 engineering rivalries in history was finally laid to rest.
翻译：胡大田 女侠阿呆 夏天的小虾米 阿兹 校对：statm 女侠阿呆
第二集 百花齐放
我们的故事始于伦敦 Our story begins in London,
19世纪初 at the beginning of the 19th century,
一位年轻人把我们对电的理解 with a young man who would further our understanding of electricity
提高到了前所未有的程度 as much as any other.
1812年2月19日 On 29th of February, 1812,
年仅20岁 自学成才的装订商迈克尔・法拉第 a 20-year-old self-educated bookbinder called Michael Faraday
来到了英国皇家学院 came here to the Royal institution of Great Britain.
他的四周皆是学术界的大师巨匠 He was surrounded by the great and the good of the academic world.
而他即将听到的演讲 And he was about to listen
来自当时最伟大的科学家之一 to one of the greatest scientific minds of the age.
法拉第是一位铁匠的儿子 他在十二岁时 Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, had finished his formal education
就告别了校园生活 when he was just 12 years old.
他从没上过大学 He would never get to university.
但他并没有放弃学习 But he wasn't finished with learning,
因为他深深地着迷于科学 as he was fascinated by science.
白天 法拉第兢兢业业地工作 装订书本 Faraday worked long and hard during the day, binding books.
到了晚上 他会阅读所有他能弄到手的 But in the evenings, he'd read whatever scientific literature
科学文献 he could lay his hands on.
他热衷于学习新事物 He loved learning new things about the world
而且他有着一种持久的渴望和热情 and he had this constant desire, this passion,
去了解万事万物的规律 to understand why things were they way they were.
虽然法拉第博览群书 Reading scientific papers was one thing.
但求知若渴的他 But to really satisfy his craving for knowledge,
很希望能亲自观看科学实验 Faraday was desperate to see the experiments themselves.
法拉第终于得到了这样的机会 And he eventually got his chance
他获得了英国著名化学家 Humphry Davy爵士 when he was given a ticket to attend one of the last lectures
最后几场讲演的入场券 of England's greatest chemist of the time, Sir Humphry Davy.
青年法拉第的命运就此改变 It was to change young Faraday's life forever.
在观看了Davy的演讲之后 After watching Davy,
心怀崇拜 思绪万千的法拉第 awe inspired and full of ideas,
敲定了自己的终身事业 Faraday knew what he wanted to do with his life.
他下定决心要致力于推动科学的发展 He was determined to dedicate himself to furthering science.
而他也确实做到了 And that's just what he did.
不到一年 Davy便任命他为 Within a year, Davy had appointed him
皇家学院的助手 as an assistant at the Royal institution.
有了Davy做他的主管 With Davy as his patron and, well, his boss,
法拉第学习了有关化学的方方面面 Faraday studied all manner of chemistry.
但真正激发他做出惊天创举的 But what would inspire his greatest breakthroughs...
还是电和磁这两种看不见 摸不着的力量 were the invisible forces of electricity and magnetism.
1820年 一位丹麦科学家便研究过它们 In 1820, both were being studied by a Danish scientist,
汉斯・克里斯蒂安・奥斯特 Hans Christian Oersted,
他做出了一个惊人的发现 who'd made an extraordinary discovery.
他让电流经过一根铜棒 He passed an electric current through a copper rod
在铜棒靠近磁针时 and brought it close to a magnetic compass needle
磁针就会旋转 and saw that it made the needle rotate.
对奥斯特来说 这是一个了不起的发现 To Oersted, it was remarkable.
他有史以来第一次展示出 He'd shown, for the first time,
电流可以产生磁力 an electric current can create a magnetic force.
他把电和磁联系到了一起 He'd bound electricity and magnetism together.
而今天 我们把它称作“电磁力” Today we call it electro-magnetism.
它是自然界的基本力之一 And it's one of the fundamental forces of nature.
奥斯特的发现 Oersted's discovery sparks off a whole new
为电学研究和发明 aspect of inventive activity
打开了一个全新的领域 around and about the fields of electricity.
于是 电学实验家们马上行动起来 You can almost see electrical experimenters vying,
他们争先恐后地 competing with each other,
探索电与其他各种力之间的联系 to find new links between electricity and the other powers of nature.
在皇家学院 At the Royal institution,
法拉第正着手重做奥斯特的实验 Faraday set about recreating Oersted's work,
而这正是他功成名就的第一步 which would mark his first steps to fame and fortune.
经过严谨的观察 And through his rigorous research,
他得出结论 在电线与磁针之间 he concluded that there must be a flow of forces
必定有一股力在流动 acting between the wire and the compass needle.
他为此所设计的演示装置 The device he designed to demonstrate it
改变了历史的进程 would change the course of history.
法拉第用一块电池 几根导线 以及一个水银槽 Faraday created a circuit using a battery like this,
制作了一个电流回路 a pair of wires and a mercury bath.
电流会从这个铜架 Now, the circuit carries on through these copper posts,
流到这根自由悬挂在水银中的导线 and this wire hangs freely, it dangles into the mercury.
由于水银是良导体 Now, because mercury is such a good conductor,
所以回路是完整的 it completes the circuit.
当电流在回路中穿行时 When the current runs through the circuit...
它在导线周围产生一个圆形的磁场 ..it generates a circular magnetic force-field around the wire.
而法拉第在水银槽中间也放了一块磁铁 Now, this interacts with the magnetism from a permanent magnet
两个磁场相互作用 that Faraday had placed in the middle of the mercury.
它们一同使得导线运动 Together they forced the wire to move.
法拉第证明了这种无形的力确实存在 Faraday had proved that this invisible force really does exist
我们能直接观察到它的效果 导线的圆周运动 and he could see its effect - circular motion.
这个奇妙的装置 首次把电流转化成了持续的运动 This beautiful device was the first to convert electric current into continuous motion.
可以说 这是最早的电动机 Basically, it's the earliest ever electric motor.
法拉第决定还要更进一步 But Faraday was about to take this experiment further.
1821年 法拉第发现了电磁转体现象 One of the lasting effects of Faraday's discovery
这带来了很长远的影响 of electromagnetic rotations in 1821,
它说明 在电 磁和运动之间 was that it showed that there was a relationship of some sort
存在着某种联系 between electricity and magnetism and motion.
法拉第开始深入地研究它们的关系 Faraday explored this relationship in detail
他定下了一个更大的目标 and set himself an even more difficult challenge.
要通过磁和运动来产生电流 To use magnetism and motion to make electricity.
最终 他的专注 勤恳和毅力得到了回报 Eventually, his obsession, hard work and determination paid off.
1831年10月17日 研究有了突破 The breakthrough came on the 17th of October 1831,
当法拉第在一个线圈中 when Faraday took a magnet like this and moved it
把一块磁铁抽进抽出时 in and out of a coil of wire.
他探测到一股在线圈中流动的微弱电流 He was able to detect a tiny electric current in the coil,
从一个方向 moving one way...
变成另一个方向 ..and then the other.
法拉第知道这股电流至关重要 Faraday knew he was onto something.
几天后 A few days later,
他做了另一个等价的实验 instead of moving the magnet through the conducting wire coil,
这次 他没有把磁铁穿过线圈 he set up the equivalent experiment
而是让一个铜盘在磁场中旋转 by moving a conducting copper plate through the magnetic field.
他当时并不知道 He didn't know it at the time,
当铜盘转动 切割磁场时 but as his spinning disk cut through this magnetic field,
大量带负电的电子 billions of negatively charged electrons
偏离了它们原本的圆周轨道 were deflected from their original circular course,
开始滑向铜盘边缘 and began to drift towards the edge.
这样 铜盘的外侧会积累负电荷 A negative charge built up at the outer edge of the disk,
而铜盘中心带正电 leaving a positive charge at the centre,
把铜盘中心和边缘用导线连接 and once the disk was connected to wires,
电子就会在导线里流动 形成电流 the electrons flowed in a steady stream.
就这样 法拉第制造出了恒定的电流 Faraday had generated a continuous flow of electric current.
与电池不同 Unlike a battery,
只要铜盘在转 他的电流就是源源不断的 his current flowed for as long as his copper disk was spun.
他把机械能直接转换成了电能 He'd created electrical power directly from mechanical power.
法拉第的这个发现意义非凡 Although Faraday's discovery of conduction was extraordinarily important in its own right,
它深刻地改变了人们对电的认识 and had profound effects for the understanding of electricity
影响了后来19世纪的科技发展 and technology for the rest of the 19th century,
对于法拉第来说 这个发现 for Faraday what it did
意味着一项长达十年的伟大研究的开端 was open up a decade of powerful research,
因为它为法拉第指明了研究的方向 because it gave him a clue about how he should pursue his research.
在法拉第继续工作 While Faraday continued his work,
尝试去了解电的真正本质时 trying to understand the very nature of electricity,
欧洲的发明家们 却对科学研究不感兴趣 inventors across Europe were less interested in the science
他们更热衷于利用电来发财 and more interested in how electricity could make them money.
尤其值得我们这些后人注意的是 在当时 What's actually quite remarkable,certainly from a contemporary perspective, is that,
基本上没有人真正关心电到底是什么 by and large, nobody really seems to care very much what electricity is.
人们不会用物理理论去研究 You don't have great theoretical debates
电到底是力 还是流体 还是基本元素 或是能量 as to whether it's a force, or a fluid, or a principal, or a power.
他们真正感兴趣的是 电可以做什么 What they're really interested in is what electricity can do.
生活在蒸汽时代的法拉第 Faraday, living in a world of steam power,
即将向当时的科学界 was informing the scientific community
揭露电的本质 about the nature of electricity,
而与此同时 一种具有实用价值的电子设备 but at the same time another breakthrough
也走进了人们的视野 in how we could actually use it had been made.
这台电子设备 This would be the first device
首次让电走出了实验室 that really brought electricity out of the laboratory
走进了平常百姓的生活中 and into the hands of ordinary people.
它就是电报机 The telegraph.
要搞清电报机的原理 The key to understanding the telegraph
我们需要认识一种特别的磁铁 电磁铁 is understanding a special kind of magnet, an electromagnet.
简单地说 它是一种由电流控制的磁铁 Basically, a magnet created by an electric current.
第一块电磁铁 The first electromagnets were developed independently
分别由英国的William Sturgeon by William Sturgeon in Britain
和美国的Joseph Henry独立发明 and Joseph Henry in America.
法拉第首先发现 通过在线圈上缠绕更多导线 And just as Faraday had discovered that by coiling his wire,
在移动磁铁时 可以增加线圈中的电流 he could increase the current in it produced by the moving magnet,
而Henry和Sturgeon发现 so Henry and Sturgeon discovered
如果把通电的导线缠绕成线圈 that by adding more coils in their current carrying wires,
就可以制造出更集中的磁场 they could make a more concentrated magnetic field.
缠绕的圈数越多 磁场就越强 Basically, the more coils, the more turns, the stronger the magnet.
所以如果我给这块电磁铁通上电 So if I pass a current through this electromagnet,
我们可以清楚地看到磁场的作用 you can actually see the effects of the magnetic field.
这是一个典型的课堂实验 This is the standard school experiment
把铁屑撒在磁铁上面 of sprinkling iron filings on top of the magnet.
如果我轻轻一敲 If I give it a tap,
瞧 铁屑会顺着磁力线的方向排列 see the iron filings follow the contours of the field.
这样 我们就能直接观察到磁场的效果了 This allows us to visualise the effects of magnetism.
为了增强电磁铁的磁力 To make an electromagnet even stronger,
Henry和Sturgeon发现 Henry and Sturgeon discovered that they could place
他们可以把金属放在线圈内部 作为磁芯 certain kinds of metal inside the electromagnetic coil.
铁制磁芯的效果最好 它有种神奇的特性 The reason iron is so effective is fascinating
我们可以把这块铁芯想象成无数个小磁针 because you can think of it as being made up of lots of tiny magnets,
它们都指向任意的方向 all pointing in random directions.
现在 这还不是一块磁铁 At the moment, this is not a magnet.
它内部的小磁针 就像这些指南针一样排列 The tiny magnets inside are aligned similarly to these compass needles.
看 它们现在各自指向不同的方向 If you see, they're all pointing in different directions.
可是 如果施加一个磁场 But when you apply a magnetic field,
它们就会指向同一个方向 they all align together,
这些小磁铁的磁力合起来 they all combine, these magnets,
能让电磁铁的磁力变得更强 and cumulatively they add to the strength of the electromagnet.
于是 Henry和Sturgeon So what Henry and Sturgeon did,
把两个电磁线圈套在了马蹄铁的的两端 was place two electromagnetic coils on each arm of their horseshoe,
这样 马蹄铁的磁力就增强了许多倍 to create something that was many, many times more powerful.
这块马蹄型电磁铁的威力显而易见 And we can see the power of this horseshoe electromagnet.
把电源打开后 在上面放一些比铁屑稍微大点的东西 If I turn it on and use something slightly bigger than iron filings,
比如这些小铁块 these small pieces of iron,
你就能看到 它们立刻被强大的磁场所吸引 凝成一团 look at the strength of the magnetic field, holding them in place.
当然 我们必须记住的是 What's important to remember, of course,
这块电磁铁 is that this electromagnet only works
只有在通电时才有效 all the time there's a current passing through it.
我把电源关掉之后 As soon as I turn off the current...
磁力马上就消失了 the magnetism disappears.
早期的科学家们用电磁铁举起重物 来展示它的威力 Early experimenters showed off this power by lifting metal weights.
Henry甚至造出了一块能举起一吨半金属的电磁铁 Henry even made one big enough to lift a tonne-and-a-half of metal.
很精彩 但是并没有质的飞跃 Impressive but not world-changing.
然而 假如我们把电磁铁放在远处 But place that magnet much further away, at the end of a wire,
这样 我们就可以随时改变它的状态 and suddenly you can make something happen at your command in an instant.
这种远程操控电磁铁的能力 This ability to control a magnet at a distance,
是科学史上最有用的发现之一 is one of the most useful things we've ever discovered.
如果电的效果 If electricity can be made visible
能够不受它和电源距离的制约 a long way away from the original source of power,
即时通讯便成为了可能 then you've got a source of instantaneous communication.
19世纪40年代中期 By the middle of the 1840s,
萨缪尔・摩尔斯发明了一种通讯系统 Samuel Morse had developed a messaging system,
它靠电路的开合来发出信息 based on how long an electrical circuit was switched on or off.
一个长电波代表一划 短脉冲则代表一点 A long pulse of current for a dash, a short burst for a dot.
这个系统用简单的编码方式实现了信息的传送 This allowed messages to be sent and received by using a simple code.
维多利亚早期的评论家曾说 Contemporary early Victorian commentators
电和电报的出现 让世界变小了 reflect on the fact that electricity and the telegraph is literally making their world a smaller place.
19世纪的社会流传着一种说法 You very often get a sort of rhetoric throughout the 19th century,
人们提到电报的时候 when people are talking about the telegraph,
都会觉得 有了这样便捷的沟通方式 人们会彼此理解 about how more communication, more understanding,
不再战争 will render war obsolete,
因为我们会消除所有误会 because we'll all understand each other better.
现在看来 这些乌托邦式的想法真是太幼稚可笑了 I mean, retrospectively, it seems...hopelessly utopian.
到了19世纪中叶 By the 1850s,
欧洲与美国的陆地上 都布满了密密麻麻 Europe and America were criss-crossed
纵横交错的电报线 with land-based telegraph wires,
可是 即时的全球通信 but the dream of instant global communication
依然是一个遥不可及的梦想 was frustratingly out of reach.
原因在于 当时没有任何电缆 This was because there was still no cable
能够跨过大海 传送信息 capable of carrying messages
连接起两大强国 between two of the greatest powers on earth -
英国和美国 Britain and America.
许多专家认为 Many experts were convinced
跨越大西洋的电缆工程是不可能实现的 that a working Atlantic cable was impossible.
有些人则不同意 他们明白 一旦解决了这个问题 But those who disagreed knew that if they could solve this problem,
自己便可日进斗金 it could make them serious money.
19世纪50年代 And in the 1850s,
由美国商人投资 英国工程师参与的团队 American businessmen and British engineers
开始实现这个构想 joined forces to prove this could be done.
起初 他们毫无进展 每一次的尝试都失败了 Attempt after attempt ended in disaster.
在海浪和暴雨的侵蚀下 沉重的电缆一次次地断裂 The heavy cables kept snapping in heavy seas and storms.
最后 1858年7月29日 Finally, on 29th July 1858,
电缆的两部分终于在大西洋中部会合了 two parts of a cable were spliced together in mid-Atlantic.
因为一艘船根本无法承载整根电缆的重量 You see, a single cable was simply too big to be carried by one ship.
电缆的一端在纽芬兰 Then one end was taken to Newfoundland,
另一端在爱尔兰西南部 and the other end to south-west Ireland.
六天之后 史上第一条 Six days later, the first direct link
连接两大强国的通讯线路竣工了 between the two most powerful nations in the world was in place.
线路的铺设工程非常成功 The project was hailed a huge success
伊丽莎白女王给布坎南总统 and a formal message of congratulations
发了一封官方贺电 was sent from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan.
然而 人们还没来得及高兴 But before the celebrations were over,
就发现了一个巨大的问题 things started to go very wrong.
这是工程总监Bright的笔记本 This is Chief Engineer Bright's original notebook.
这是伊丽莎白女王当时发的电报原文 You can see here Queen Victoria's original message.
它只有98个词 发送它却花了16个小时 Now, it's only 98 words long, but it took 16 hours to transmit.
另一端的电报接收员 The telegraph operators on the other side found it very hard
无法顺利将信息解码 to decipher the message.
因为他们收到的信号 The electrical signals they were receiving
非常模糊不清 were blurred and distorted
他们不得不让对方不断地将信息重新发送 and they kept asking for words to be repeated over and over again.
这里写道 So you can see here,
“重复发送 等待接受 无信号” "Repeat after sending. Waiting to receive, no signals."
很明显 跨洋通信 Clearly, transmitting across the Atlantic
比人们预想的要复杂得多 wasn't going to be as straightforward as people had hoped.
随后的几天里 人们又发送了几百条电报 Over the next few days, several hundred messages were exchanged,
而纽芬兰的接收员们 but those arriving in Newfoundland
几乎完全无法识别出这些信息 became almost impossible to decipher,
他们收到的只是乱七八糟的点和划 just a jumbled mess of dots and dashes.
电缆的问题很严重 而且情况变得越来越糟糕 There was a serious problem with the cable and it was getting worse.
事实上 1858年的这条线路一直没有被彻底修复 Well, the 1858 cable was never fully repaired,
最后 英国工程师Wildman Whitehouse结束了这一切 and the end finally came when British engineer Wildman Whitehouse
他误认为 只要增加信号的电压 mistakenly believed that by increasing the signal voltage
就可以强行将信号送至纽芬兰 he could force the messages through to Newfoundland.
在这次错误的尝试之后 电缆就彻底坏掉了 The cable simply stopped working altogether.
在当时 用更强的电池 At the time, increasing the voltage
去增加电压是说得通的 by using more powerful batteries made sense.
很多专家认为 电流通过电缆 Most experts believed electric current
跟水流过水管是一样的 flowed through a cable, like a fluid in a pipe.
增加电缆中的电压 Increasing the voltage was the equivalent
就好比增加水管里的水压 of increasing the pressure in the system -
这样一来 电流就可以被送至另一头了 forcing the current through to the other end.
但是 电报所用的电流带有脉冲 But the telegraph was actually carrying pulses,
也就是说 在通过电缆的时候 它上下起伏 or ripples of currents along the cable,
并不是持续不变的 not a continuous stream.
电缆的长度过长时 And over long distances,
这些脉冲的变形就变得非常严重 these pulses were becoming distorted,
导致人们无法辨认出 发出的信号 making it difficult to tell what was a short dot
到底是一点还是一划 and which was a longer dash.
在研究了海底电缆的失败之后 By studying the effectiveness of underwater cabling,
科学家们开始明白 scientists were beginning to understand
电流跟水流的道理不尽相同 that electric current didn't always flow like water,
电流中还会带有电磁波 but was also creating invisible electromagnetic waves, or ripples.
这个突破性的认知 And it's this breakthrough that would lead to a new branch
让人们开始了对电磁学的探索 of research into the electromagnetic spectrum,
并解决了跨洋电报的问题 and solve the problems of the Atlantic telegraph.
可以说 跨洋电缆工程 In effect, the Transatlantic Cable
是一个规模空前 雄心勃勃 并耗资巨大的实验 was a giant, ambitious, hugely expensive experiment.
它的失败说明 The failure of science
对科学原理的透彻理解 是发展技术的绝对前提 to keep pace with technology had been exposed.
自此 一条全新 理论性更强 And a new, more theoretical
而且对我来说 更加激动人心的电学发展之路开始了 and, for me, much more exciting approach to understanding electricity began to unfold.
有了这种对电流运动的新认知 Armed with this new understanding of how electric pulses
人们开始重建跨洋电路 actually moved along the cable, improvements were made
在电缆的质量 设计 以及铺设方法上都作出了改良 to its composition, design, and how it was laid.
八年之后 科学家和工程师们 It would take another eight years of scientists and engineers
同心协力 制造并铺设了一条新电缆 working together before a working cable was finally put in place.
1866年7月27日 And on Friday 27th July 1866,
一条信息从爱尔兰发往纽芬兰 a message was sent from Ireland to Newfoundland.
信号非常清晰 Clear and crisp.
“奥地利与普鲁士签署了和平条约” "A treaty of peace has been signed between Austria and Prussia."
终于 跨洋通信的梦想 At last, the dream of instant transatlantic communication
成为了现实 had become a reality.
1866年 电路工程的成功再次缩小了这个世界 The success of the 1866 cable makes the world a smaller place. Yet again.
在此之前 跨洋通信需要几天 几周 The change from a world where it took days or weeks or months
甚至几个月 for information to travel,
而有了它之后 信息的传送只需要几秒或者几分钟 to a world in which information took seconds or minutes to travel -
这件事情的历史意义 it is far more profound
比我这一生中发生的任何事情都更加重大 than almost anything that's taken place during my lifetime.
电报的发明改变了寻常人们的生活 The invention of the telegraph changed ordinary people's lives.
然而 对于利用持续电流的探索和突破 But it would be the breakthroughs in how we used continuously flowing electric current
影响更为深远 that would have an even greater impact.
发明家们开始研究一种使用电的新方法 Because inventors were developing a new way of using electricity.
继而发明了一种满足世界上所有人需求的东西 To make something every person in the world would want -
电灯 electric light.
在19世纪之前 Until the 19th century,
我们只会通过一种方法来照明 那就是燃烧东西 we only knew of one way to make our own light - burn things.
到了19世纪中期 And by the middle of the 19th century,
我们已经有了一种非常有效的照明方法 we'd perfected a very effective way of lighting our homes -
燃烧天然气 using gas.
这就是19世纪60年代时 英国家庭的照明设备 A typical British home in the 1860s would have been lit like this -
易燃的天然气 highly-flammable gas
通过纵横交错的管道网 would have been pumped directly into people's houses
直接被输送进住宅里 through a network of pipes.
可是 这样的光在室外却显得太暗 But these gas lamps were too dull for large outdoor areas.
于是 为了照明火车站和街道 So railway stations and streets began to be lit
人们开始使用更明亮的弧光灯 from a more powerful source - electric arc lights.
最初的弧光灯 早在1808年 The first arc lights were demonstrated
就由法拉第的老师 Humphry Davy by Michael Faraday's mentor, Sir Humphry Davy,
在皇家学会展示给了大家 at the Royal institution as early as 1808,
它的工作原理是 电流通过两根碳棒的时候 and they worked by passing a continuous spark of electricity
会产生持久的火花 across two carbon rods.
但是 用弧光灯做室内照明实在是太亮了 But their intense white glow was just too bright for people's homes.
要把它调整到接近天然气灯的亮度 For an electric light to compete with gas,
就得把它分成许多个更小 it would need to be subdivided into many smaller,
更弱 更柔和的灯 less powerful and more gentle lamps.
而那个用电灯点亮千家万户的人 Whoever succeeded in bringing electric light
绝对会富甲天下 被永载史册 to every home in the land was guaranteed fame and fortune.
19世纪80年代前期 世界上最著名 And by the early 1880s, the most famous, most prodigious,
最优秀 最具有实力的发明家 most fiercely competitive inventor in the world
接受了这个挑战 had taken on the challenge.
他就是美国人 托马斯・阿尔瓦・爱迪生 The American, Thomas Alva Edison.
爱迪生酷爱发明 For Edison, invention was a passion,
这是他的兴趣所在 他非常喜欢做实验 it's what he loved doing. He loved being in the laboratory.
因为他总能在实验之中找到巨大的乐趣 The first thing that drove that passion is that it was a lot of fun for Edison.
他喜欢发明 That was the thing that he found most exciting,
而且也擅长发明 is that this was something he did well,
他的灵感和创造力 通过发明得以彰显 and it allowed all of his creativity to come to the fore.
爱迪生是电器发明之父 Edison is Mr Electrical Invention.
每个人都无条件信任他 He's the man they trust.
都认为他是无所不能的 He's the man that they think can do anything.
不仅如此 他还与商业界有着良好的关系 He's also the man who has his carefully cultivated connections with entrepreneurs,
商人们心甘情愿 with people that are willing to put their cash
在他身上投资 跟他合作 where Edison's mouth is, so to speak,
支持他的发明 and back him in this sort of venture.
不过 爱迪生看重的并不是为自己谋利 For Edison, the money was probably the least important reason.
他赚钱只有一个目的 For Edison, the money was important for one reason -
那就是为下一个项目筹资 to allow him to do the next project.
爱迪生召集了一批年轻有为的工程师 Edison had assembled a group of young and talented engineers
在新泽西成立了一个尖端实验室 at a cutting-edge laboratory in New Jersey,
地处曼哈顿外26英里 26 miles from Manhattan.
门洛帕克 Menlo Park would become
成为了世界上第一个研究开发中心 the world's first research and development facility,
爱迪生的团队在这里进行着大规模的发明 allowing Edison's team to invent on an industrial scale.
他们夜以继日地工作着 They worked incredible hours, you know,
一位工程师曾说 他很少有时间去陪他的孩子们 one of them talked about how he hardly ever saw his children
因为他总是在实验室里忙碌 cos he was in the lab all the time.
但是他们知道 自己所做的工作有着至关重要的意义 But they knew they were in the midst of something really important.
爱迪生一旦成功 That if Edison succeeded,
他们也会前途无量 if they succeeded with Edison, their futures were secure.
爱迪生的梦想 就是用电灯给每一个家庭带来光明 Edison's dream was to bring electric light to every home in the land,
他和他的团队一起 and with his team of engineers behind him,
怀着对电力未来的憧憬 展开了研究工作 and the vision of an electric future ahead, he launched his campaign.
电灯的发明大赛即将拉开帷幕 The race to bring electric light to the world was to play out
赛场就是当时的国际大都市 纽约 巴黎 伦敦 in the great cities of the time - New York, Paris, London.
爱迪生的门洛帕克团队开始开发 Edison's Menlo Park team set about developing
一种全然不同的电灯 a totally different form of electric lamp -
白炽灯 the incandescent light bulb.
实际上 爱迪生的灯泡设计 In fact, Edison's light bulb design
既不是首创的 也不是独一无二的 wasn't all that new. Or unique
法国 俄国 比利时和英国的发明家们 French, Russian, Belgian and British inventors
四十多年来 一直在改进类似的电灯泡 had been perfecting similar bulbs for over 40 years.
其中的一位英国人 约瑟夫・斯旺 And one of them, an Englishman, Joseph Swan,
一直都致力于发明他自己的白炽灯 had been developing his own version of an incandescent lamp.
斯旺和爱迪生的电灯泡 Both Swan and Edison's light bulbs
都是利用电流通过灯丝来发光的 worked by passing an electric current through a filament.
灯丝是一种供电流通过的材料 Now, a filament is a material in which the electric current
而电流经过灯丝 flows through with more difficulty than it does
比经过导线更加困难 through the copper wire in the rest of the circuit.
灯丝发光的关键在于电阻 And it relies on the idea of resistance.
这个瓶子里有一根灯丝 它是用普通的铅笔芯做成的 Inside this jar, I have a filament made out of ordinary pencil lead,
现在我给它通电 看看会发生什么 and we can see what happens as I pass a current through it.
从原子角度看 Down at the atomic scale,
灯丝中的原子会阻碍电流流动 the atoms in the filament impede the flow of electricity.
要迫使电流通过 就得花费更多能量 So it takes more energy to force it through,
这些能量以热的形式储存在灯丝中 and this energy is deposited in the filament as heat.
而随着灯丝变热 它的电阻会变得更大 Now, as it heats up, its resistance goes up,
温度也继续升高 直到进入白热状态 which again raises its temperature, until it glows white-hot.
爱迪生尝试过不同的灯丝材料 Now, one of the first materials
其中之一是金属铂 Edison used for his filaments was platinum.
铂的熔点比较高 With its relatively high melting point,
所以 它可以一直发热 platinum could be heated
直到白热状态也不会熔化 to a white-hot temperature without melting.
它也可以被制成很细的铂丝 铂丝越细 It could also be stretched into thin strands, and the thinner the strand,
它对电流的阻碍就越强 the more resistance it offered to the current passing through it.
但是铂非常昂贵 并且不能提供足够大的电阻 But platinum was expensive and didn't offer enough resistance.
寻找替代品的竞争就此展开 The race was on to find a better alternative
解决方案也随即出现 and the solution came
门洛帕克团队选择了和斯旺相同的研究方向 when the Menlo Park team switched to a method Swan was also developing,
用真空阻止便宜的碳丝 using a vacuum to stop cheaper carbon filaments
过快地烧掉 from burning up too quickly.
为找到更好的灯丝 爱迪生和斯旺 Edison and Swan tested all kinds of different materials
测试了无数种材料 for their filaments -
生丝 羊皮纸 软木 他们尝试了能想到的一切 everything from raw silk and parchment to cork.
爱迪生甚至还试过他手下工程师的胡须 Edison even tested his engineers' beard hair.
最终 他将目标锁定在竹纤维上 Eventually, he settled on bamboo fibre,
而斯旺使用的 是一种经过处理的棉线 while Swan used a treated cotton thread.
爱迪生和斯旺的电灯泡设计非常相似 Edison and Swan's light bulb designs were very similar.
最终 他们开始合作 Eventually they came to an agreement and went into partnership
一起在英国出售电灯泡 to sell light bulbs in the UK.
今天 有很多人认为 电灯泡是爱迪生独自发明的 Today, many people still believe that Edison alone invented the light bulb
而斯旺的名字 却成为了历史的一个脚注 whilst Swan has become a footnote in history.
然而 电灯泡只是爱迪生宏伟计划中的一部分 But his incandescent bulb was only part of Edison's strategy.
他还发明了一套完整的电力系统 包括插座 He'd also invented an entire electrical system of sockets,
电缆 以及附带的测量仪表等 cables, and meters to go with it.
同时 作为一个精明的商人 And, being a brilliant businessman,
他还开创了一种分配电力的方法 he'd developed a ground-breaking new way of distributing electricity.
爱迪生知道 这个系统的商机 Edison knew that the key to making money from his system
在于从一个中枢站点发电 was to generate the electricity in a central station,
然后将它卖给尽可能多的客户 and then sell it to as many customers as possible.
也许在我们看来 这并不算新鲜 It seems obvious to us now, but until then,
但在此之前 所有想要用电的人 anyone who wanted to use electricity
都必须用吵闹的发电机来自己发电 had to have their own noisy generator to make it.
爱迪生雄心勃勃 Edison's ambition was huge -
他想照亮世界上发展速度最快 he wanted to light the fastest-growing
最繁华忙碌的城市―― and most exciting city in the world.
纽约 New York.
1882年夏天 爱迪生登上了 In the summer of 1882, Edison stood in a unique position,
19世纪科学发明的巅峰 at the centre of 19th century science and invention.
他为最先进的白炽灯泡申请了专利 He'd patented a cutting-edge incandescent light bulb,
在电力工程领域积累了开拓性的经验 he'd amassed an unprecedented knowledge of electrical engineering.
而更重要的是 And above all,
他在美国大众的心目中 he'd cultivated a reputation among the American public
树立了一个天才发明家的形象 of being such a genius inventor,
记者们热切地倾听他的言论 that journalists hung on his every word,
华尔街的金融力量 and the financial muscle of Wall Street
对他的新项目毫不犹豫地掷下千金 was quick to throw itself behind his new ideas.
爱迪生构想的“电气化曼哈顿” His vision, to electrify Manhattan,
以及世界电气化 and then, of course, the rest of the world,
似乎已经近在咫尺 was seemingly within his grasp.
这是因为 爱迪生和他的团队 Because Edison and his team
即将启动一个投资最多 风险最大的项目 were about to launch their most expensive and risky project yet -
他们要建造美国第一家发电站 America's first power station,
供应连续不断的直流电 generating continuous direct current.
1882年9月4日的下午三点左右 Just before 3pm on the 4th September 1882,
在一群银行家 达官贵人和记者们的簇拥下 Thomas Edison, surrounded by a gaggle of bankers, dignitaries and reporters,
爱迪生走进了我身后的这座J・P・摩根大楼 entered JP Morgan's building, right behind me,
按下了他所发明的开关 flicked one of the Edison-patented switches,
然后 100盏白炽灯亮了起来 and 100 of his incandescent bulbs began to glow.
他转向身边一位记者 说道 Turning to a nearby journalist, he said,
“我已经兑现了我所有的承诺” "I have accomplished all that I've promised."
爱迪生的新发电站 坐落在半英里外的珍珠街上 Half a mile away on Pearl Street, Edison's new power station,
这座耗资50万美元 历经四年建设的发电站 costing half a million dollars and four years of hard work,
终于开始运转了 had sprung into life.
电流在地下电缆中奔腾涌动 The current surged through buried cables,
流向四面八方 stretching out in each direction.
对于现在的我们来说 这不足为奇 Of course it might seem obvious to us now,
但在19世纪80年代的纽约 but in New York back in the early 1880s,
人们认为 将电缆埋在地下 the idea of burying electric cables underground
简直是一笔多余的开销 seemed like an unnecessary expense.
在街道上空 本就已经有了 This street would have been criss-crossed
成百上千条电缆 它们用于电报 with hundreds of cables, used for telegraphs,
电话 以及弧光路灯 telephones and arc street lighting.
天上到处是错综复杂的黑色电线 Looking up, you'd have seen a tangled mass of black spaghetti
整个城市不见天日 blocking out the light.
爱迪生知道 这种危险的状况必须改变 Edison knew this dangerous situation had to change,
如果他想靠电力发财 and for him to make as much money as he could,
就要改变人们对电的理解 让大家相信电是安全的 electricity needed rebranding. It had to be considered safe.
所以 爱迪生一直在宣传他的直流低压电系统 So Edison is arguing both for the greater safety of his DC low voltage system,
也赞成铺设地下电缆 and for underground lines.
他坚信 他的电力系统 He can argue that he has a much safer system
与街道上的弧光灯 than electric arc light for streets,
或是室内的煤气灯相比 要安全得多 or gas lighting for indoor lighting.
人们不必担心火灾或者触电 He doesn't have to worry about fires, or electrocution,
一切都会更加安全 that all of this is much safer
他的这套地下输电系统可以保证这一点 because of the system he's created with this underground system.
铺设地下电缆不仅非常昂贵 Burying every cable was not only very expensive
同时在规划上也很棘手 but was a logistical nightmare,
因为这是世界上最繁忙的地带之一 because this was one of the busiest square miles in the world.
爱迪生选择这个地方是有原因的 Edison chose this area for a reason.
华尔街 Wall Street.
象征着财富 地位 权力 Rich, important, influential.
为了盈利 Because for Edison's system to make money,
这些富有的客户 all these wealthy customers
都必须在他的发电站方圆一英里之内 had to be within a mile of his power station.
根据爱迪生的计算 And this was because Edison calculated
他所能负担的最粗的电缆 the thickest cable he could afford
只能将足够的直流电 would only carry an adequate amount of his continuous direct current
输送一英里 to customers within this range.
这是个巨大的飞跃 This was a huge leap forward
因为 这是人类首次 because, for the first time,
用一个发电站为大量客户供应电力 dozens of customers could be supplied by just one power station.
但这个系统有一个严重的问题 But there was a big problem.
爱迪生的电网在用于郊区照明时 Edison's network could never be economical in lighting
将会非常昂贵 America's new suburbs.
如果缺少了足够的用户 They just didn't have the concentration of customers needed
这些昂贵的发电站就会亏本 to make building these expensive power stations worthwhile.
如果我们到现在 Had we stuck with Edison's way
还在使用爱迪生的电网 of generating and distributing electricity,
这个世界将会非常不一样 the world would be a very different place.
我们得修建星罗棋布的发电站 We'd have to have power stations scattered around
即使在城镇中心 no more than a mile apart,
两座发电站的距离也不能超过一英里 even in the centres of our towns and cities.
用这种方式为小社区供电 And it would be extraordinarily expensive to even provide power
价格会奇高无比 for smaller communities.
不过 一个能解决这些问题的人 But someone who held the answers to these problems
即将登上历史舞台 was about to enter the story.
他将成为现代社会的奠基人 Someone who would help create the modern world
并在科学史上一次伟大的成就中 and who'd play an integral part in one of the biggest fall-outs
扮演不可或缺的角色 in scientific history.
他就是尼古拉・特斯拉 His name was Nikola Tesla
其实 他就在爱迪生的身边 and he was right under Edison's nose.
尼古拉・特斯拉是一位塞尔维亚发明家 Nikola Tesla was a Serbian inventor
他出生在克罗地亚 who was born in Croatia
二十八岁时 他来到了纽约 and who worked for Edison briefly
之后 曾短暂地为爱迪生效力 after arriving in New York at the age of 28.
这位内敛 深刻的欧洲思想家 European, introverted, a deep thinker,
和爱迪生截然不同 he was everything Edison wasn't.
爱迪生和特斯拉两人 Edison and Tesla could not be more different
在待人接物 个人形象 行为举止 in the way they handled their self, appearance, and their manners,
以及公众形象方面 都完全不同 and the way that they constructed a public image for themselves.
爱迪生对自己的穿着毫不在意 Edison couldn't care less about the clothes he had on
就算把化学药品洒在了上好的礼服上 and if he spilt chemicals on his good Sunday suit,
他也丝毫不会放在心上 then he spilt chemicals on his good Sunday suit.
可以说 他要多邋遢有多邋遢 He was, you know, basically, a very kind of slovenly guy.
特斯拉恰恰相反 Tesla, on the other hand,
哪怕是在一般人最浮夸的青年时代 even as a young man in his mid 20s,
他都非常注意自己的外表 is thinking about his appearance,
以及和别人交往时的举止 how he comes across to people.
他在乎他的穿着 他的仪态 So he cares about his clothes, his manner.
连在照相和画像时 Indeed, he even cares about how his photograph,
他都十分讲究 his portraits are taken,
他总是要摆出优雅的 四分之三侧的姿势 and he always wants to make sure he has a nice, three-quarter profile
这样 人们便看不出他略嫌太尖的下巴 so you don't see the fact that he has a bit of a pointy chin.
尼古拉・特斯拉的一生 The life and death of Nikola Tesla
是一出引人入胜的悲剧 is one of the most fascinating yet tragic stories
作为一位出类拔萃的科学家 of scientific brilliance,
他经历过事业上的刀光剑影 cut-throat business,
也曾引起舆论界的巨大轰动 and shocking public relations stunts.
当美国大众 The American public may have been wowed
对爱迪生的直流发电站赞叹不已时 by Edison's new direct current power stations,
特斯拉显得并不起眼 but Tesla was less impressed.
他的梦想 是将电力传输到每个城市 He had a dream electricity could be transmitted across entire cities.
甚至所有国家 Or even nations.
而他知道 实现它的方法 And he believed he knew how it could be done -
就是使用另一种电流 by using a different type of electric current.
电学专家明白 电缆中的电流越小 Electrical experts knew that the smaller the current
电阻所导致的能量流失也就越小 sent down a cable, the smaller the losses in it through resistance.
这样 电缆就可以做得更长 And so the longer the cable could be.
特斯拉提出了一种传输电力的方式 Tesla proposed using a method of transmitting electricity
它可以减小电流的大小 where the currents could be lowered without a fall
而不降低另一端的电功率 in the amount of electrical power at the other end.
这种方式就是交流电 It was called alternating current.
它完全可以做到这一点 Alternating current is exactly that.
交流电是一种不断变换方向的电流 It's an electric current that alternates
电流先向一个方向运动 between moving in one direction,
然后迅速地切换到相反的方向 then the opposite direction, very quickly.
这跟只朝一个方向运动的直流电是截然不同的 As opposed to a direct current, which moves only in one direction.
特斯拉之所以对交流电感兴趣 Tesla was interested in alternating current because,
是因为在19世纪80年代后期 like other electrical engineers in the late 1880s,
电力工程师发现 he realised that as you raise the voltage of any current
当提高两点之间的输电电压时 that you transmit from point A to point B,
电压越高 传输效率就越高 it's going to be more efficient to have a higher voltage.
因为输电线路的功率 And since the amount of electric power in a cable
等于电压乘以电流 is its voltage multiplied by its current,
提高电压 就意味着所需电流可以减小 increasing the voltage, meant the current in the cables could be reduced,
这样 电阻带来的损耗就会减少 and so losses due to resistance would be less.
不过 我们肯定不希望 However, you don't want very high voltages
两万伏的高压电直接通到家中 on the order of, say, 20,000 volts coming into your home.
因此 我们需要降低 So you need to step down the current
输电线路上的电压 that is being transmitted over distance into your home.
也就是说 我们需要用到变压器 And to do that, you need a converter or transformer.
变压器可以把交流电 Alternating current allows you to use a transformer
从较高的输送电压 to make that switch from the high transmission voltage
转化为较低的使用电压 to the lower voltage you're going to use at consumption.
如果这种将电力从数百英里外的发电厂 Perfecting the technology to transmit electricity
传送至千家万户的技术能够得以完善 hundreds of miles from where it was generated
我们将向现代社会迈进一大步 would mark a huge step towards the modern world.
一位富有的工业家 And a wealthy industrial entrepreneur
已经在着手改进这一技术 was already developing the solution.
他就是George Westinghouse His name was George Westinghouse.
Westinghouse认为 交流电才是未来之星 Westinghouse believed alternating currents was the future,
不过它有一个严重的缺陷 but it had a big drawback.
虽然它能用于照明 While it was fine for electric light,
但和直流电不同的是 unlike direct current,
在当时 能使用交流电的马达尚未问世 there was no practical motor that could run on it.
也没有人相信交流电马达可以被制造出来 And no-one believed there ever would be.
除了尼古拉・特斯拉 Apart from Nikola Tesla.
特斯拉是位发明家 他总是说 Tesla, as an inventor, liked to say
发明创造的关键不在于动手 that the first thing you need to do is not to build something,
而是要先想象 要在脑海中描绘它 规划它 but to imagine it, to think it through, to plan it.
他拥有当代心理学家称为“照相记忆”的能力 And he had what modern-day psychologists would call an eidetic memory.
他能够记住所有看过的东西 He could basically remember everything that he saw
然后在脑海中将它们三维重现 and then visualise it in three dimensions.
人们常说 拥有照相记忆能力的人 And they often say people that have this skill
能够把看过的东西 see it about an arm's length away,
瞬间立体化 out here, and they see it in three dimensions in that space.
所有的迹象都表明 特斯拉就是拥有这种能力的人 And all the indications are that Tesla had that ability.
这是一个特斯拉的“哥伦布蛋” This is a Tesla egg.
特斯拉曾用这种“哥伦布蛋” It's a replica of the one Tesla used
来演示他最伟大的技术突破 to demonstrate his greatest breakthrough
这是历史上最重要的发明之一 and one of the most important inventions of all time.
它展示了交流电 It showed how rotary movement
是如何直接让马达转动的 can be produced directly from an alternating current.
尤其重要的是 它能让数千英里之外的马达转动 Crucially, one that could be generated thousands of miles away.
这是一个开天辟地的突破 This was something that had never been done before.
特斯拉在努力钻研交流马达时 When Tesla was working on the alternating current motor,
早已心有鸿鹄 he was thinking big.
他并不是想随便捣鼓捣鼓马达的某个零件 He was not just tinkering with one component of the motor and saying,
做出直流马达的升级版就满足了 "Gee, if I can make that a little bit better, it will work out."
他构想的是一个完整的新系统 He's actually thinking about an entire system
包括发电机 电路 马达 that involves the generator, the wires to the motor and the motor itself.
他是个特立独行的人 He's a complete maverick,
脑子里充满了各种奇思妙想 thinking outside the box,
他的工作方式与他的同行完全不同 doing things very differently to his fellow inventors.
特拉斯的设计充满创意 Tesla's solution was ingenious.
他给马达通上了多路交流电 He fed more than one alternating current into his motor
并设定了通电时间 使他们能轮流通电 and timed them so that they followed in sequence with each other.
第一路交流电 The first alternating current
为马达内的一个线圈提供电力 energised a coil of wire inside the motor,
产生一个电磁场 creating an electromagnetic field
将马达中间的转子吸向它 which attracted the motor's central moving part to it
它随后便断电 and then faded.
接着 第二根线路接通 电流通过下一个线圈 The second overlapping current fed the next coil,
继续吸引转子 然后断电 dragging the moving part around further, before it faded.
接下来是第三 第四个线圈 And the same for the third coil and the fourth.
这样就形成了一个旋转磁场 The result was a revolving magnetic field,
产生的磁力足以使马达 strong enough to make the motor,
或者这个哥伦布蛋旋转起来 or in this case his egg, spin.
以此为基础 特斯拉设计了一整套电气系统 Tesla designed an entire electrical system around this
称为多相传输 called polyphase transmission.
这意味着 我们将可以把嘈杂不堪 This meant a noisy and smelly power station,
乌烟瘴气的交流电发电站 generating lots of useful alternating current,
建在远离居民区的地方了 could now be situated away from populated areas.
从此以后 我们能将大型发电站 And for the first time you can build large power stations
修建在任何地方 比如城郊 wherever you want. On the edge of town,
或是尼亚加拉瀑布边 or a waterfall like Niagara,
然后进行长距离电力传输 and distribute the power over long distances,
为各大城市 千家万户送去光明 and serve all the people in a major city or metropolitan centre.
特斯拉的突破 解决了难题的最后一步 Tesla's breakthrough was the last piece of the jigsaw,
但是他仍需要让大众相信 but he still had to convince the world
他的方案 that his solution was better
比爱迪生的直流电方案更胜一筹 than the direct current method championed by Edison.
爱迪生继续推行着他的直流电系统 Edison continued to roll out his direct current system,
在整个纽约州到处修建发电站 building power stations across New York state.
后来 特斯拉遇到了George Westinghouse But then Tesla met George Westinghouse -
这个让他梦想成真的人 the man who could make his dreams into a reality.
1888年7月 Westinghouse买下了特斯拉的专利 In July 1888, Westinghouse made an offer for Tesla's patents,
这一事件 为尼古拉・特斯拉的故事 which has become part of the mystery and folklore
增添了神秘与坊间戏说的色彩 surrounding the whole Nikola Tesla story,
它让整件事情看上去亦真亦假 where it's difficult to separate fact from fiction.
特斯拉收到了75000美元的专利费 Tesla was paid 75,000 for his alternating current patents
并对交流马达产生的每一马力 and offered 2.50
收取2.5美元的费用 for every horse power his motors would generate.
这一次的成功原本能让他腰缠万贯 This should have guaranteed him vast wealth
余生都衣食无忧 然而这并不是故事的真相 for the rest of his life but that isn't what happened.
今天的我们当然十分清楚 It's clear to us now that at the time,
在传输电力时 交流电系统 the AC system was a much better method
明显优于直流电 of transmitting electric power.
你也一定会认为 有了特斯拉的发明 And you'd think that with Tesla's breakthroughs,
交流电必能所向披靡 大胜直流电 nothing could stand in the way of the success of AC over DC.
不过 有一个人依然坚信 But one man still believed totally
他的直流电系统是最好的 in his direct current inventions,
从灯丝到开关 From the filaments of the bulbs to the switches,
从插座到发电机 sockets and generators,
他倾注了数百万美元才建起了这个电气系统 and he wasn't about to waste millions of dollars
绝不能就这样功亏一篑 on changing them.
他就是爱迪生 Edison.
一场战争就此拉开了序幕 The battle lines were drawn.
为了夺取利润可观的纽约市照明合同 Westinghouse and Tesla
Westinghouse和特斯拉 与爱迪生 went toe-to-toe with Edison
互不相让 针尖对麦芒 for New York's lucrative lighting contracts.
两套完全不同的系统 Two completely different systems
为一份终极奖赏一决雌雄 battling it out for one ultimate prize -
这份奖赏 就是照亮美国 乃至全世界的机会 the chance to light up America and then the world.
这场竞争 被后人称为“电流之战” It would become known as the War of the Currents.
两大阵营都大打成本战 Both camps tried to undercut each other on cost,
但是 爱迪生坚信 他的直流电 but Edison believed his beloved direct current
比交流电好 因为它更安全 was better than alternating current because it was safer.
直流电的电压低 碰到直流输电线时 Touching an Edison cable, with its low voltage,
最多疼一下 但总体是无害的 was painful but relatively harmless.
而交流输电线的电压则要高得多 Whereas alternating current cables carried a much higher voltage
触碰到它可能是致命的 and touching them could be deadly.
因此 爱迪生的战术便是反复强调直流电的安全性 So, what Edison was trying to do was to again define his DC system as the safe system.
它比电弧路灯好 It's better than electric street arc lights,
它比煤气灯好 it's better than gas,
它同样也比使用高电压的交流电白炽灯好 and it's now better than high voltage AC incandescent lighting.
难道不是吗？它才是安全的系统 Right? It's the system that's safe.
如果你采用了爱迪生的直流电系统 便可以高枕无忧 You adopt the Edison system, you can be sure it's safe.
爱迪生声称 交流电比直流电更危险 Edison claimed that AC was a more dangerous type of current than DC
他在Westinghouse的工人遇到的事故上大做文章 and he highlighted every accident to Westinghouse's workmen
并着重强调因短路而引起的每一场火灾 and every fire caused by short circuits.
这个战术很管用 因为在19世纪80年代 It was a potent message because in the 1880s,
依然有许多人对电心存恐惧 many people were still terrified by electricity.
因为它会使人休克 甚至瞬间丧命 It could shock and even kill in an instant
但其中原因 当时尚不明确 and the reasons why still weren't fully understood.
对于许多人来说 将这个无形而神秘的杀手 For many, the idea of piping this invisible killer
接到自己家中 简直是天方夜谭 into their homes was utterly ludicrous.
因此在这场电流之战中 So the weapon used
爱迪生的武器便是利用公众的恐惧 in the War of the Currents was fear.
而一位无甚名气的电气工程师 And a little-known electrical engineer,
哈罗德・布朗 Harold P. Brown,
把交直流电的对抗 提升到了一个新的高度 was about to take the fight against AC to a whole new level.
它是有史以来最极端 最负面的公开商战之一 It was to prove one of the most extreme and negative publicity campaigns in history.
布朗想出了一个独特而富有戏剧性的方法 Brown had devised a unique and theatrical way
来展示交流电的致命性 of demonstrating the deadly power of AC...
他迫不及待地做出了公开的展示 ..and he was eager to share it with the world.
于是 在1888年7月 一个暖和的夏夜 So, on a warm summer's evening, in July 1888,
他召集了美国最顶尖的75名电气工程师和记者 he gathered together 75 of the country's top electrical engineers and reporters
来共同见证一场让他们永生难忘的实验 to witness a spectacle they would never forget.
布朗的计划令人毛骨悚然 Brown's plan was extremely macabre.
他出钱找了一群街上的小孩 He'd paid a team of street urchins
搜集曼哈顿的流浪狗 to collect together stray dogs roaming Manhattan.
他站在台上 向观众说道 Out on stage, he addressed his audience.
“先生们 我请你们来 "I have asked you here, gentlemen,"
“见证电对这些畜生有何作用” "to witness the experimental application of electricity to a number of brutes."
他的实验是分别使用交流电和直流电 His demonstration involved electrocuting the dogs...
对这些狗实施电刑 with DC and AC power,
以此来说明 交流电会让动物更快丧生 in an attempt to show that AC current killed them more quickly.
这样的试验不仅使用狗 And it wasn't just dogs.
布朗还公开演示了对一头小牛 甚至一匹马的电刑 Brown went on to make public spectacles of killing a calf and even a horse.
他将实验对象从狗换成更大的动物 是有原因的 And he moved from dogs to larger animals for a reason.
他想要证明 交流电非常危险 He wanted to show that the AC form of electricity was so dangerous
它能杀死任何大型哺乳动物 包括人类 it could kill any large mammal, including humans.
布朗的动物实验 让美国的政客们相信 Brown's animal experiments had persuaded American politicians
由Westinghouse发电机产生的交流电 the most humane method of executing condemned criminals
是处决死刑犯最人道的方法 should be with alternating current, generated by Westinghouse machines.
爱迪生的律师甚至提出一个新术语 Edison's lawyers even suggested a new term
“被Westinghouse了” 用来描述被电刑处决 to describe being electrocuted in this way...to be Westinghoused.
1890年8月6日早晨6时32分 And at precisely 6:32, on the morning of 6th August 1890,
45岁的William Kemmler a 45-year-old man, William Kemmler,
被绑在一张木椅上 was strapped to a wooden chair
两个湿漉漉的电极 and two soaking wet electrodes
被小心地接到了他身上 were carefully attached to him.
在隔壁房间里26位官员与医生的见证下 And as 26 officials and doctors looked on from an adjoining room,
Kemmler向监狱牧师道了别 然后静静地等待 Kemmler said goodbye to the prison chaplain and waited.
对William Kemmler的电刑处决 The execution of William Kemmler
是这场电流之战中最黑暗的一幕 marked the lowest point in the War of the Currents,
但它并没有结束这场战争 but it wouldn't quite mark the end.
因为尼古拉・特斯拉正准备做一件史无前例的事情 Because Nikola Tesla was about to do something that had never been seen before.
它精彩绝伦 Something so wondrous and daring
让目睹之人永生难忘 that it would live on for ever in the memories of those who saw it.
特斯拉已经掌握了 Tesla had been developing a method
制造高频交流电的方法 of generating very high frequency alternating currents
1891年5月21日 and on May 21st 1891,
在一个顶尖电气工程师的会议上 at a meeting of top electrical engineers,
他将此公诸于众 he demonstrated it.
他上演了一场惊天动地的表演 In an almost magical display of awesome power and wonder,
在没有穿戴任何锁甲与面具的情况下 and without wearing any safety chain mail or mask,
他让一个特斯拉线圈产生的数万伏电压 tens of thousands of volts, produced by a Tesla coil,
通过他的身体 流向了他手持的灯 passed across his body and through the end of a lamp he was holding.
特斯拉的交流电有着极高的频率 Tesla's alternating current was at such a high frequency,
因此在穿过他的身体时 that it passed through his body
并没有给他造成任何伤害或痛楚 without causing serious harm or even pain.
他的演示告诉大家 只要使用方法正确 His demonstrations showed that if handled correctly,
即使是极高电压的交流电 也是安全的 alternating current at extremely high voltages could be safe.
这场电流之战 The War of the Currents had been won,
以Westinghouse和特斯拉的胜利而告终 by Westinghouse and Tesla.
1896年 使用Westinghouse交流发电机组的水电站 In 1896, the new power station was completed at Niagara Falls,
在尼亚加拉瀑布竣工了 using Westinghouse AC generators
它将源源不断地产生多相交流电 to produce Tesla's polyphase current.
大量电力从尼亚加拉瀑布 Finally, huge amounts of power could be transmitted
输送到附近的布法罗市 from the Falls, to nearby Buffalo
几年以后 and then, a few years later,
尼亚加拉电厂开始为纽约市供电 the Niagara plant was providing power to New York City itself.
今天 世界上几乎所有的电力 And today, almost all of the electricity
都是由特斯拉系统产生的 generated in the world is done so using Tesla's system.
不过 特斯拉并没有因此获得地位和财富 But Tesla's story doesn't end in fame and fortune.
尽管后来 他在其他许多科学和发明领域 Although he went on to make significant contributions
都做出了杰出贡献 to many other areas of science and invention,
为了让陷入股市困境的Westinghouse免于破产 to save George Westinghouse from ruin, after a stock market crash,
他放弃了多相交流电的专利权 he gave up his claim to the royalties from his polyphase inventions.
尼古拉・特斯拉才华横溢而善良无私 Nikola Tesla was a uniquely talented man
我们应该感激他 and we owe him so much.
但同时 他也是个异常复杂的人 But he was also hugely complicated,
很不幸的是 晚年的他变得越来越焦躁不安 and sadly, later in life, he became more and more troubled.
他对数字3有着极强的偏执 He was fixated with the number three,
连走在路上都不停地数着3 counting it out loud while he walked,
他对细菌和佩戴珍珠饰品的女人 也有着奇怪的恐惧 and he developed strange phobias with germs and with women wearing pearl jewellery.
可以说 他的天才头脑已经彻底失控了 In many ways, his brilliant mind simply spun out of control.
慢慢地 As Tesla's life unravelled,
特斯拉开始疏远周围的人 he withdrew from people
从其他地方寻求心灵的慰籍 and found emotional comfort elsewhere.
他开始着迷于鸽子 He became obsessed with pigeons
经常在曼哈顿中心的布莱恩特公园里喂鸽子 and was regularly seen feeding them here in Bryant Park, in the centre of Manhattan.
他甚至爱上了一只特别的白鸽 He even fell in love with one particularly unusual white bird
在那只鸽子死后 and when it died,
他也随之心碎 he was left heart broken.
垂暮之年的特斯拉 穷困孤苦 As an old man, Tesla was left almost bankrupt and alone,
在这家酒店里过着半隐居的生活 living as a semi-recluse in this hotel.
他人生的最后几年 His last years were spent here
就在纽约酒店的3327房间里 in room 3327 of the New York Hotel,
凄凉混沌地度过 sad, confused, destitute.
而爱迪生 则成为了举国称颂的英雄 Edison went on to become an American hero
他的公司后来成为了通用电气的一部分 and his company would form part of General Electric,
直到今日 通用电气都还是全球最大的跨国企业之一 even today one of the world's biggest multinational corporations.
1943年1月 尼古拉・特斯拉的人生走到了尽头 In January 1943, the story of Nikola Tesla was coming to an end.
当他最后一次眺望曼哈顿时 But looking out across the Manhattan skyline for the very last time,
他看到 闪烁的灯光照亮了天空 he saw a sky lit up with twinkling lights,
无数人的生活因他而改变 and a million lives transformed by his genius.
电的产生与输送 The ability to generate and transmit electricity,
各种电器的发明 and the invention of machines to use it,
以超乎想象的方式改变了我们的世界 have changed our world in ways we couldn't possibly have imagined.
如今 我们每时每刻都能产出数十亿瓦的电 We can now generate billions of watts of electricity every second, every hour, every day.
无论是利用煤 天然气还是核裂变发电 And whether we do it using coal, gas, or nuclear fission,
发电站的工作原理 power stations all rely
依然离不开迈克尔・法拉第 on the principles discovered and developed by Michael Faraday,
尼古拉・特斯拉 Nikola Tesla,
以及所有其他早期电气工程师们 and all the other early electrical engineers
在那个发明的黄金时代所树立的理论 from an amazing age of invention.
如今的人们 对电已习以为常 We now take electricity for granted
我们早已忘记 它曾经是多么神秘而富有魔力的东西 and have forgotten how magical and mysterious a force it once was.
不过有一点我们不能忘记 But there's something we should never forget.
如果没有电 现代社会将不复存在 Today, without it, the modern world would collapse around us
我们的生活也将会是另一个模样 and our lives would be very, very different.
在下一集里 我们将讲述新的电学发现 In the next episode, we tell of the electrical revelations
它将颠覆我们对这一神奇力量的认识 that led to a revolution in our understanding of this amazing force.
想要了解更多电的故事 To find out more about the story of electricity,
或者测试自己的能量学知识 and to put your power knowledge to the test,
欢迎参与公开大学的互动能量学小游戏 try the Open University's interactive energy game.
请访问bbc.co.uk/electricity Go to bbc.co.uk/electricity
然后根据网页指示 去公开大学的主页 And follow links to the Open University.