经济学人17:想象的殿堂 House of dreams

 　　Books and Arts; Quantum physics

　　文艺；量子物理学
　　House of dreams；Scientists race to explain why the Higgs boson matters
　　想象的殿堂；科学家竞相解释为什么希格斯玻色子至关重要
　　Higgs Force: The Symmetry-Breaking Force that Makes the World an Interesting Place. By Nicholas Mee.
　　《希格斯力：破坏对称性的力，使世界成为有趣的地方》
　　The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments. By Jim Baggott.
　　《量子的故事：历史上的四十个瞬间》
　　The Infinity 1 Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe. By Frank Close.
　　《无穷的困惑：量子场论和对有序宇宙的猎取》
　　Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science. By Ian Sample.
　　《大规模：失踪的粒子引发了科学史上最伟大的猎取》
　　Physicists 3 rarely become household names. Pretty much anyone watching television in Britain will have heard of Brian Cox who is credited with making physics sexy again. But before him you would probably have to go back a century or so to Albert Einstein, or three centuries to Isaac Newton, to find a name that is universally recognised. One day, though, Peter Higgs and his eponymous boson might outshine them all.
　　物理学家的名字很少家喻户晓。在英国，相当多看电视的人都听说过布赖恩·考克斯，人们相信是他让物理再次变得迷人。但在他之前，可能得追溯到大约一个世纪前的爱因斯坦，或者追溯到三个世纪前的牛顿，人们才能发现一个公认的名字。不过总有一天，彼得·希格斯和以他命名的玻色子可能会使这两人相形见绌。
　　Mr Higgs's road to stardom began with a short, equation-riddled paper published in 1964. In it he predicted the existence of a particle which gives other subatomic species their mass. The challenge Mr Higgs set ultimately led to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, illustrated 4 above) the most ambitious—and, at SFr10 billion ($10 billion) the most expensive—scientific experiment in history. It has also sparked a mini-publishing boom of books to explain what all the fuss is about.
　　希格斯的明星之路开始于1964年发表的一篇短短的满是方程式的论文。在这篇论文中，他预言存在一种粒子，提供了其它亚原子核素的质量。希格斯设置的挑战最终导致了大型强子对撞机（ LHC，如上图所示）的建造，这在科学实验史上是最雄心勃勃的，也是最昂贵的，斥资100亿瑞士法朗（约合100亿美元）。它也引发了一小波图书出版潮，各家书册纷纷解释人们大惊小怪的到底是什么。
　　In “Higgs Force” Nicholas Mee, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical 5 Society with a doctorate 6 in theoretical particle physics from Cambridge University, lays out why the Higgs matters, and what is being done to find it. The LHC smashes together subatomic particles called protons in a 27km underground circular tunnel outside Geneva at within a whisker of the speed of light. Its scientists then study the detritus 7 in cathedral-sized detectors 8.
　　在《希格斯力》中，有着剑桥大学非应用粒子物理学博士头衔的皇家天文学会研究员尼古拉斯·梅提出了希格斯介子为何至关重要，以及要怎么做才能找到它。在日内瓦城外地下27公里长的环形隧道内，大型强子对撞机让被称为质子的亚原子粒子以接近光速对撞。然后大型强子对撞机的科学家在大教堂般大小的探测器内研究对撞形成的碎屑。
　　As Mr Mee explains, the elusive 9 particle is believed to be the physical manifestation 10 of the so-called Higgs field, which has pervaded 11 the universe since shortly after the Big Bang. In the beginning, all particles were massless. This, as any physicist 2 will tell you, is the same as saying they zipped around at the speed of light; a massive particle, by contrast, is by definition more sluggish 12. When the universe's temperature dropped below 1 trillion degrees or so, though, it underwent a phase transition: suddenly the Higgs field flipped 13 on and some particles, but not others, began interacting with Higgs bosons. Those that did slowed down. In other words, they gained mass. As a consequence, some kind of primordial 14 symmetry was, to use physicists' jargon 15, “spontaneously broken”. If this sounds abstruse 16, Mr Mee shows how it led to the formation of complex atoms, and thus all of life—which explains why some call the Higgs the “god particle”. The author also offers an inkling of the underlying 17 maths in terms of elementary algebra 18. (Though he or his editor could have had more faith in readers and not relegated 19 this to an appendix.)
　　正如梅所解释的，人们相信这些难捉摸的粒子就是所谓的希格斯场的物质证明，而在大爆炸后不久希格斯场就开始遍及宇宙了。起初，所有的粒子都是没有质量的。正如任何一位物理学家都会告诉你的，这等于是说它们以光速四处飞过；相比之下，就定义来看一个有质量的粒子缓慢多了。不过，当宇宙温度降至低于1万亿度左右，它经历了一个相变：希格斯场突然翻转，一些粒子开始与希格斯玻色子相互作用，而其它粒子则不与希格斯玻色子相互作用。参与相互作用的那些粒子慢了下来。换句话说，它们获得了质量。因此，用物理学家的行话说，某种原始的对称性“自发破坏了”。如果这听起来很深奥，那么梅就展示了它如何导致了复杂原子的形成，从而形成了所有的生命，这点解释了为什么有些人称希格斯介子为“上帝粒子”。笔者还以初等代数的方式提供了基础数学的端倪。（不过梅或他的编辑本可对读者更有信心，而不是把这端倪归进附录）。
　　Those seeking to place the Higgs within a broader context of physical theory may prefer “The Quantum Story” by Jim Baggott, another former researcher turned science writer. The particle is the cornerstone of the “standard model”, a 40-year-old mathematical blueprint 20 for the way elementary particles behave. Mr Baggott captures its development in 40 key moments. It is not an easy read, but one that readers who are undeterred by having to learn about “eigenvalues” or “asymptotic freedom” will find intellectually gratifying.
　　有些人试图把希格斯介子纳入更广范的物理理论内，他们可能更喜欢《量子的故事》，本书的作者吉姆·巴戈特以前是位研究员，后来也转成科普作家。“标准模型”是用来描述基本粒子行为方式的数学蓝图，已诞生四十年，而粒子则是这个标准模型的基石。巴戈特抓住了其四十个关键时刻的发展。看懂这本书不容易，但不畏了解什么是“特征值”或“渐近自由”的读者会发现这本书让人有智力上的成就感。
　　Without the Higgs to spur spontaneous symmetry-breaking, it turns out, the edifice 21 of fundamental physics—and no fewer than eight of the Nobel prizes awarded to 20 physicists over 35 years—would stand on shaky ground. No wonder boffins have their eye on the news from Geneva.
　　事实证明，要是没有希格斯介子刺激自发地对称性破坏，基础物理学的大厦就会摇摇欲坠，三十五年来不下八届的诺贝尔奖颁给二十位物理学家也会岌岌可危。难怪研究人员都关注着日内瓦的消息。
　　If the LHC does find the Higgs, which the latest results suggest it might, its media-shy originator will certainly be summoned to the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm. There he may well share the podium with two others. (A Nobel prize is often awarded to one person, but if there are multiple winners it can be shared by no more than three people.) Given that there are four other possible candidates, the question pondered by Frank Close, in particular, is which two would deserve it.
　　如果大型强子对撞机确实找到希格斯介子，最新结果表明这点很有可能，那么不愿在媒体亮相的希格斯介子的鼻祖肯定会被召至斯德哥尔摩的诺贝尔颁奖典礼上。他很可能与另外两人共享那里的领奖台。（诺贝尔奖通常颁发给一人，如果有多位得主，它可以共享，但不超过三人。）鉴于有四个其他可能的候选人，弗兰克·克罗兹尤其要仔细思考的问题就是哪两个人更值得这一奖项。
　　Mr Close recounts his tale in some detail. His title, “The Infinity Puzzle”, refers to efforts to rid quantum physics of “unruly infinities” that crop up because the laws of quantum mechanics require physicists who are calculating how a particle will behave to consider an infinite number of possible scenarios 22. The Higgs mechanism 23 played an important role in the development of a mathematical trick called “renormalisation”, which makes these sums manageable.
　　克罗兹的故事讲述得相当详细。他的书名《无穷的困惑》指的是努力使量子物理学摆脱“不受束缚的无穷”，这种不受束缚的无穷是因量子力学定律对物理学家的要求而突然出现的，物理学家要计算粒子如何表现才考虑可能出现无穷数的情况。希格斯原理在开发所谓“重整”的数学技巧时扮演了一个重要角色，使得这些总数易于管理。
　　Scientists, not surprisingly, are no different from other people. Some jockey for kudos 24 while other (often more deserving) candidates are left behind. Thus, in 1964, six theorists came up with similar ideas about particle physics and submitted their papers within the space of a month. In Brussels Fran?ois Englert and Robert Brout published a paper outlining much the same mechanism as Mr Higgs, though they did it several weeks before him. Tom Kibble, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen at Imperial College in London published theirs a couple of weeks after him. (Brout died in 2011, but the four others are still alive—and all are in the running for the Nobel prize.)
　　并不奇怪，科学家与其他人没有什么不同。有些人角逐到了名誉，而另一些（往往更值得的）候选人则败下阵来。是这样，1964年有六位理论家提出了类似的关于粒子物理学的想法，并在差不到一个月的时间内提交了他们的论文。布鲁塞尔的弗朗索瓦·恩格勒特和罗伯特·布鲁发表了一篇论文，列出的原理大多与希格斯相同，不过他们的论文发表早了希格斯几个星期。伦敦帝国学院的汤姆·基布尔、杰拉尔德·古拉尔厄克和卡尔·哈根比希格斯晚了几个星期发表了他们的论文。（布鲁死于2011年，但其它四人仍然活着，且所有人都有望获得诺贝尔奖。）
　　One reason for Mr Higgs's pre-eminence is that he was the only one to postulate 25 a new particle, though this was something he added only after a journal rejected an earlier draft of his paper for lacking a “practical application” (by which physicists mean a testable claim). Another reason, Mr Close points out, is a mix-up in one much-cited paper from 1967 by another future Nobel-prize winner, Steve Weinberg, which stated wrongly that Mr Higgs's article had been published before the one by the two Brussels scientists.
　　希格斯杰出的原因之一在于他是唯一假定存在一种新粒子的人，虽然这是在一家杂志因缺乏“实际应用”拒收其论文先前的草稿后他才补充上的东西，而所谓的实际应用是物理学家打算按其进行验证的声明。克罗兹指出，另一个原因在于未来的另一位诺贝尔奖得主史蒂夫·温伯格1967年所撰写的被引述最多的论文中的混乱，这篇论文错误地指出希格斯出版的文章在两位布鲁塞尔科学家的文章之前。
　　Mr Close, an accomplished 26 particle physicist in his own right, enjoyed unprecedented 27 access to all the principal players, many of whom he either knows well or, like Mr Higgs, has spoken to at length. He also appears to have left no relevant academic paper, no conference proceedings 28, memoir 29 or other publicly available source unturned. This painstaking 30 attention to historical detail yields many gems 31 (for instance, a postal 32 strike in Britain meant that the trio at Imperial College learned of the Higgs and Brout-Englert papers weeks after the rest of the world). It can, though, get in the way of the narrative 33.
　　看其头衔就知道克罗兹是个有造诣的粒子物理学家，他前所未有地访问了所有主要参与者，其中许多人他要么十分熟悉，要么也象希格斯一样，曾与之详谈过。他似乎也翻遍了相关的学术论文、会议记录、学术论文集或是其它公开的可用资源。这种对历史细节的勤勉关注挖到了许多瑰宝，例如，英国邮政大罢工意味着伦敦帝国学院的三人组晚了世界各地几周才得知希格斯和布鲁－恩格勒特的论文。不过，这妨碍了叙述。
　　For a less daunting 34 take on the same topic, readers should try “Massive”, an entertaining yarn 35 published in 2010 by Ian Sample, science correspondent for the Guardian 36, a London newspaper. Mr Sample also tracked down many of those involved, including Mr Higgs. But Mr Close's magisterial 37 work is sure to become the definitive 38 account of the story. It offers no unambiguous advice to the Nobel committee. But the judges would be wise to give it a thorough read anyway.
　　接受同一主题不是那么令人望而生畏，所以读者应该试看一下《大规模》，这本2010年出版的书富有娱乐性，作者是伦敦报纸《监护人》的科学记者伊恩·桑普尔。桑普尔还追踪了许多有关人士，包括希格斯。但克罗兹的权威性著作肯定会成为这个故事的决定性说法。本书不会给诺贝尔委员会提供明确的建议。但不管怎样这些审鉴人彻底地读一读本书将是明智之举。