Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday last week for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.
Syukuro Manabe, originally from Japan, and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany were cited for their work in developing forecast models of Earth’s climate and “reliably predicting global warming.” The second half of the prize went to Giorgio Parisi of Italy for explaining disorder in physical systems, ranging from those as small as the insides of atoms to the planet-sized.
Hasselmann told the Associated Press that he “would rather have no global warming and no Nobel Prize.” Calling climate change “a major crisis,” Manabe said that figuring out the physics behind climate change was “1,000 times” easier than getting the world to do something about it.
Photo: AFP 照片:法新社
All three scientists work on what are known as “complex systems,” of which climate is just one example. But the prize went to two fields of study that are opposite in many ways, though they share the goal of making sense of what seems random and chaotic so that it can be predicted.
The research of Parisi, of Sapienza University of Rome, largely centers around subatomic particles, predicting how they move in seemingly chaotic ways and explaining why. It is somewhat esoteric, while the work by Manabe and Hasselmann is about large-scale global forces that shape our daily lives.
Parisi “built a deep physical and mathematical model” that made it possible to understand complex systems in fields as different as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning.
(AP)
致力於在看似無序中找到秩序的三位科學家,上週二獲得了諾貝爾物理學獎。他們的研究有助於解釋及預測複雜的自然力量,包括增進我們對氣候變化的理解。
原籍日本的真鍋淑郎與德國的克勞斯‧哈斯曼,因研發地球氣候預測模型,以及「可靠地預測全球暖化」而獲獎。獎金的另一半,則是授予義大利籍的喬吉歐‧帕里西,因他解釋了物理系統──小至原子內部,大至行星大小──其中的無序。
哈斯曼對美聯社表示,他「寧願沒有全球暖化,也沒有諾貝爾獎」。真鍋稱氣候變化為「一場重大危機」,並說弄清楚氣候變化背後的物理學,要比促世界採取行動容易「一千倍」。
這三位科學家都在研究所謂的「複雜系統」,氣候只是其中一個例子。獲獎的兩個研究領域,在許多方面都大相逕庭,雖然其共同目標皆為理解看似隨機與混亂的事物,以便能夠預測。
羅馬大學的帕里西,其研究主要圍繞次原子粒子,探究它們如何以及為何以看似混亂的方式運動,並加以預測。帕里西的研究有時深奧難解,而真鍋及哈斯曼的研究,則是有關型塑我們日常生活的大規模全球力量。
帕里西「建立了一個深刻的物理及數學模型」,使得理解數學、生物學、神經科學和機器學習等不同領域的複雜系統成為可能。
(台北時報林俐凱編譯)
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
A: Artificial intelligence technology has been causing controversy lately: a student was caught cheating with AI to win the grand prize in an art contest. B: That’s so absurd. Does this mean that AI paints better than humans? A: Maybe. Luckily, the student was later disqualified. B: And more absurdly, it’s becoming more and more popular to use AI technology to “resurrect” people. A: Yeah, some netizens even posted videos featuring the late singer CoCo Lee, who was “resurrected” by them with AI software. A: 人工智慧的爭議不斷,有學生違規使用AI參加美術展,甚至贏得首獎。 B: 真誇張,這是不是代表AI比人類還強大? A: 或許吧,幸好得獎資格被取消。 B: 還有更誇張的︰讓死者重現的「AI復活」技術越來越熱門。 A: 對啊,還有網友製作已故歌后李玟「復活」的影片呢! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into