向大自然学习
Learn From the Nature
原文阅读
In 1989, Janpan's Shinkansen Bullet Train had a problem. It was fast, really fast, like pushing 170 miles per hour fast. But every time it exited a tunnel, it was loud. This noise was coming from a variety of sources, but whenever a train sped into a tunnel, it pushed waves of atmospheric pressure through the other end. The air exited tunnels with a sonic boom that could be heard 400 meters away. In dense residential areas, that was a huge problem. So an engineering team was brought in to design a quieter, faster, and more efficient train. And they had one secret weapon: Eiji Nakatsu, the general manager of the technical development departement, was a birdwatcher.
Different components of the redesigned bullet train were based on different birds. Owls inspired the pantograph, that's the rig that connects the train to the electric wires above. Nakatsu modeled the redesign after their feathers, reducing noise by using the same serrations and curvature that allow them to silently swoop down to catch prey. The Adelie Penguin, whose smooth body allows it to swim and slide effortlessly, inspired the pantograph's supporting shaft, redesigned for lower wind resistance. And perhaps most notable of all was the Kingfisher.
The Kingfisher is a bird that dives into water to catch it's prey. The unique shape of its beak allows it to do that while barely making a splash. Nakatsu took that shape to the design table. The team shot bullets shaped like different train nose models down a pipe to measure pressure waves, and droped them in water to measure the splash size. The quietest nose design was the one modeled most closely after the Kingfisher's beak. When the redesign debuted in 1997, it was 10% faster, used 15% less electricity, and stayed under the 70 dB noise limit in residential areas. And it did all that with the wings of an wol, the belly of a penguin, and the nose of a Kingfisher.
There's a name for design like this. It's callyed biomimicry. The people who design our would usually never take a biology class, believe it or not. So they're novices in how the world works. That's Janine Benyus. Back in 1997, she wrote the book that coined the term "Biomimicry". It told the story of the innovations in computing, energy, and health that were inspired by structures in the natural world. Stick like a gecko, compute like a cell. Even run a business like a redwood forest. Benyus has since worked as a consultant for various companies, trying to get them to understand how to take design ideas from nature. That might mean studying prairie dog burrows to build better air ventilation system, mimicking shark skin to create bacteria-resistant plastic for hostpitals, or arranging wind turbines in the same drag-reducing pattern that schools of fish swim in. Designers get inspiration from a lot of different places, but Benyus thinks many of them could benefit from looking more at the natural world.
So there's a lot of looking at that other people have done. And what they do is, they look at all the others, and they get ideas. They literally do, you know, a lot of designers have lots of magazines that they look through, they tear those out and they put them up on inspiration boards. But they're looking at other human technologies. Her idea was simple: designers should get in the habit of bringing a biologist to the table, and let them help solve problems by mimicking nature. And there are three main ways they can do that. You can mimic its form, or its shape. You might create a paint for a building that, when it dries, it's got same structure as self-cleaning leaves, lotus leaves are notoriously great, they let rain water clean the leaf because they have these bumps and rain water balls up on the bumps, and then it pearls away the dirt. So that lotus effect is physical, and you can create a physical structure on the outside of any product. Imagine that on the outside your car, rainwater would clean your car. So that's mimicking form. But there's also mimicking process, the processes of the natural world. It might even be how you mimic how ants communicate in order to efficiently find sources of food or new places to live. And those processes, that self-organization, has been mimicked in software, in things like autonomous cars and how they're gonna move in flocks through the city by talking to one another. That's mimicking nature's process.
And then you jump to the level of mimicking whole ecosystems. There's a thing that's a buzzword right now, that's really hot, called the circular economy, which is essentially industries saying there should be no such things as a byproduct in a manufacturing facility that gose to landfill. It should be used by something else, and at the end of a product's like, That product should be upcycled into something else. It's being called the circular economy. Ecosystems do that really, really ,really well. You've got a log on the forest floor, and those materials move up into thee body of the fungus that eats it. Those materials move up into a mouse. And that mouse material moves up into a hawk... And if you think about that as what we'd like to do with local material being upcycled constantly. In our cities, for instance. Those ecosystem lessons are really big for us.
And that's the end goal for biomimetic design, making products, systems, and cities functionally indistinguishable from the natural world. Life has been around on Earth for 3.8 billion years, and what designers are starting to reallize is that 's a lot of research and development time. The people who design our world have a lot to learn from the natural world. All they have to do is take a look.
生词统计
| 单词 | 音标 | 翻译 |
|---|---|---|
| sped | sped | v. 加速、飞驰 |
| pantograph | ˈpæntəɡræf | n. 放大尺、缩放仪、缩图仪、比例画图仪器 |
| serration | seˈreɪʃn | n. 锯齿状、锯齿状突起 |
| swoop | swuːp | v. 俯冲、突然袭击、（尤指鸟）猛扑； n. 猛扑、突然袭击 |
| debuted | deɪˈbjuː | n. 初次登台、开张； v. 初次登台 |
| novice | ˈnɑːvɪs | n. 初学者、新手 |
| gecko | ˈɡekoʊ | n. 壁虎 |
| prairie | ˈpreri | n. 大草原、牧场 |
| ventilate | ˈventɪleɪt | v. 使通风、给...装通风设备、宣布 |
| turbine | ˈtɜːrbaɪn | n. 涡轮、涡轮机 |
| notoriously | noʊˈtɔːriəsli | adv. 众所周知的、声名狼藉的、恶名昭彰的 |
| fungus | ˈfʌŋɡəs | n. 真菌、霉菌、菌类 |
翻译
In 1989, Japan's Shinkansen Bullet Train had a problem. It was fast, really fast, like pushing 170 miles per hour fast. But every time it exited a tunnel, it was loud. This noise was coming from a variety of sources, but whenever a train sped into a tunnel, it pushed waves of atmospheric pressure through the other end. The air exited tunnels with a sonic boom that could be heard 400 meters away. In dense residential areas, that was a huge problem. So an engineering team was brought in to design a quieter, faster, and more efficient train. And they had one secret weapon: Eiji Nakatsu, the general manager of the technical development department, was a birdwatcher.
1989年，日本新干线子弹头列车出了点问题，新干线开得很快，时速近170公里/小时。但每次出隧道的时候噪音都很大。噪音的来源多种多样，但每次列车开进隧道，就会将气压推至隧道另一端出口。这股气流厉害隧道后形成声爆，400米开外都能听到。在密集的居住区，这可是个大问题。一直工程师团队受邀来设计一款更轻、更快、更高效的列车。他们有一个秘密武器：技术发展部总经理中津英治，他是个鸟类观察家。
Different components of the redesigned bullet train were based on different birds. Owls inspired the pantograph, that's the rig that connects the train to the electric wires above. Nakatsu modeled the redesign after their feathers, reducing noise by using the same serrations and curvature that allow them to silently swoop down to catch prey. The Adelie Penguin, whose smooth body allows it to swim and slide effortlessly, inspired the pantograph's supporting shaft, redesigned for lower wind resistance. And perhaps most notable of all was the Kingfisher.
子弹头列车新设计的各个部分都来源于不同的鸟类。猫头鹰启发了导电弓架，这是一种链接火车和电线的装置，中津英治模仿了他们羽翼的锯齿和曲率，这使得它们捕食时悄无声息。阿德利企鹅拥有圆滑的身躯，能够高效的游泳和滑行，这一点启发了导电弓架的支撑杆，被重新设计成低风阻的支架。还有最著名的恐怕是翠鸟了。
The Kingfisher is a bird that dives into water to catch it's prey. The unique shape of its beak allows it to do that while barely making a splash. Nakatsu took that shape to the design table. The team shot bullets shaped like different train nose models down a pipe to measure pressure waves, and dropped them in water to measure the splash size. The quietest nose design was the one modeled most closely after the Kingfisher's beak. When the redesign debuted in 1997, it was 10% faster, used 15% less electricity, and stayed under the 70 dB noise limit in residential areas. And it did all that with the wings of an owl, the belly of a penguin, and the nose of a Kingfisher.
翠鸟是一种扎进水里捕食的鸟，其喙的独特形状能够让它捕食的时候几乎不溅起水花。英治将这种形状的设计搬上台。团队将这种类似子弹头形状的东西投入管道，以测量压力波，并将它们投入水中来观察水花溅起的程度。最静的就是模仿翠鸟喙的设计。1977年，新列车首次亮相时，车速提升了10%，生下了15%的用电，在居民区噪音也降低至70分贝以下。这多亏了猫头鹰的羽翼，企鹅的腹部和翠鸟的喙。
There's a name for design like this. It's called biomimicry. The people who design our world usually never take a biology class, believe it or not. So they're novices in how the world works. That's Janine Benyus. Back in 1997, she wrote the book that coined the term "Biomimicry". It told the story of the innovations in computing, energy, and health that were inspired by structures in the natural world. Stick like a gecko, compute like a cell. Even run a business like a redwood forest. Benyus has since worked as a consultant for various companies, trying to get them to understand how to take design ideas from nature. That might mean studying prairie dog burrows to build better air ventilation systems, mimicking shark skin to create bacteria-resistant plastic surfaces for hospitals, or arranging wind turbines in the same drag-reducing pattern that schools of fish swim in. Designers get inspiration from a lot of different places, but Benyus thinks many of them could benefit from looking more at the natural world.
这种设计有个学名：仿生学。设计我们这个社会的应该没有上过任何生物课，信不信由你。他们对世界的运作方面都是新手。这位是Jenine Benyus，1997年她写了一本书，创造了一个新词：仿生学。这本书写的是人们受到自然结构的启发，在计算机、能源、健康等领域作出的创新。模仿壁虎的吸附力，像细胞一样运算，甚至像红杉树林一样创立公司。Benyus曾作为各种公司的咨询员，教他们如何从自然中获得设计灵感。就好比学习草原犬建造的洞穴来制作更好通风系统，摸仿鲨鱼皮，帮助医院制作抗菌材料，或者按鱼群的减阻阵型来排列风机。设计师的灵感来源多种多样，但Benyus认为他们应该多关注自然界，那会收获颇丰。
So there's a lot of looking at what other people have done. And what they do is, they look at all the others, and they get ideas. They literally do, you know, a lot of designers have lots of magazines that they look through, they tear those out and they put them up on inspiration boards. But they're looking at other human technologies. Her idea was simple: designers should get in the habit of bringing a biologist to the table, and let them help solve problems by mimicking nature. And there are three main ways they can do that. You can mimic its form, or its shape. You might create a paint for a building that, when it dries, it's got the same structure as self-cleaning leaves, lotus leaves are notoriously great, they let rainwater clean the leaf because they have these bumps and the rain water balls up on the bumps, and then it pearls away the dirt. So that lotus effect is physical, and you can create a physical structure on the outside of any product. Imagine that on the outside your car, rainwater would clean your car. So that's mimicking form. But there's also mimicking process, the processes of the natural world. It might even be how you mimic how ants communicate in order to efficiently find sources of food or new places to live. And those processes, that self-organization, has been mimicked in software, in things like autonomous cars and how they're gonna move in flocks through the city by talking to one another. That's mimicking nature's process.
设计师会关注其他设计师的作品。他们会关注同行怎么做，从而获得想法。他们真的会这样做，他们会翻看很多杂志，把某些撕下来，粘在启发板上。但他们只是在寻找其他人的技术成果。Benyus的想法很简单，设计师们需要把生物学家带上设计台，让他们通过模仿自然解决问题。可以通过以下三种模式。首先你可以模仿样式和形状，你可能需要未建筑物设计一种涂料，当它凝固下来时，它需要有像自我清洁类叶子一样的结构。荷叶在这方面就很出色，它们用雨水来清洁树叶，因为它们表面有凸起的‘小包’，雨珠划过这些小包时会带走灰尘。荷叶效应时物理层面的。你可以在任何物理表面做出这样的结构，想象一下要是你的车子有了这样的外层涂料，雨水就能帮你洗车了。这就是模仿结构。还有就是模仿过程，模仿自然界的过程，就像蚂蚁在寻找食物源和新居住地时的交流过程。这种自我组织的过程在软件中得到应用，就像自动驾驶汽车如果通过交流做到井然有序地穿梭于城市。这就是模仿自然的过程。
And then you jump up to the level of mimicking whole ecosystems. There's a thing that's a buzzword right now, that's really hot, called the circular economy, which is essentially industries saying there should be no such thing as a byproduct in a manufacturing facility that goes to landfill. It should be used by something else, and at the end of a product's life, that product should be upcycled into something else. It's being called the circular economy. Ecosystems do that really, really, really well. You've got a log on the forest floor, and those materials move up into the body of the fungus that eats it. Those materials move up into a mouse. And that mouse material moves up into a hawk... And if you think about that as what we'd like to do with local materials being upcycled constantly. In our cities, for instance. Those ecosystem lessons are really big for us.
你可以跳到更高的水平模仿整个生态系统。现在有一个次非常热门，叫做循环经济。就是产业要求不能有任何制造出来的副产品最后被送进垃圾填埋场。而要进行循环利用，某个产品的使用周期结束时要通过升级再造成另一样东西。这就叫做循环经济。地球的生态系统在这方面做的很好。森林里有一根圆木，它会被真菌腐蚀消化掉，接着真菌会被老鼠吃掉，老鼠又被老鹰吃掉。你把它想象成我们要做的事，那就是不断升级回收当地的材料，例如在我们的城市里。我们能从整个生态环境中学到很多。
And that's the end goal for biomimetic design, making products, systems, and cities functionally indistinguishable from the natural world. Life has been around on Earth for 3.8 billion years, and what designers are starting to realize is that's a lot of research and development time. The people who design our world have a lot to learn from the natural world. All they have to do is take a look.
这就是仿生设计的最终目标，让产品、系统和城市像自然界一样循环工作。生命在地球上已经存在了38亿年了，设计师们需要学习的还有很多，他们要做的就是多去大自然里看一看。