制作彩虹 (Making rainbows)

This is a story about curiosity. It’s also about what happens when you stick a needle into your eye. If you happen to be eating a handful of grapes right this moment, maybe come back later.

这是一个关于好奇心的故事。这也与将针头插入眼睛会发生什么有关。如果您此时恰好正在吃少量葡萄，也许以后再回来。

Up until the late 1600s, white light was widely considered to be a singular and irreducible substance. Symbolic of divine purity, the suggestion that white light may somehow be constituted from all the colors of the rainbow was not merely fanciful but potentially heretical.

直到1600年代后期，白光一直被认为是一种不可还原的奇异物质。象征神圣的纯洁的暗示，白光可能以某种方式由彩虹的所有颜色构成，这不仅是幻想，而且可能是异端。

And then one day, Newton jammed a needle into his eye socket.

然后有一天，牛顿将一根针插入他的眼窝。

Seriously.

说真的

I tooke a bodkin & put it betwixt my eye & the bone as neare to the backside of my eye as I could: & pressing my eye with the end of it (soe as to make the curvature in my eye) there appeared severall white darke & coloured circles. Which circles were plainest when I continued to rub my eye with the point of the bodkin, but if I held my eye & the bodkin still, though I continued to presse my eye with it yet the circles would grow faint & often disappeare untill I renewed them by moving my eye or the bodkin.*

我拉了一个鲍德金，把它放在我的眼睛和骨头之间，并尽可能地靠近我的眼睛的后侧：＆压住我的眼睛，使它的末端(使眼睛弯曲)。和彩色圆圈。当我继续用Bodkin的尖端揉眼睛时，哪个圆圈最平淡，但是如果我继续握住我的眼睛和Bodkin，尽管我继续按它的眼睛，但圆圈会变得微弱并且经常消失，直到我更新通过移动我的眼睛或Bodkin。*

Newton eventually came up with a better, safer and altogether less icky way of investigating the composition of light through an ingenious series of experiments with prisms. But it began with this dramatic act — part brilliance, part lunacy — and arose from that most extraordinary creative impulse: curiosity.

牛顿最终通过一系列巧妙的棱镜实验，提出了一种更好，更安全，更省钱的方法来研究光的成分。但这始于这种戏剧性的举动，一部分是光彩，一部分是疯子，源于最非凡的创造冲动：好奇心。

Now, listen: I’m not saying you should go and jam a bit of steel into your eye socket just to see what happens. Please don’t do that. But as extreme as it may be, Newton’s experiment dramatically illustrates the importance of taking nothing at face value, and the inextricable link between discovery and risk.

现在，请听：我并不是说您应该去将一些钢塞入眼窝，只是为了看看会发生什么。请不要那样做。但是，尽管如此极端，但牛顿的实验却戏剧性地说明了不让任何东西当面取现的重要性，以及发现与风险之间密不可分的联系。

We think we know stuff, don’t we? We call ourselves professionals, experts and (God help us) gurus or ninjas. We’ve earned our stripes through hard-won experience and formal training. From getting things right and wrong, learning from past mistakes while we make new ones so we have something to learn from next time.

我们认为我们知道一些东西，不是吗？我们称自己为专家，专家和(神帮助我们)大师或忍者。通过来之不易的经验和正规的培训，我们赢得了自己的成功。从做对与错，从过去的错误中吸取教训，同时我们也要犯下新的错误，以便下次可以学习一些东西。

But is it possible that over time, if we’re not careful, our experience can become an obstacle to innovation?

但是随着时间的流逝，如果我们不谨慎的话，我们的经验是否有可能成为创新的障碍？

We start to talk about best practice. We fall into habitual ways of solving problems. We think we’ve seen it all twice before and know how to solve it when it inevitably swings around for a third time. Problems become predictable, solutions rote.

我们开始谈论最佳实践。我们陷入解决问题的习惯方式。我们认为我们之前已经看过两次，并且知道它不可避免地第三次摆动时如何解决。问题变得可预测，解决方案死板。

The world we think we understand so deeply is in truth made up of countless “white light” assumptions. We think we know how things work, the best way to do something, the efficient path to travel. But so much of what we consider self-evident is really just habit. All that experience and expertise you’ve built up may just be conspiring against you to make you complacent.

我们认为我们了解得如此深入的世界实际上是由无数“白光”假设组成的。我们认为我们知道事情的运作方式，做某事的最佳方式以及行之有效的道路。但是，我们认为不言而喻的很多东西实际上只是习惯。您积累的所有经验和专业知识可能只是在阴谋欺骗您，使您自满。

Experimentation, by its very nature, won’t always yield the results we want. But if we never question what we believe to be true, if we don’t dare to be inquisitive, if we let our experience become our safety zone, if we lack the courage to take risks once in a while…

从本质上讲，实验不会总是产生我们想要的结果。但是，如果我们从不质疑我们相信的事实是什么，如果我们不敢好奇，是否让我们的经验成为我们的安全区，是否缺乏勇于冒险的勇气……

…well, we may never see the rainbow of new ideas concealed within the white light of everyday that surrounds us.

……好吧，我们可能永远都看不到隐藏在我们周围的白日光辉中的新想法的彩虹。

Originally published at abc.gilfewster.com on October 29, 2015.

最初于2015年10月29日发布在abc.gilfewster.com 。