物理學走到盡頭了嗎？-諾獎得主Wilczek專欄

當今的物理學可以說尤為激動人心：我們正嘗試著利用對“普通”物質的理解來製造機器助手——比如計算機、傳感器和無人機，它們增強了我們的思維能力，幫助我們完成各種任務，還可以讓我們全方位地勘察周圍的世界。

作者 | Frank Wilczek (麻省理工學院教授、2004年諾貝爾獎得主）

翻譯 | 梁丁當、胡風

有人擔憂物理學的未來，但獲得新發現的機會實際上仍比比皆是。

Skeptics worry about the future of the field, but opportunities for new discoveries abound.

“物理學家沉迷於追求數學的優美，卻正在喪失解決新問題的能力。”“頂級的物理學家不再關心物理現實——當然他們也不用關心這些。”“科學完了。”

“Physicists, bewitched by mathematical beauty, are failing to solve new problems.” “High-class physicists no longer care about physical reality—nor should they.” “Science is over.”

這幾句話簡要但還算準確地概括了近期出版的幾本新書的內容，它們分別是：薩比娜·霍森菲爾德（Sabine Hossenfelder）的《迷失在數學裡》（Lost in Math）、理查德·達維德（Richard Dawid）的《弦論與科學方法》（String Theory and the Scientific Method）以及約翰·霍根（John Horgan）的《科學的盡頭》（The End of Science）。我常被問起如何評論這些書及書中的悲觀論調。對理論物理學家來說，這樣的言論是一種指責，言下之意是今天的物理學把自己逼進了死胡同。

Those are simpliﬁed but not entirely misleading summaries of recent books by Sabine Hossenfelder (“Lost in Math”), Richard Dawid (“String Theory and the Scientiﬁc Method”) and John Horgan (“The End of Science”), respectively. I get asked about these books and their dismal messages frequently. For theoretical physicists they are a kind of reproach, since they argue that today’s physics has gotten itself into a dead-end.

然而，這幾本書對此問題的描述卻各不相同。霍森菲爾德女士認為，物理學家應該多關注物理問題的現實性，達威德先生卻覺得忽略現實無傷大礙，而霍根先生則宣稱物理學家的時代已經過去了，他們應該轉行。這到底是怎麽了？

But they disagree in their descriptions of the problem. Ms. Hossenfelder argues that physicists need to pay more attention to reality, Mr. Dawid that they can safely ignore it. Mr. Horgan, meanwhile, thinks that physicists’ time is past and they should do something else instead. What’s going on here?

今天的物理學是不是在健康地發展？對此，或許大家有不同的觀點。但任何一個明理的人都不會去質疑物理學已經取得的巨大成功。如果沒有20世紀量子物理和相對論的革命性突破，也就沒有晶體管、雷射器、GPS、核能等等，這些支撐起現代社會的科學技術。

Opinions may diﬀer about the current health of physics, but no reasonable person can dispute that it has been a hugely successful enterprise. Without revolutionary 20th-century breakthroughs in quantum physics and relativity, modern technology—including transistors, lasers, GPS, nuclear power and much more—would be literally unthinkable.

我們對物質世界的認知在20世紀後半葉就已經達到了一個非常高的高度。所謂的標準模型提供了一套完整且經過充分驗證的方程，來描述普通物質在普通條件下的行為（在這裡你必須非常寬泛地理解“普通”這個詞）。

In the latter part of the 20th century our theoretical understanding reached a very high plateau. The so-called Standard Model oﬀers complete and well-tested equations for the behavior of ordinary matter under ordinary conditions (allowing a very generous interpretation of the word “ordinary”).

標準模型的理論框架構建於20世紀70年代。它預測並促成了一系列卓越的新發現與新觀測，其中最典型的例子就是希格斯玻色子和引力波。可以說，標準模型理論代表了人類成就的一個巔峰。

The theoretical framework of the Standard Model was in place by the 1970s. This body of understanding predicted and enabled spectacular new discoveries and observations, notably including the Higgs boson and gravitational waves. It is a pinnacle of human achievement.

然而這個巨大的成果卻是亦苦亦甜。過去，基礎物理的任何進展同時也會帶來相應的實際應用與效益。可今天，基礎物理的發現已經很難對工程、化學或者生物學產生重大影響了。之所以會形成這樣的局面，正是因為我們目前的物理知識儲備已經超越了這些領域發展的需求——畢竟，21世紀技術背後的那些物理原理早在20世紀50年代之前就都被發現了。

But this grand success is bittersweet. In earlier times, research that added to or changed the theoretical foundations of physics also had practical uses and beneﬁts. Today, however, discoveries in fundamental physics are unlikely to have a signiﬁcant impact in engineering, chemistry or biology, precisely because we already have well-tested foundations that seem more than adequate for those applications. The physical principles that empower 21st-century technologies were all known by the 1950s.

百尺竿頭更進一步是很困難的。但偉大的機遇依然存在。我們可以利用現有的物理知識來製造新穎又實用的東西，比如利用量子世界的豐富特性更加有效地存儲和操作信息。與此同時，還有許多重要的理論問題等待著我們的回答。比如，我們仍然不清楚宇宙的大部分質量到底從何而來。

When you have reached a high plateau, ascending still higher gets more diﬃcult. Yet glorious opportunities remain. We can apply our existing physical knowledge to make ingenious and useful things, like computers that leverage the richness of the quantum world to store and manipulate information more eﬀectively. And important theoretical questions remain to be answered. For instance, we still haven’t got a clear picture of what most of the universe, measured by mass, is made of.

我的英雄理查德·費曼（Richard Feynman）曾開玩笑地說：“愛因斯坦是個巨人。他的頭雖然在雲裡，腳卻踩在地上。而我們這些個子不高的人則必須做出一個選擇！”可我認為今天的我們不需要選擇，因為我們已經站在了百尺竿頭。事實上，當今的物理學可以說尤為激動人心：我們正嘗試著利用對“普通”物質的理解來製造機器助手——比如計算機、傳感器和無人機，它們增強了我們的思維能力，幫助我們完成各種任務，還可以讓我們全方位地勘察周圍的世界。

My hero Richard Feynman joked that “Einstein was a giant: His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!” But I think this is a false choice. Really, the plateau we’ve reached is a good place to be. In fact, physics is especially exciting these days, because we’re learning how to use our understanding of “ordinary” matter to make machine assistants—computers, sensors and drones—that will amplify our thoughts, do useful things and go reconnoitering in all directions.

作者簡介

Frank Wilczek：弗蘭克·維爾切克是麻省理工學院物理學教授、量子色動力學的奠基人之一。因在誇克粒子理論（強作用）方面所取得的成就，他在2004年獲得了諾貝爾物理學獎。

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