The Most Astounding Fact

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

昨天看到推友推了一個很有趣的影片：天文學家對鐵達尼號感到生氣。點進去看差點沒笑翻。這位天文物理學家Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson用他那幽默風趣的態度，描述他對電影鐵達尼號中錯誤的不滿的故事。重點是他很棄而不捨，找到機會就對導演James Cameron曉以大義，結果最後還真的成功了，你說酷不酷？！XD

Cameron, who recently returned from his voyage to the Mariana Trench, said:“Neil deGrasse Tyson sent me quite a snarky email saying that, at that time of year, in that position in the Atlantic in 1912, when Rose is lying on the piece of driftwood and staring up at the stars, that is not the star field she would have seen.

“And with my reputation as a perfectionist, I should have known that and I should have put the right star field in.” “So I said ‘All right, send me the right stars for that exact time and I’ll put it in the movie.’”

所以最近要是有人去看什麼鐵達尼3D的話，Rose看的那片天空，就是正確的囉！XD

因為這位Dr. Tyson實在是太引起我的興趣了，所以忍不住開始在網路上找他的資料。老實說，我就覺得他很眼熟，原來他上過The Big Bang Theory！而且把冥王星降級和提出曼哈頓巨石陣都跟他有關係，真的覺得自己有眼不識泰山。

不過真正讓我一整個愛上他的原因，是因為在網路上看到了以下這段影片：



這段影片其實是Time Magazine的記者訪問他時，問他的一個問題"What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?"這就是Dr. Tyson對這個問題的解答。看完這段影片，我覺得自己被鼓勵到了。他用了這一小段話，簡單又充滿詩意地回答了這個我們平常沒有接觸物理提問，而且即使知道其中的原理，也不一定有辦法跟我們生活中的想法與事物有所連結。但是Dr. Tyson的回答，真的讓人有恍然大悟而且深深被擊中的感覺，我真的有被感動到。

所以我決定把這段話記下來，常常勉勵自己，就算覺得自己很渺小，但是就自己做得到某一方面也是可以很偉大。因為構成這偉大宇宙的物質，其實也在自己的身體裡。不要抱怨，就算不能成什麼大事，也要和身邊的人有所互動，讓自己覺得存在，要用正面的想法來看事情。活著本身就是一件很美好的事情了，知足常樂。雖然這聽起來很陳腔濫調，但是就過往的經驗，我真心相信如此。Dr. Tyson的話，又再次提醒我這想法是有力量的。

“The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth. The atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.

The stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form that next generation of solar systems. Stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.

So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we're part of this Universe. We're in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up many people feel small because they're small and the Universe is big but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There's a level of connectivity. That's really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That's precisely what we are, just by being alive.”