诺奖得主Andrea Ghez：每一个挑战都是机遇_风闻

2022年11月26日，第三届和第四届“科学探索奖”颁奖典礼在线上举行。2020年诺贝尔物理学奖得主、加州大学洛杉矶分校物理与天文学教授Andrea Ghez为100位获奖人送上视频分享。【前往“返朴”公众号观看】

中文译文

我非常高兴受邀参加今年的“科学探索奖”颁奖典礼。我特别向今天在座这些做出开创性研究的青年科学家表示祝贺，同时，也对奖项发起人表示敬意。我是加州大学洛杉矶分校银河系中心研究组主任、物理与天文学教授、2020年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者安德烈娅·盖兹（Andrea Ghez）。

今天，我很荣幸与各位优秀的青年科学家共庆，并分享我早年的经历。这些经历激励我成为一位天体物理学家，并专注于宇宙研究。

我最早的记忆之一是关于50年前的人类首次登月，那时我才四岁。据家人回忆，当时我宣布：我要成为第一位登月的女性。虽然这个目标至今仍未实现，但却激发了我对宇宙的好奇心，尤其是让我开始思考“时间是否有起点和终点”、“太空是否有边界”这些问题。坦率地说，这些问题曾让我夜不能寐。

在我很小的时候，父母就经常鼓励我要勇于探索。这些在成长过程中不断引导我们的人，是非常重要的。一路走来，我也有幸得到了很多良师的指引。在与我的博士生导师格里·诺伊格鲍尔（Gerry Neugebauer）合作时，他教会了我很多，其中有两点尤为重要：

首先，数据的重要性。请永远相信数据，并确保数据分析的完整性和真实性，因为数据是开启科学探索的“钥匙”。

其次，每一个挑战都是机遇。直到今天，我都一直深受这句话的影响。因为早年的一些经历，让我体会到，挑战是可以转化为机遇的，你需要不断调整自己，来寻找解决问题的新方法。也就是，学着转变思维方式，把对困难的抵触转化为挑战它的激情，最终去把握自己真正想要的东西。

我最重要的科研成果，是在银河系的中心发现了超大质量黑洞。二十六年前，我刚加入加州大学洛杉矶分校的时候，就开始了这项研究。研究过程中，我对凯克天文台（Keck Observatory）产生了浓厚的兴趣，因为那里有全世界最大的望远镜设备。我可以用全新的、不同的方式来使用这台望远镜，从而获得极为清晰的图像，分辨率超过此前所有地基或空间望远镜的观测。做这项研究是为了回答一个问题：在银河系的中心，是否存在着一个超大质量黑洞？

目前，黑洞是一个非常前沿的领域，因为我们不够了解、也没有物理定律来描述它。黑洞是什么呢？是空间一个很小的区域，但引力却大到任何物体都无法逃逸，即使光也不行，而它却没有尺寸。试想一下，质量除以体积得到密度，黑洞的密度将无限大，因为它没有大小。在物理学中，这样的无限被称为奇点。在那里，我们无法诠释它的物理世界。

所以，我们证明黑洞存在的方法是，找到银河系中心的恒星，并追踪它们的运动。这些恒星绕着银河系中心的运动，就好比行星绕着太阳在运动。利用那些轨道定律和我们的测量方法，我们证实了银河系中心确实存在着超大质量黑洞——用可信度提高了千万倍的实测证据，把超大质量黑洞的想法从可能变成了确定。

千万倍的提升会带来巨变。这种巨变得益于我们所采用的技术与方法更加先进，使得我们能够以崭新的、不同的方式来探知宇宙。这种测定恒星轨道的新方法，为研究超大质量黑洞开辟了一条令人兴奋的新途径。

令人欣喜的是，新技术为我们展示了这样一个环境：在这里，我们所做的几乎每一项预测，都与观测结果不符。作为科学家，这时的我就好像走进糖果店的孩子，那种对新鲜事物的好奇，让我非常快乐。

目前还有很多未知等待我们的解答，我最感兴趣的问题之一是“引力如何工作？”。换言之，爱因斯坦的广义相对论在超大质量黑洞的周围是否依旧适用？又或者，我们需要用新的引力模型来替代或拓展它？显然，这一切都将随着新的技术不断拓展。

这些工作都需要得到充分的支持，尤其在资金方面。我还想特别强调，在我职业生涯中期获得的支持，那是一个特别重要的阶段，也是科学家逐渐塑造科研领导力最重要的时期。这个阶段得到的认可和支持，能够帮助那些有抱负、有远见的科学家，潜心去做那些极具探索性的科研项目。所以，祝贺今天在座的各位获奖人，在科研道路上一个非常重要的阶段，得到了很好的支持。

在太空探索方面，中国正发挥着重要的作用。从探月探火到建设空间站，中国即将进入激动人心的阶段。展望未来，我最期待的项目之一，就是三十米望远镜（TMT）国际天文台项目，它是由加州大学和中国等多个合作伙伴共同推进的。这个项目将为我们观察宇宙的方式带来根本改变，并促使各国科学家，从不同角度参与到国际合作中来。

“科学探索奖”为青年科学家的成长提供了非常重要的平台，为你们的科研事业带来了难得的机遇。最后，我想给在座各位获奖的科学家分享我的一些建议。在这个职业发展的关键时刻，想要把握机会，你们需要思考这三个问题：

第一，你真正想做的是什么？你对什么充满激情？你享受什么？

第二，如何开阔视野，勇于在科学“无人区”不断探索？这些未知领域可能将是你们未来工作的核心。

第三，如何培养下一代的科研人才，并为他们创造机会，成为未来的引领者？

最后，再次祝贺“科学探索奖”的获奖者！

英文全文

I’m delighted to be here to welcome all those attending this year’s XPLORER PRIZE ceremony, and in particular those young trailblazing scientists who are being recognized today, as well as the founding members who made this prize possible. I’m Andrea Ghez, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, and a 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Today we are celebrating some aspirational young scientists, and I’m really deeply honored to be able to share some of my early experiences that enabled me to become an astrophysicist and study the universe.

One of my earliest memories is that of the first moon landings that happened 50 years ago. I was four years old at the time, and according to the family legend, I announced that I wanted to be the first woman on the moon. The job’s still open. But what it really did for me was to open up my curiosity about the universe, and in particular to start thinking about questions that have to do with the beginning and end of time, and the edge of space. These questions that quite frankly kept me up at night.

The other thing that this story reminds me is of how important my parents were in encouraging me to be an explorer, early on. Those people who are guiders or provide that guidance are so important to us. Along the way, I’ve been really fortunate to be guided by many good mentors, and began working with Gerry Neugebauer, my PhD advisor. Gerry taught me many, many things, but the two in particular that I remember the most are:

First, the data, the importance of the data, to always trust the data and take great care to have integrity and authenticity about your analysis of the data, because it’s the data that really contain the keys to the scientific discovery.

The second lesson that he taught me was every challenge is an opportunity. For this today, I’ve had many lessons, but the one at the time, which was one of my first ones, where I really learned the beauty of understanding that a challenge is an opportunity and learn to reposition myself, so that I could make a change that would really open up doors or avenues. At this point I think this is where I really understand how to make the shift, how to really capture something that gives you great discomfort and translate that into a passion or capture what you really want to accomplish.

I’m best known for the discovery of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. I started this work when I first joined the faculty at UCLA twenty-six years ago. And what I was particularly attracted by was Keck Observatory, UC co-owned this facility, the largest facility in the world. And what I was interested in doing was using this telescope in a new and different way and in particular, to take the sharpest images ever obtained from ground or space. And the goal of this work was to answer the question: Is there a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy?

Now black holes really represent the frontier of our knowledge, because we don’t know, we don’t have the physics to describe them. You know what is a black hole? A black hole is a region of space that’s so small, that the pull of gravity is so intense that nothing can escape it, not even light, but it has no finite size. So, if you think about mass divided by volume, which is density, that density goes to infinity because it has no finite size. And in physics, whenever something goes to infinity, it’s known as a singularity, which is like a red arrow that says you do not have your description of the physical world, right here.

So, our technique to prove that this black hole really exists is to discover stars that are right at the heart of the galaxy, and to measure how they move, and their motion around the center of the galaxy is dictated by the same laws of physics that dictate how the planets revolve around or orbit around the sun. Using those laws, and our measurements, we demonstrated that a supermassive black hole does exist at the center of our galaxy and in fact, move the idea of supermassive black holes from a possibility to a certainty by increasing the evidence by a factor of 10 million.

If you could do increase it by a factor of 10 million, that’s a real transformation. And that transformation is possible because of advancements in our technology, and our methodologies that move our ability to see the universe forward in a new and different way. This kind of work, our ability to measure the orbits of stars, has opened up a new and exciting way to study supermassive black holes.

And one of the delightful things about new technology is it showing us an environment in which almost every prediction we could make about what should be there, is inconsistent with the observations. For me as a scientist, this is like being a kid in a candy shop, there’s so much more to do.

One of my favorite questions that we’re pursuing today, is the question of “how does gravity work?”. In other words, is Einstein’s ideas about the theory of general relativity correct in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole? Or do we need to replace it or expand it with a new model for gravity? And all of this, of course, will continue to be expanded with new technology.

All of this work takes tremendous support, and in particular tremendous financial support. I’d also like to particularly highlight the support that I got at the mid-career stage, because that’s a particularly important stage, and one that’s being recognized here. This is a critical phase of people’s career development. It’s the moment in which people are stepping into scientific leadership roles. And this kind of recognition enables those people who have the ambition and the vision to accomplish truly large projects. So today I think we’re applauding an investment in a really important stage of scientific development.

China has clearly posed to play a huge role in space exploration. From the lunar lander to the Mars mission to a permanent space station, it’s clear that China is going to have a tremendously exciting year…Moving forward, one of the projects that I’m most excited about is actually a collaboration between the University of California and China, along with many, many other partners. This is the project of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) International Observatory. It’s going to fundamentally change the way we see the universe, and it’s going to force scientists to think about really engaging at a different level and in particular, with international collaborations.

THE XPLORER PRIZE is an incredibly important opportunity for cultivating young talent. For those recipients of this award today, it will change the course of what they’re capable of doing. For those scientists who are receiving this award today, I’d like to end by offering you a piece of advice. At this juncture where your opportunities are really changing, try to assess three things.

First, what is it that you really want to do, that you understand today? What is it that you have passion for? What is it that you have an enjoyment for?

Second, what is it that you can do to really expand your horizons to take risks in new directions, that will really help you understand the things you have an experience? That may be the core of your future.

And the third is, how can you invest in the next generation to open the opportunities up for their future, so that they can become the next generation of leaders?

So congratulations, THE XPLORER PRIZE winners.

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