寻找10个红气球

Physicist Riley Crane works at MIT's human dynamics lab. Dr. Crane measures how information moves – on sites like Facebook, for example – and asks:

物理学家赖利·克兰就职于麻省理工学院人类动力学实验室。他研究了信息在Facebook这类网站的传播方式，并提出以下问题。

Riley Crane: How does society respond to some stimulus, which could be anything ranging from an earthquake or a tsunami to a call to find ten red balloons?

赖利·克兰：社会是如何对那些公众瞩目的事件做出反应的呢？这些事件多种多样，比如地震、海啸，甚至“找找10个红气球”这样的活动。

Dr. Crane is talking about a contest sponsored by the Pentagon, which challenged teams to be the first to find ten red balloons, randomly hidden all across the U.S. Crane's MIT team was the first to find all ten – in under 9 hours – with public help in the search.

克兰博士所说的“10个红气球”是指五角大楼发起的一场比赛。比赛要求参赛队伍在最短的时间内找出随机藏在美国各地的10个红气球。克兰率领的麻省理工队借助公众帮助在9小时内率先找出了所有气球。

Riley Crane: We basically made a website that allowed anybody to simply sign up by putting in their e-mail and user name so we could track at each point how the information was getting from person to person…

赖利·克兰：我们创建了一个网站，任何人都可以通过输入邮箱地址和用户名进行注册，这样我们就可以通过每个用户提供的情况追踪信息如何在人与人之间进行传播。

Crane's now analyzing this data to discover what rules might govern the spread of information online. His aim, he said, is to explore the opportunities that come with living in such a connected world. He says this field is so new, scientists aren't exactly sure what they're going to find, or how to use it. But, he added, by mastering these rules, we'll get more effective at using digital tools to communicate information about a crisis, like an earthquake.

克兰博士目前正着手分析这项数据，从中找出控制网络信息传播的规则。他表示，现在随着人们的联系日益紧密，机会也越来越多，进行这项研究就是为了寻找这样的机会。目前人类动力学是一个新的研究领域，科学家还不确定能从中发现什么，以及如何利用这些成果。但他指出，只要掌握了这些传播规则，人们在面临地震等危机时，就能更有效地利用数码资源来交流信息。