倾听"上帝粒子"的美妙弦音

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, is the world’s largest particle accelerator. It’s used to smash together elementary particles – the fundamental building blocks of our world and universe. Now scientists at the LHC are converting data from both real and simulated particle collisions into sound.

位于瑞士日内瓦附近的大型强子对撞机(LHC)是世界最大的粒子加速器，用于基本粒子（世界和宇宙的基本组成单元）的对撞。如今，LHC研究团队的科学家们正将粒子真实碰撞及粒子模拟碰撞的数据信息转化为声音信号。

That’s a proton collision played on marimba.

这是木琴演奏的一段粒子碰撞的声音。

When protons collide at just under the speed of light, they’re transformed into a spray of energy and new particles. Data about the speed and about where these particles hit the detector’s walls is then converted into sound. Dr. Lily Asquith, one of the originators of the LHC sound project, explained.

丽丽．阿斯奎斯博士是LHC音频项目的发起人之一，她解释说，当质子以光速碰撞后，就转化成了一股能量和新的粒子。粒子运动速度和粒子距探测墙的距离等信息都被转化成了声音信号。

Lily Asquith: We may take a particle and if it’s moving very, very quickly we would associate that with a higher pitched sound. A slower or heavier particle might have a lower sound.

丽丽．阿斯奎斯：如果粒子运动的很快，对应声音的音调就高，如果粒子质量重些或运动的慢些，对应声音的音调就要低些。

Asquith said the sound clips are free to the public and encourages their use in artistic projects.

阿斯奎斯说，这些剪辑的声音片段对大众是开发的，我们鼓励人们将其用于艺术作品中。

Lily Asquith: Anything creative that comes out of it is good because it’s making people who wouldn’t normally be interested in physics open their eyes to the fact that this could be something that provides them with material or inspiration.

丽丽．阿斯奎斯：人们聆听这些音频后萌生的任何创意都是好的，因为这让那些对物理学并不感兴趣的人们大开眼界，认识到物理学既实用，又有助于激发灵感。