630: Things I Mean to Know - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #630 | October 27, 2017 630: Things I Mean to Know Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 630 集 | 2017 年 10 月 27 日 630：我想知道的事情 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
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如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass Hey everybody, Ira Glass here, and I am in the studio right now with one of our producers, David Kestenbaum.
序言 Ira Glass 大家好，我是 Ira Glass，我现在和我们的制作人之一 David Kestenbaum 一起在工作室里。
Hey, David.
嘿，大卫。
Hi Ira.
嗨，艾拉。
Ira Glass So this whole episode came out of something that you have been thinking about, and so I am just going to hand the whole program over to you right now.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）所以这整集都是出于你一直在思考的事情，所以我现在就把整个节目交给你。
It is something I've been thinking about for a while.
这是我已经思考了一段时间的事情。
But actually, it came out of this conversation I was having with Diane Wu on staff here.
但实际上，这是我与这里的员工 Diane Wu 进行的一次谈话。
Diane and I are the two trained scientists on the staff.
黛安和我是团队中两位训练有素的科学家。
Before I was in journalism, I studied physics.
在从事新闻工作之前，我学的是物理学。
Diane went to grad school in chemistry.
黛安读的是化学研究生。
And she was telling me the story about this time she was at a conference.
她给我讲了她这次参加会议的故事。
This was in a small town in Germany.
这是在德国的一个小镇。
And this Nobel Prize winner, a guy named Harold Kroto, was giving a talk.
这位诺贝尔奖获得者，一个名叫哈罗德·克罗托的人，正在发表演讲。
Those are the little spheres of carbon, like Buckminster Fuller-shaped sphere?
这些是碳的小球体，就像巴克明斯特·富勒形状的球体？
Yeah, like the geodesic domes of carbon.
是的，就像碳的测地圆顶一样。
For both of us, one of the things we liked about science was this promise that we could understand how the world works-- in a deep way.
对于我们俩来说，我们喜欢科学的原因之一就是它承诺我们可以深入地理解世界是如何运作的。
Everything, except people, of course.
当然，除了人之外，一切都是如此。
Anyway, it was satisfying.
无论如何，还是很满足的。
I found it comforting.
我觉得这很令人欣慰。
Diane did, too, until this day she was telling me about, when that changed.
黛安也是如此，直到今天她告诉我，情况才发生了变化。
She was sitting there with all these students, listening to the Nobel chemist talk.
她和所有这些学生坐在一起，听这位诺贝尔化学家的演讲。
And in the middle of the talk, kind of out of nowhere, he asks this question.
在谈话中，他突然问了这个问题。
He goes, how many of you believe that the sun revolves around the earth?
他说，你们有多少人相信太阳绕着地球转？
The sun around the earth-- that's wrong, right?
太阳绕着地球转——这是错误的，对吧？
The opposite of how things work.
与事情的运作方式相反。
And people kind of giggled, and nobody raised their hand.
人们咯咯地笑，没有人举手。
And then he asked, how many of you believe the opposite?
然后他问，你们中有多少人相信相反的观点？
How many of you believe that the earth revolves around the sun?
你们中有多少人相信地球绕着太阳转？
And we all kind of begrudgingly raised our hands, not knowing where he was going.
我们都有点不情愿地举起了手，不知道他要去哪里。
I raised my hand.
我举起了手。
And then he asked us, how many of you know the evidence for that?
然后他问我们，你们中有多少人知道这方面的证据？
How many of you know the evidence that the earth revolves around the sun?
你们中有多少人知道地球绕太阳旋转的证据？
Like, how do we know it's true?
就像，我们怎么知道这是真的？
What's the proof of it?
其证据何在？
Right.
正确的。
Exactly.
确切地。
And I couldn't put my hand up.
我无法举手。
And I looked around me, and very few people were able to raise their hands.
我环顾四周，很少有人能够举手。
Basically, none of us knew what the evidence was for that thing that we believed to be true.
基本上，我们谁都不知道我们相信的事情的证据是什么。
Then he asked us, you-- or he kind of chided us, you took that on faith.
然后他问我们，你——或者他有点责备我们，你相信这一点。
How much else have you accepted without evidence?
你还接受了多少没有证据的事情？
Because that is one of the most serious problems facing our civilization today.
因为这是我们当今文明面临的最严重的问题之一。
Like, they were all running around talking with complete confidence about stuff we think we know, but we don't actually really know.
就像，他们都满怀信心地跑来跑去谈论我们认为我们知道但实际上我们并不真正知道的事情。
Yeah.
是的。
What else do you take on faith?
你还相信什么？
What else do you agree with without knowing the evidence behind it?
在不知道其背后的证据的情况下，您还同意什么？
And I realized very quickly, it's a lot of things.
我很快意识到，这涉及很多事情。
Diane said she really couldn't pay attention to the lecture after that.
黛安说，听完讲座后她真的无法专心听课了。
She was thinking, what do I really know?
她在想，我到底知道什么？
And also, because she found his particular example distracting, how do we know the earth goes around the sun, not the other way around?
而且，因为她发现他的特殊例子分散了她的注意力，我们怎么知道地球绕着太阳转，而不是相反？
I start wondering, I mean, I should-- what is the evidence?
我开始想，我的意思是，我应该——证据是什么？
Maybe I can sort it out.
也许我可以解决这个问题。
Like, it probably has to do with planets and angles, or something.
就像，它可能与行星和角度或其他东西有关。
[LAUGHS] And I just kind of tune out the rest of the lecture.
[笑]我只是忽略了讲座的其余部分。
I'm trying to figure it out, but I can't.
我试图弄清楚，但我做不到。
I couldn't quite figure it out then.
我当时不太明白。
After the lecture, Diane goes home, newly aware of this vast universe of her personal ignorance, just realizing, so many of the things I think are true, they are just things I've heard from someone who probably heard them from somebody else, probably without evidence either.
讲座结束后，黛安回到家，重新意识到她个人的无知，才意识到，我认为的很多事情都是真的，它们只是我从别人那里听到的，也可能是从别人那里听到的，可能也没有证据。
And this sits with her for months, until some point she decides, you know what?
这会伴随她几个月，直到某个时候她做出决定，你知道吗？
Things do not have to be this way.
事情不一定非要这样。
I'm going to do something.
我要做点什么。
I'm going to fix this.
我要解决这个问题。
She makes this list, calls it "Things I Mean to Know."
她列出了这份清单，称之为“我想知道的事情”。
And there are seven things on that list that I started out with.
我一开始的清单上有七件事。
And I thought I would go through them one at a time.
我想我会一次一个地浏览它们。
And then once I've figured out those seven, then I could go on to the next things that I meant to know.
一旦我弄清楚了这七个，我就可以继续讨论我想知道的接下来的事情。
Can you read me the list?
你能读一下清单吗？
Diane Wu Here's the list.
吴黛安 这是名单。
One, Schottky barrier.
一、肖特基势垒。
The Schottky barrier is a physics, chemistry thing.
肖特基势垒是一个物理、化学的东西。
OK, back to the list.
好的，回到列表。
Two, yams versus sweet potatoes, what is the difference?
二、山药与红薯，有什么区别？
Three, evidence for earth around sun.
三、地球围绕太阳运行的证据。
Four, difference between Sunni and Shia.
四、逊尼派和什叶派的区别。
Five, Burgundy versus Bordeaux.
第五，勃艮第与波尔多。
Six, composition and how steel is made.
六、钢的成分和制造方法。
Seven, Obamacare.
七、奥巴马医改。
[LAUGHTER] David Kestenbaum It's quite a list-- very comprehensive.
[笑声] David Kestenbaum 这是一份相当全面的清单。
One of the things I love about this list is just the total honesty of it.
我喜欢这份清单的原因之一就是它的完全诚实。
Diane told me she knew, really, as a person living in this world, she should have understood the difference between Sunni and Shia, especially after reading the news all those years.
黛安告诉我，她真的知道，作为一个生活在这个世界上的人，她应该理解逊尼派和什叶派之间的区别，尤其是在看了这些年的新闻之后。
But she was just like, I don't.
但她只是说，我不喜欢。
That was the truth of it.
这就是事实的真相。
So Diane makes this list.
所以黛安列出了这个名单。
She actually starts a blog where she's going to answer them, titles it Loose Ends.
她实际上开设了一个博客，她将在其中回答这些问题，标题为“松散的结局”。
Then she starts researching and writing the answers, starting with this one, yams versus sweet potatoes.
然后她开始研究并写下答案，从山药与红薯开始。
If you're reading and eating from the United States, the sweet, yellow- or orange-fleshed and potato-shaped vegetable you know as a sweet potato is just that.
如果您在美国读书和吃东西，那么您所知道的甘薯就是这种甜的、黄色或橙色果肉、马铃薯形状的蔬菜。
It is unrelated to potatoes and yams.
它与土豆和山药无关。
It is related to morning glories.
它与牵牛花有关。
She writes a very detailed answer to the question, even includes some old botanical drawings.
她对这个问题写了非常详细的答案，甚至包括一些古老的植物图画。
She said it was really satisfying to do.
她说做起来真的很满足。
Yeah.
是的。
Because then, whenever you're like, are they different?
因为那么，每当你喜欢的时候，他们会有所不同吗？
Now, I know.
现在，我知道了。
That's the last one I wrote.
这是我写的最后一篇。
I wrote one.
我写了一篇。
I asked Diane, what happened?
我问黛安，发生了什么事？
What about the mission?
那使命呢？
She said the next day, she was going to start on the next question, which was going to be that chemistry thing, the Schottky barrier.
她说第二天，她将开始解决下一个问题，即化学问题，肖特基势垒。
But she just didn't get very far.
但她只是没有走多远。
I think I just went to work.
我想我刚去上班。
And I think I started looking into it, and it was too hard.
我想我开始研究它，但这太难了。
So I never wrote the blog post.
所以我从来没有写过这篇博文。
Diane says she never felt like she gave up.
黛安说她从未觉得自己放弃了。
She always figured, at some point, she would get back to it, turn the things I mean to know into the things I know, but she hasn't, which, of course, is the way most of us deal with this.
她总是认为，在某个时候，她会回到原来的状态，把我想知道的事情变成我知道的事情，但她没有，当然，这是我们大多数人处理这个问题的方式。
We never figure those things out.
我们从来没有弄清楚这些事情。
Essentially, Diane had this moment where it seemed like she was going to evolve to a higher level than you and me.
从本质上讲，黛安有过这样的时刻，她似乎将进化到比你我更高的水平。
She was like a fish deciding to climb up on land.
她就像一条决定爬上陆地的鱼。
And she tried that out for the length of time it takes to write one blog post, then took a deep breath, decided, meh, I'm going to stay in the water.
她尝试了写一篇博客文章所需的时间，然后深吸了一口气，决定，嗯，我要留在水里。
It's easier.
更容易了。
And she jumped back in the ocean with the rest of us dummies.
她和我们其他假人一起跳回到海里。
I really do think that it was just, even getting to the bottom of one thing is a lot of work.
我确实认为这只是，即使是弄清楚一件事的真相也需要大量的工作。
I mean, does this still make you anxious?
我的意思是，这仍然让你感到焦虑吗？
Yeah, it does.
是的，确实如此。
It just feels like-- it's like all the things you-- like, it's so hard to know what's real and true.
感觉就像——就像所有你喜欢的东西一样，很难知道什么是真实的。
And when you think hard about what you know that is real and true, it just gets smaller and smaller.
当你认真思考你所知道的真实的事情时，它就会变得越来越小。
Well, today on our show, we do not run from that fact.
好吧，今天在我们的节目中，我们不会逃避这个事实。
For once, we admit it.
这一次，我们承认了。
We embrace it, try to do something about it.
我们拥抱它，尝试为此做点什么。
We have stories today of people doing the hard work to confront the things they think they know, try to figure out how they know them and if they're actually true, and persevering-- not giving up until they get to the very bottom-- including a story about a question that brought our staff meeting to a complete halt the other week-- do women who live together actually get their periods at the same time?
今天，我们有这样的故事：人们努力面对他们认为自己知道的事情，试图弄清楚他们是如何知道这些事情的，以及它们是否真的是真的，并坚持不懈——直到他们陷入困境才放弃——其中一个故事是关于一个问题的故事，这个问题使我们前一周的员工会议完全停止了——同居的女性实际上会同时来月经吗？
Is that real?
这是真的吗？
What's the evidence?
有什么证据？
Oh, and a story about whether the earth secretly shifted on its axis without you and me and the rest of the world noticing.
哦，还有一个关于地球是否在你我和世界其他地方都没有注意到的情况下秘密地旋转的故事。
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
来自芝加哥 WBEZ 的《This American Life》。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, Fraud Complex.
第一幕，欺诈复合体。
When I was just starting out as a young reporter, I had this kind of mini crisis about how much I really knew and how I knew what I knew.
当我刚开始担任一名年轻记者时，我遇到过这样的小危机：我到底知道多少，以及我如何知道我所知道的。
I was covering a Congressional hearing where the head of NASA was testifying.
我正在报道美国宇航局局长正在作证的国会听证会。
It was this guy, Sean O'Keefe.
就是这个人，肖恩·奥基夫。
This was just after the Columbia space shuttle accident.
这是哥伦比亚号航天飞机事故发生后不久。
And when I was reporting on it, I said this one sentence on the radio, nothing to do with the accident.
我在报道的时候，在广播里说过这句话，和事故无关。
I said that when O'Keefe had walked in, he was carrying a cup of coffee.
我说当奥基夫走进来时，他端着一杯咖啡。
But after, when the story aired, I was listening to my voice come out of the radio, and I kept thinking, was it really a cup of coffee?
但当故事播出后，我听着收音机里传出的自己的声音，我一直在想，这真的是一杯咖啡吗？
I don't know it was coffee-- could have been tea, or hot water, or room-temperature tang.
我不知道那是咖啡——可能是茶，或者热水，或者室温的汤。
I told this to a veteran reporter who said, basically, relax.
我把这件事告诉了一位资深记者，他说，基本上，放松。
If you see two cows on a hill, you can say there are two cows on a hill, because, you know, how deep are you going to go?
如果你看到山上有两只牛，你可以说山上有两只牛，因为，你知道，你要走多深？
I've always wished I hadn't said it, though.
但我一直希望我没有说出来。
I was thinking about that because of one line I've been reading in news stories a lot recently about voter fraud.
我之所以这么想，是因为我最近在新闻报道中读到了很多关于选民欺诈的一句话。
You can almost feel the reporters digging through the thesaurus, they've written it so often.
你几乎可以感觉到记者们在挖掘同义词库，他们经常写这个词库。
Quote, "Academic studies show instances of voter fraud are very rare," or "Nationwide studies have consistently shown that voter fraud is almost non-existent." Another used the word, "minuscule."
引用，“学术研究表明选民欺诈的情况非常罕见”，或“全国范围的研究一致表明选民欺诈几乎不存在。”另一个人用了“微小”这个词。
But I wanted to know in a deeper way for myself, so I looked up some of those studies.
但我想更深入地了解自己，所以我查阅了其中一些研究。
And I have to say, I did not find what I expected.
我不得不说，我没有找到我所期望的。
I thought there would be some kind of nationwide government audit, that there would be official reports from the election authorities in all the states detailing how they had looked for fraud.
我以为会有某种全国性的政府审计，所有州的选举当局都会有正式报告，详细说明他们如何寻找欺诈行为。
But there isn't anything like that.
但没有这样的事情。
In fact, most of the independent studies that have been done are just attempts to count up alleged cases of voter fraud.
事实上，大多数已经完成的独立研究只是试图统计涉嫌选民欺诈的案件。
They look at court records, or news reports, and anecdotal accounts.
他们查看法庭记录、新闻报道和轶事报道。
And they never find much, which is good to know, but it didn't feel like proof.
他们从未发现太多东西，知道这一点很好，但感觉不像证据。
Maybe we aren't looking in the right way, or maybe voter fraud is hard to find.
也许我们没有以正确的方式寻找，或者选民欺诈很难被发现。
I did find this one paper that seemed different from all the others.
我确实发现这篇论文似乎与其他论文不同。
It was an attempt to do this big, ambitious thing.
这是一次尝试去做这件伟大而雄心勃勃的事情。
It was the only study I saw that actually dug into the voter data nationwide, all the votes cast in the United States, looking for one specific kind of voter fraud to try to see in a comprehensive way, did this kind of fraud happen?
这是我看到的唯一一个真正深入挖掘全国选民数据的研究，所有的选票都在美国投下，寻找一种特定的选民欺诈行为，试图全面地了解，这种欺诈行为是否发生过？
The specific type of voter fraud the study looks for is called double voting, where someone votes twice.
该研究寻找的特定类型的选民欺诈称为双重投票，即某人投票两次。
The Vice Chair of the President's Commission to Investigate Voter Fraud, Kris Kobach, has called double voting a big problem.
调查选民欺诈总统委员会副主席克里斯·科巴赫称双重投票是一个大问题。
He said people double vote all the time.
他说人们总是双重投票。
This paper is 72 pages long.
这篇论文有 72 页长。
I printed it out, read it several times, and I called up one of the authors.
我把它打印出来，读了几遍，然后给其中一位作者打电话。
His name is Sharad Goel.
他的名字叫沙拉德·戈尔。
He's an assistant professor at Stanford.
他是斯坦福大学的助理教授。
Does social science work but, also has a PhD in math, and sometimes talks like it.
社会科学有用吗，但是，也有数学博士学位，有时也会这样说话。
I had him walk me through what they did.
我让他向我介绍了他们所做的事情。
When you started this, did you have an open mind about what you might find?
当您开始这项工作时，您对可能会发现什么持开放态度吗？
Be honest.
说实话。
I would say I've trained myself not to have super-strong priors on what's happening-- so to discount my intuition.
我想说，我已经训练自己不要对正在发生的事情有超强的先验——所以要低估我的直觉。
At the same time, I would be very surprised if we actually found hard evidence that a million people had double voted in the presidential election.
与此同时，如果我们真的找到确凿的证据证明一百万人在总统选举中双重投票，我会感到非常惊讶。
It's hard enough to get people to vote once.
让人们投票一次已经够难的了。
It's hard enough to get people to vote once.
让人们投票一次已经够难的了。
And what are the incentives?
激励措施是什么？
I can tell you.
我可以告诉你。
You can decide if it's something you would do.
你可以决定这是否是你愿意做的事情。
If you get caught voting twice, you can go to jail.
如果你被发现两次投票，你可能会被关进监狱。
On the other hand, if you get away with it, one extra vote for your candidate.
另一方面，如果你侥幸成功，你的候选人就会多投一票。
It does not seem worth it, but you might get away with it.
这看起来不值得，但你可能会侥幸逃脱。
How hard would it actually be to double vote?
双重投票实际上有多难？
How hard would it be?
会有多难呢？
So I don't think it would be that hard.
所以我认为这不会那么难。
I just asked because I used to live in Massachusetts, and I remember, one of my roommates moved out to California.
我只是问，因为我以前住在马萨诸塞州，我记得我的一位室友搬到了加利福尼亚州。
And I went in to vote there in Massachusetts, and I remember seeing his name on the rolls.
我去马萨诸塞州投票，我记得在名单上看到了他的名字。
And I thought, I could go back again, just say I'm him, and vote for him.
我想，我可以再回去，只是说我是他，然后投票给他。
But it did strike me that it would be easy to do that.
但我确实意识到做到这一点很容易。
It's not like robbing a bank.
这不像抢劫银行。
You definitely can double vote.
你绝对可以双重投票。
When you look at the voting data, he says there is definitely stuff where the numbers do seem funny.
他说，当你查看投票数据时，你会发现其中的数字确实看起来很有趣。
Like, every election, there are a lot of cases where it looks like someone might have voted twice-- cases where you have records of two votes cast by someone with the same name and birthday, which is weird.
就像每次选举一样，在很多情况下，看起来有人可能投票了两次——在这种情况下，你有同名和生日的人投了两次票的记录，这很奇怪。
Kris Kobach, President Trump's voter fraud guy, actually set up a program called Crosscheck that highlights these cases.
特朗普总统的选民欺诈专家克里斯·科巴赫(Kris Kobach)实际上设立了一个名为 Crosscheck 的项目来突出这些案件。
States that want to participate send in their data, and Crosscheck looks for matches.
想要参与的州发送他们的数据，Crosscheck 会查找匹配项。
It finds lots.
它发现了很多。
And so this is often presented as evidence of large-scale voter fraud.
因此，这通常被视为大规模选民欺诈的证据。
And we're not talking just like date of birth, like month and day.
我们谈论的不仅仅是出生日期、月份和日期。
Like, year also, right?
就像，年份也一样，对吧？
Exactly.
确切地。
And it's not a crazy argument.
这并不是一个疯狂的争论。
I mean, it feels like, well, what are the odds?
我的意思是，感觉就像，好吧，可能性有多大？
What are the odds that someone has my exact same first name, last name, and date of birth down to the year?
有人与我的名字、姓氏和出生日期精确到年份完全相同的可能性有多大？
It's pretty small.
它很小。
It does seem weird.
看起来确实很奇怪。
Yeah, why is this not evidence of widespread voter fraud?
是的，为什么这不是普遍存在的选民欺诈的证据？
Sharad and four other researchers wanted to check this out for themselves, so they got a hold of an enormous database that had the voting records gathered from all the states.
沙拉德和其他四名研究人员想亲自验证这一点，因此他们掌握了一个巨大的数据库，其中包含从所有州收集的投票记录。
They started this a couple of years ago, so they used the most recent presidential election at the time, which was 2012.
他们几年前就开始这样做了，所以他们使用了当时最近一次的总统选举，即 2012 年。
And they looked, how many times in the whole country did you have two votes cast where both votes have the same first name, and last name, and birthday-- day, month, and year-- attached to them?
他们看，在全国范围内，有多少次你投了两张选票，而两张选票的名字、姓氏和生日（日、月、年）都相同？
3 million-- 3 million instances.
300 万——300 万个实例。
It's a lot.
很多。
It's a lot, you know?
很多，你知道吗？
And I was actually surprised.
我真的很惊讶。
So I was thinking, in my naivete, that this would be kind of a simple exercise.
所以我天真地认为这将是一个简单的练习。
We look at it, we just actually count the number of ostensible matches, and we're going to find that there are really not very many.
我们看一下，我们实际上只是计算了表面上的匹配数量，我们会发现实际上并不多。
But 3 million?
但300万？
That's a big number.
这是一个很大的数字。
It's actually the number that Trump has been talking about.
这实际上是特朗普一直在谈论的数字。
You know, it's not far off.
你知道，那已经不远了。
David Kestenbaum They looked closer and realized that, first off, a lot of these were just problems with the data.
David Kestenbaum 他们仔细观察后发现，首先，其中很多只是数据问题。
Like, some states, when they didn't have a birthday, had put in January 1.
比如，有些州没有生日，却把生日放在 1 月 1 日。
So it looked like those people shared a birthday, but they didn't.
所以看起来这些人的生日是同一天，但其实不然。
And there were other errors, where you had, say, a John Senior and a John Junior living in the same house, and they somehow showed up as having the same birthday.
还有其他错误，比如说，一个老约翰和一个小约翰住在同一所房子里，而他们却以某种方式显示为同一天生日。
Sharad says they threw out a handful of states where the data seemed to be a problem.
沙拉德说，他们剔除了少数几个数据似乎存在问题的州。
And the number of matches did go down, but not all the way down-- from 3 million to 750,000.
比赛数量确实下降了，但并没有完全下降——从 300 万场减少到 75 万场。
I mean, you're talking about close to a million instances where it really does look like these are double votes.
我的意思是，您谈论的是近一百万个实例，这些实例看起来确实是双重投票。
OK, so what's the next step?
好的，那么下一步是什么？
Sharad Goel OK, so now comes the math.
莎拉德·戈埃尔（Sharad Goel）好的，现在来计算一下。
[LAUGHTER] David Kestenbaum Now comes the math.
[笑声] David Kestenbaum 现在来计算数学。
And I think this is where ordinary people would stop.
我想这就是普通人会停下来的地方。
But my friend, sometimes, when you want to get to the bottom of things, when you want to know, are people voting twice?
但我的朋友，有时候，当你想弄清楚事情的真相时，当你想知道，人们是否投票了两次？
How secure is the foundation of our democracy?
我们民主的基础有多牢固？
When you want to know that, you have to do a little discrete probability calculation.
当你想知道这一点时，你必须进行一些离散概率计算。
Specifically, you have to know about something called the birthday paradox.
具体来说，你必须了解一种叫做生日悖论的东西。
I first heard about it years ago.
我几年前第一次听说它。
I was at a dinner party, and someone told me this thing, which is that, if you have just 23 people in the room, there's a 50/50 chance that two of them share a birthday.
我在一次晚宴上，有人告诉我这件事，如果房间里只有 23 个人，那么其中两个人生日相同的概率是 50/50。
I was in grad school at the time, studying physics, and I was like, that seems crazy.
当时我正在读研究生，学习物理学，我当时想，这似乎很疯狂。
Just 23 people, two are going to share a birthday?
才23个人，两个人要共用一个生日？
Come on.
快点。
There are 365 days in a year.
一年有 365 天。
I left the table in the middle of dinner and went into this other room, shut the door, and tried to work it out on a piece of paper.
晚餐时，我离开餐桌，走进另一个房间，关上门，试图在一张纸上算出答案。
I couldn't.
我不能。
Neither could Sharad, at first.
沙拉德一开始也不能。
He got assigned the problem in college.
他在大学时就被分配了这个问题。
I was actually really bad at math.
其实我数学真的很差。
I mean, I liked it a lot, but I was really bad at it.
我的意思是，我非常喜欢它，但我真的很糟糕。
Turns out, there was an easy way to work out the birthday thing and a hard way.
事实证明，解决生日问题有一种简单的方法，也有一种困难的方法。
I had been stupidly trying to do it the hard way.
我一直愚蠢地试图用困难的方式来做这件事。
I think I also tried to do it the hard way.
我想我也尝试过以艰难的方式做到这一点。
But it turns out to be, in some sense, a very simple problem to solve.
但事实证明，从某种意义上说，这是一个非常容易解决的问题。
And when I realized what the answer is, it struck me as one of the most beautiful results I had seen-- this fundamental piece of math that I had been missing my whole life.
当我意识到答案是什么时，它给我留下了深刻的印象，这是我见过的最美丽的结果之一——这是我一生都在错过的基本数学知识。
It's this classic example of how what you think is right can just be so wrong when you do the math.
这是一个经典的例子，说明当你进行数学计算时，你认为正确的事情可能是错误的。
And also, it might be the key to why it looks like so many people are voting twice.
而且，这可能是为什么这么多人投票两次的关键。
A simple way to think about the birthday paradox and why it's right that, if you get 23 people in a room, the odds are about 50/50 that two of them will share a birthday is just to think about picking two people in that room.
考虑生日悖论以及为什么正确的一个简单方法是，如果一个房间里有 23 个人，那么其中两个人共享生日的几率约为 50/50，只需考虑在该房间中选择两个人即可。
Sure, the odds are small that those two share a birthday.
当然，这两个人同一天生日的可能性很小。
But in a room full of 23 people, it turns out there are a lot of possible pairs.
但在一个有 23 个人的房间里，结果有很多可能的配对。
Person one might have the same birthday as person two, or person three, or person four, or person two might share a birthday with person three, or person seven with person nine, et cetera.
第一个人可能与第二个人同一生日，或者第三个人，或者第四个人，或者第二个人可能与第三个人同一生日，或者第七个人可能与第九个人同一生日，等等。
If you add it all up, it is way more common than you might think to get two people with the same birthday.
如果你把所有这些加起来，就会发现两个人生日相同的情况比你想象的要普遍得多。
So Sharad and the other researchers did the math-- not for a room full of 23 people, but for a nation with over 100 million voters.
因此沙拉德和其他研究人员进行了计算——不是针对一个有 23 个人的房间，而是针对一个拥有超过 1 亿选民的国家。
And remember how they had 750,000 instances where you had two votes with the same name and birthday?
还记得他们如何拥有 750,000 个实例，其中您有两张具有相同姓名和生日的选票吗？
The birthday paradox explains 720,000 of them.
生日悖论解释了其中的 720,000 个。
That's how many should share a birthday just by chance.
这就是有多少人应该偶然共享一个生日。
This weird math thing explains most of the instances where it looks like someone voted twice-- most, but not all.
这种奇怪的数学现象解释了大多数看起来有人投票两次的情况——大多数，但不是全部。
They still had about 30,000 cases unexplained, which would be a lot of fraud-- not enough to sway most presidential elections, but still, way more than he expected.
他们仍然有大约 30,000 起案件无法解释，这将是大量欺诈行为——不足以影响大多数总统选举，但仍然比他预期的要多得多。
Sharad says, at this point, he thought that was the real number.
沙拉德说，此时他认为这是真实的数字。
It would mean something like one in every 4,000 voters had voted twice, which seemed like, who knows?
这意味着每 4,000 名选民中就有一人投了两次票，这似乎是，谁知道呢？
Maybe.
或许。
When they started out, Sharad says, they figured this whole thing would take a couple of days.
沙拉德说，当他们开始时，他们认为整个事情需要几天的时间。
But the bottom is often deeper than you think.
但底部往往比你想象的还要深。
The beautiful math I just told you about-- turns out it is not quite right, for a reason that is both subtle and very human.
我刚才告诉你的美丽的数学——事实证明它并不完全正确，原因既微妙又非常人性化。
It gets messed up by parents doing stuff like this.
父母做这样的事情会把事情搞砸的。
So when do you think that people who are named June are born?
那么你认为名字叫June的人是什么时候出生的呢？
Oh, in the month of June?
噢，六月份？
Sharad Goel In the month of June.
莎拉德·戈埃尔 (Sharad Goel) 六月。
And that, of course, means that the odds of two people named June sharing a birthday are higher than usual.
当然，这意味着两个名叫 June 的人同一天生日的几率比平时要高。
The paper has a whole appendix just dealing with how to correct the calculation for our peculiar naming habits.
这篇论文有一个完整的附录，只是讨论如何针对我们特有的命名习惯来纠正计算。
It's 12 pages of equations and theorems.
这是 12 页的方程和定理。
It's not just that babies born in June, the parents sometimes name them June.
不仅是六月出生的婴儿，父母有时也会给他们取名为“六月”。
Girls named Autumn tend to be born in the fall.
名为“秋”的女孩往往出生在秋天。
Also, babies in general are more likely to be born during the week than on weekends.
此外，一般来说，婴儿更有可能在工作日出生，而不是在周末出生。
Sharad says they knew this stuff might be an issue, but when they looked through the voter data, it was a bigger complication than they thought.
沙拉德说，他们知道这可能是一个问题，但当他们查看选民数据时，发现这比他们想象的要复杂。
So let's say your name is Carol.
假设你的名字是卡罗尔。
What day of the year are you most likely to be born on?
您最有可能出生在一年中的哪一天？
Carol?
颂歌？
Just like Carol?
就像卡罗尔一样？
Sharad Goel Carol, C-A-R-O-L.
莎拉德·戈埃尔·卡罗尔，C-A-R-O-L。
Nothing fancy, just Carol.
没什么特别的，只有卡罗尔。
I don't think-- any day.
我不认为——任何一天。
It's all random.
这都是随机的。
No, it's not random.
不，这不是随机的。
So what's surprising is, actually, there are a lot of patterns to a lot of these names that you think are totally reasonable.
令人惊讶的是，实际上，这些名称中有很多你认为完全合理的模式。
And so Carol-- so OK, let me give you one that's really-- let's say your name was--
所以卡罗尔——好吧，让我给你一个——假设你的名字是——
Wait, do Carol.
等等，卡罗尔。
Why Carol?
为什么是卡罗尔？
Sharad Goel Well, look-- OK, so why Carol?
莎拉德·戈埃尔（Sharad Goel） 好吧，看——好吧，那为什么是卡罗尔呢？
Let me give you a hint.
让我给你一个提示。
What if your name was Christine?
如果你的名字叫克里斯汀怎么办？
I don't know.
我不知道。
Sharad Goel So Christines and Carols tend to be born on the same day.
莎拉德·戈埃尔（Sharad Goel）所以克里斯蒂娜和卡罗尔往往在同一天出生。
What are you talking about?
你在说什么？
Sharad Goel OK, let me give you another one.
莎拉德·戈埃尔（Sharad Goel） 好的，让我再给你一份。
Christines, Carols, and Jesuses tend to be born on the same day.
克里斯蒂娜、卡罗尔和耶稣往往在同一天出生。
Oh, what-- Christmas?
哦，什么——圣诞节？
Sharad Goel Christmas.
莎拉德·戈尔圣诞节。
I knew I was going to look dumb in that.
我知道我这样做会显得很愚蠢。
Another example-- Josefina with an F, 1 in 10 chance you were born on March 19.
另一个例子——Josefina 带有 F，你出生于 3 月 19 日的可能性十分之一。
I thought I'd figured that one out.
我以为我已经弄清楚了。
There's an American Girl doll named Josefina with that exact birthday.
有一个名叫 Josefina 的美国女孩玩偶的生日也是如此。
Sharad doesn't think that's what inspired people, though.
不过，沙拉德并不认为这就是激励人们的原因。
March 19 is also St. Joseph's Day.
3 月 19 日也是圣约瑟夫节。
In any case, all this was a problem.
无论如何，这一切都是一个问题。
So Sharad and the other researchers redid all the calculations to account for the fact that if two people have one of these particular first names, they're more likely to share a birthday.
因此，沙拉德和其他研究人员重新进行了所有计算，以考虑到这样一个事实：如果两个人有这些特定名字中的一个，那么他们更有可能共享同一生日。
And it did reduce the number of possible fraudulent double votes from 30,000 to 20,000.
它确实将可能的欺诈性双重投票数量从 30,000 减少到 20,000。
So now I was becoming increasingly convinced that this was the real number of double votes out there.
所以现在我越来越相信这就是双重投票的真实数量。
And we did everything.
我们做了一切。
How many months into this are you at this point?
您现在已经几个月了？
Oh, you know, we're probably a solid year into it at this point.
哦，你知道，我们现在可能已经度过了坚实的一年。
We're also getting tired.
我们也累了。
And you know, we've really been hammering on this problem.
你知道，我们一直在努力解决这个问题。
They could have published their work and this number, 20,000 possibly fraudulent double votes.
他们本可以发表他们的作品，而这个数字，20,000 可能是欺诈性的双重投票。
But there was one other thing to consider.
但还有另一件事需要考虑。
They started wondering if there might be errors in the data.
他们开始怀疑数据中是否可能存在错误。
Like, maybe the data file says someone voted, but that's wrong.
就像，也许数据文件说有人投票了，但这是错误的。
The person didn't vote, in which case, what looked like a double vote might actually just be a single vote.
该人没有投票，在这种情况下，看似双票实际上可能只是单票。
Maybe that would account for some of the 20,000 double votes.
也许这就是 20,000 张双重选票中的一部分。
But to check this, after doing all that fancy math, they had to go out into the messy world.
但为了验证这一点，在做了所有这些花哨的数学计算后，他们必须走进这个混乱的世界。
The researchers sent out a team of undergrads to go through some poll books in Philadelphia.
研究人员派出了一组本科生去费城查看一些民意调查簿。
I talked to one of the students who did this.
我和一位这样做的学生交谈过。
He said the books were in this forgotten building in a run-down part of town-- three-ring binders with the names of registered voters.
他说这些书就在小镇破败地区这座被遗忘的建筑里——三环活页夹，上面写着登记选民的名字。
On election day at your polling place, you find your name and sign next to it in the book.
选举日，您可以在投票站找到自己的名字，并在登记簿上签名。
It was super boring work, he said.
他说，这是一项超级无聊的工作。
They double-checked 11,000 names-- people the data file listed as having voted.
他们仔细检查了 11,000 个名字——数据文件中列出的已投票的人。
And they found, in about 1% of the cases, according to the poll book, the data file seemed to be wrong.
他们发现，根据民意调查手册，在大约 1% 的案例中，数据文件似乎是错误的。
There was no signature.
没有签名。
It didn't look like the person had actually voted.
看起来这个人并没有真正投票。
So before this, you had 20,000 what looked like double votes that were unexplained.
所以在此之前，你有 20,000 张看起来像是无法解释的双重选票。
How many of those 20,000 does this explain?
这能解释这 20,000 人中的多少人？
Sharad is not saying there is zero double voting going on-- just that it seems like a really small problem.
沙拉德并不是说双重投票为零——只是这看起来是一个很小的问题。
And to be clear, voting twice is just one way people can commit voter fraud.
需要明确的是，两次投票只是人们进行选民欺诈的一种方式。
There are others-- non-citizens voting, dead people voting, vote buying, corrupt officials just changing the tallies, though there is no evidence any of those is happening in any substantial way either.
还有其他一些——非公民投票、死人投票、买票、腐败官员只是改变计票结果，尽管也没有证据表明这些事情正在以任何实质性方式发生。
Sharad says they finished up their research just days before the 2016 election, which was pretty good timing.
沙拉德说，他们在 2016 年大选前几天完成了研究，时机非常好。
The issue of voter fraud was in the news.
选民欺诈问题成为新闻焦点。
After Trump won, he started going around saying that he would have won the popular vote, too, if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.
特朗普获胜后，他开始到处说，如果扣除数百万非法投票的人，他也会赢得普选。
And once he was in office, he set up his Commission on Voter Integrity that would collect data from the states and look for fraud.
上任后，他成立了选民诚信委员会，负责从各州收集数据并查找欺诈行为。
Sharad says, in all of this, there is one number he's come across that he just does not understand.
沙拉德说，在所有这一切中，他遇到了一个他无法理解的数字。
There was this survey done before the election in which half of all registered voters said they thought voter fraud was very common or somewhat common-- 61% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats.
选举前进行的一项调查显示，一半的登记选民表示，他们认为选民欺诈非常普遍或有些普遍——这一比例为 61% 的共和党人和 30% 的民主党人。
This is tens of millions of people believe that voter fraud is a serious problem.
这是数以千万计的人认为选民欺诈是一个严重的问题。
Yeah.
是的。
Sharad says their paper did not get a lot of attention-- mostly just a line or two in some news stories.
沙拉德说，他们的论文没有引起太多关注——大多只是一些新闻报道中的一两行内容。
I doubt it.
我对此表示怀疑。
My feeling is, people are not really convinced by science and statistics these days.
我的感觉是，现在人们并没有真正相信科学和统计数据。
It feels, at times, like, what am I doing?
有时候，我会觉得，我在做什么？
I've devoted my entire professional life to this type of work.
我将我的整个职业生涯都奉献给了此类工作。
And really, it's not clear to me that any of it matters.
事实上，我并不清楚这是否重要。
I was interested in your research because I wanted to know for myself, like in some real way, this thing that I had been reading in the paper for some time-- you know, that voter fraud is super rare-- I wanted to know in some real way that that was true.
我对你的研究很感兴趣，因为我想亲自了解，就像以某种真实的方式，我在报纸上读到的这件事已经有一段时间了——你知道，选民欺诈是非常罕见的——我想以某种真实的方式知道这是真的。
And I feel like I got kind of close.
我觉得我已经很接近了。
Like, I read your paper a bunch of times.
就像，我读了你的论文很多遍。
(LAUGHING) Well, you probably read it more than anybody else.
（笑）嗯，你可能比其他人读得更多。
You know, I found an error in a table in the appendix?
你知道吗，我在附录的表格中发现了一个错误？
I do know that that is a very impressive find.
我确实知道这是一个非常令人印象深刻的发现。
But as far as I went, I still feel like I'm not all the way there.
但就我所走的路而言，我仍然觉得自己还没有走到那一步。
Sharad meant this in a technical way.
沙拉德的意思是技术性的。
Like, the paper is still being peer reviewed, they don't know if the error rate they found in the Philadelphia voter data can be applied to the whole country, stuff like that.
比如，这篇论文仍在接受同行评审，他们不知道在费城选民数据中发现的错误率是否可以适用于整个国家，诸如此类。
I meant it differently.
我的意思不同。
Sure, we'd talked for hours.
当然，我们已经聊了几个小时了。
I'd read the paper a bunch of times, but I didn't actually check the math.
我已经读了很多遍这篇论文，但我并没有真正检查数学。
Honestly, I don't understand all the equations.
老实说，我不明白所有的方程式。
And I didn't go over their computer code or look at the data sets.
我没有检查他们的计算机代码或查看数据集。
I believe what they found, but I don't know it.
我相信他们的发现，但我不知道。
It looks like a cup of coffee, so I'm going to say it's a cup of coffee.
它看起来像一杯咖啡，所以我会说它是一杯咖啡。
And later today, I will get in my car whose engine is a mystery to me.
今天晚些时候，我将坐上我的车，它的发动机对我来说是个谜。
I will drive on roads built with a tax system I only roughly comprehend, and I'll pick up my two little kids from school.
我将在用我只是粗略理解的税收制度修建的道路上行驶，我将接我的两个小孩放学。
They are full of questions these days.
这些天他们充满了疑问。
I always pretend to know more than I do.
我总是假装比我知道的更多。
Act Two, Flake News.
第二幕，小新闻。
Sometimes there's a thing that you think you know, even though, right in front of you, staring you in the face, is clear evidence to the contrary.
有时，有些事情你自以为知道，尽管就在你面前，盯着你的脸，却是事实的明显证据。
That happened this week to one of our producers, Zoe Chace.
这周就发生在我们的一位制作人佐伊·切斯身上。
In her case, the thing staring her in the face was a US senator.
就她而言，盯着她的人是一位美国参议员。
Here's Zoe.
这是佐伊。
I've spent the last few months following Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona.
过去几个月我一直在关注亚利桑那州参议员杰夫·弗莱克。
We talk every other week, pretty much.
我们几乎每隔一周就聊一次。
I tag along with him to committee meetings and speeches in the Capitol.
我跟随他参加委员会会议并在国会大厦发表演讲。
The plan was, I was going to follow him all the way through his re-election campaign next year.
计划是，我将在明年的连任竞选中全程跟踪他。
And then this week, as you might have heard, Flake announced he's not running after all.
然后本周，正如你可能听说的那样，弗莱克宣布他最终不会参选。
He gave a pretty emotional speech on the Senate floor about it.
他在参议院就此发表了一场非常激动人心的演讲。
It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret-- regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics.
还必须说的是，我今天站起来时带着不小的遗憾——因为我们的分裂状态而遗憾，因为我们的政治年久失修和破坏而遗憾。
I was shocked.
我很震惊。
I did not see this coming.
我没有预见到这一点。
Now, people are talking about this speech as a turning point for the Republican Party-- one more old-school conservative realizing he can't win in the age of Trump.
现在，人们将这次演讲视为共和党的转折点——又一位老派保守派意识到自己无法在特朗普时代获胜。
Like every reporter in Washington, I ran after Flake when his speech ended.
像华盛顿的每一位记者一样，弗莱克演讲结束后，我追了上去。
OK, just-- what happened?
好吧，只是——发生了什么事？
Why today?
为什么是今天？
I didn't expect this.
我没想到这一点。
[LAUGHS] Oh, you expected it.
[笑]哦，你预料到了。
After last week?
上周之后？
We did talk last week.
我们上周确实谈过。
We had had this unusual moment.
我们度过了这个不寻常的时刻。
But at the time, it didn't seem like a big deal.
但在当时，这似乎没什么大不了的。
Knowing what I know this week, I hear it differently.
知道了本周我所知道的情况，我听到了不同的声音。
It was last Thursday, a beautiful day in DC.
那是上周四，华盛顿美好的一天。
It was vote-a-rama in the Senate.
这是参议院的投票决定。
Vote-a-rama is this weird Senate procedure where senators have to vote on a different proposal, like, every 20 minutes or so in order to ram the budget through.
拉玛投票是一种奇怪的参议院程序，参议员们必须对不同的提案进行投票，比如每隔 20 分钟左右投票一次，才能推动预算通过。
I was waiting for the senator, like I often do, right outside the Senate gallery.
我像往常一样，在参议院画廊外等待参议员。
He came out, but instead of getting on the elevator to go back to his office, he goes, let's go out here.
他出来了，但没有乘电梯回办公室，而是说，我们出去吧。
And he takes me through this door only senators are supposed to use, to a place reporters aren't allowed to go-- onto the Capitol steps.
他带我穿过这扇只有参议员才可以使用的门，来到一个不允许记者进入的地方——国会大厦的台阶。
He tells the guard, she's with me, and we're out.
他告诉警卫，她和我在一起，我们出去了。
Nice out here, he says.
他说，这里真好。
Sunny.
阳光明媚。
We sit down next to each other on the world's biggest stoop, gazing out at the Capitol Grounds and the Supreme Court.
我们坐在世界上最大的门廊上，凝视着国会大厦庭院和最高法院。
And then suddenly, it's like he's looking back on his 18 years in Congress.
然后突然间，他好像回顾了自己在国会的 18 年。
I've spent a lot of time in the gym, and I-- Charlie Dent, for years, I've played him in a game called paddle ball in the House gym.
我在健身房度过了很多时间，查理·登特（Charlie Dent），多年来，我一直在众议院健身房里和他玩一种叫做桨球的游戏。
I got to know, for example, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin.
例如，我认识了查克·舒默（Chuck Schumer）和迪克·德宾（Dick Durbin）。
They used to come to the House gym.
他们过去常常来学院健身房。
And then when I got to the Senate, they were part of the Gang of Eight, and--
然后当我到达参议院时，他们是八人帮的成员，而且——
The Gang of Eight was this bipartisan group of senators who worked together on immigration reform.
八人帮是由两党参议员组成的团体，他们共同致力于移民改革。
They wrote a big bill, which didn't pass, but Jeff Flake's really proud of that time.
他们写了一个大法案，但没有通过，但杰夫·弗莱克对那段时间感到非常自豪。
I asked him if he was feeling nostalgic.
我问他是否感到怀旧。
And for some reason, he started talking about 9/11.
出于某种原因，他开始谈论 9/11。
Yeah, this is-- right over there, on those steps, was-- after 9/11-- it seems like a long, long time ago now, both in terms of the way the-- you know, the way the Congress was and how it was perceived.
是的，就在那里，在那些台阶上，在 9/11 之后，现在看来已经是很久很久以前了，无论是从国会的方式还是人们对它的看法来看。
Wait.
等待。
What was it like on the steps over there after 9/11?
9/11 事件发生后，那边的台阶上是什么样子？
No, that was really quite a day.
不，那确实是很充实的一天。
I'll never forget it-- gathering on those steps singing "God Bless America." And there was a lot of unity, certainly.
我永远不会忘记——聚集在那些台阶上唱着“上帝保佑美国”。当然，大家也很团结。
So yeah, that was a different time.
是的，那是一个不同的时代。
I hope it comes back.
我希望它能回来。
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why we were talking about 9/11.
我一辈子都搞不懂我们为什么要谈论 9/11。
And it was only after I heard his speech this week that I realized what it was about.
直到我本周听到他的演讲后，我才意识到他的演讲内容。
He was nostalgic for Congress working the way it used to-- Republicans and Democrats wanting to work together to make a thing happen.
他怀念国会像以前那样工作——共和党和民主党希望共同努力让事情发生。
9/11 was the biggest example of that that Jeff Flake could think of at that moment.
9/11 是 Jeff Flake 当时能想到的最大的例子。
You know, we've had some instances since that time, but too few where people really come together.
你知道，从那时起我们就遇到过一些例子，但人们真正聚集在一起的例子太少了。
That seems pretty foreign now, because votes are taken as a way to kind of distance yourself from your opponents.
现在这看起来很陌生，因为投票被视为一种与对手保持距离的方式。
And you don't want legislation that everybody agrees on, you want legislation that you can paint your opponents as lacking.
你不需要每个人都同意的立法，你想要的是可以让你的对手认为缺乏的立法。
And that's not a good development, not a good trend.
这不是一个好的发展，也不是一个好的趋势。
I knew that Flake wasn't sure he'd win the next election.
我知道弗莱克不确定他是否会赢得下一次选举。
But now I see he was coming to terms with the decision he was about to make.
但现在我看到他已经接受了他即将做出的决定。
Talking to Flake that day was like talking to a friend who knows his relationship is over,
那天和弗莱克谈话就像和一个知道他的关系已经结束的朋友谈话，
but can't quite say it.
但还不能完全说出来。
He was coming to grips with a breakup.
他即将面临分手的困境。
I mean, I guess you could say you have a choice on how you run, but I really don't have a choice, because I can't run the way I would have to run to have an easy re-election.
我的意思是，我想你可以说你可以选择如何竞选，但我真的没有选择，因为我无法以我必须竞选才能轻松连任的方式竞选。
I just-- I can't do that.
我只是——我不能那样做。
It wouldn't be genuine anyway.
无论如何它都不会是正品。
I think people would see through it.
我想人们会看透它的。
So if I don't run again, this has been a great run.
所以如果我不再跑步的话，这已经是一次很棒的跑步了。
[LAUGHS] It has-- 18 years.
[笑]已经——18年了。
I should have known what he was about to do.
我应该知道他要做什么。
Vote some more?
再投几票？
Jeff Flake Vote some more.
杰夫·弗莱克（Jeff Flake）再投票一些。
Zoe Chace with Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who bowed out of the Senate this week.
佐伊·切斯和亚利桑那州参议员杰夫·弗莱克本周退出参议院。
I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today.
我感谢我的同事们今天让我在这里。
I will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln.
我将借用林肯总统的话作为结束语。
"We are not enemies, but friends.
“我们不是敌人，而是朋友。
We must not be enemies.
我们决不能成为敌人。
Though passion may have strained, it must not--"
尽管激情可能已经减弱，但它绝不能——”
Coming up, the sun, kind of.
出来了，太阳，有点。
That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
稍后，芝加哥公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
It's This American Life.
这就是美国生活。
I'm David Kestenbaum.
我是大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆。
Ira Glass is out this week.
艾拉·格拉斯 (Ira Glass) 将于本周上市。
Today on our show, "Things I Mean to Know," stories of people questioning some basic things in their lives and the world that they have always taken on faith.
今天，在我们的节目“我想知道的事情”中，讲述了人们质疑他们生活中和他们一直相信的世界中的一些基本事物的故事。
Act Three, The Sun Also Rises Over There.
第三幕，太阳也在那里升起。
So among the things I accept as true is the fact that the world is round.
因此，我接受的事实之一是世界是圆的。
But I have to say, there is not a lot to remind you of that in day-to-day life.
但我不得不说，在日常生活中没有太多东西可以提醒你这一点。
Like, the ground does feel flat.
就像，地面确实感觉平坦。
If you happen to live up in the Arctic, though, you are sometimes reminded that we live on this ball that is spinning through space.
不过，如果你碰巧住在北极，有时你会想起我们生活在这个在太空中旋转的球上。
Our next story is about a researcher named Ian Mauro who went there-- way up on top of the earth where people still hunt seals and walruses.
我们的下一个故事是关于一位名叫伊恩·莫罗 (Ian Mauro) 的研究人员，他去了那里——在地球顶部，人们仍在捕猎海豹和海象。
He was helping make a documentary, interviewing people about climate change.
他正在帮助制作一部纪录片，采访有关气候变化的人们。
He figured they'd probably seen all kinds of stuff we never hear about, and he was right.
他认为他们可能见过各种我们从未听说过的东西，他是对的。
Selena Ross tells the story.
赛琳娜·罗斯讲述了这个故事。
When Ian asked people about climate change, he heard a lot of the stuff you'd think you'd hear-- glaciers are melting, and one year, it got super hot for a couple of weeks-- like, LA hot.
当伊恩向人们询问气候变化问题时，他听到了很多你认为会听到的事情——冰川正在融化，有一年，天气变得非常热，持续了几周——比如，洛杉矶很热。
You could wear shorts and no shirt.
你可以穿短裤，不穿衬衫。
But then Ian heard this other thing that really took him aback.
但随后伊恩听到了另一件事，这让他大吃一惊。
He couldn't get it out of his head for months.
几个月来他一直无法摆脱这个念头。
He was going around from one remote village to another, assisting a well-known local Inuit filmmaker named Zacharias Kunuk.
他从一个偏远的村庄到另一个村庄，协助当地一位著名的因纽特电影制片人扎卡里亚斯·库努克(Zacharias Kunuk)。
And that weird thing, they heard it over and over again.
而那个奇怪的事情，他们一遍又一遍地听到。
The person who laid it out most dramatically was an elder named Augustine Taqquraq.
最引人注目的是一位名叫奥古斯丁·塔古拉克的长老。
They were in Igloolik, a small town way up in northern Canada, above the Arctic Circle, in this little office with a window that faced a sandy beach.
他们在加拿大北部小镇伊格鲁利克（Igloolik），位于北极圈上方的一个小办公室里，办公室的窗户面向沙滩。
He stood up, and he literally walked over to the window.
他站起身来，径直走到窗边。
And the sun is just coming up.
太阳刚刚升起。
It's in the morning.
现在是早上。
He's drinking his coffee.
他正在喝咖啡。
And he says, when I was a young man, the sun used to come up over here.
他说，当我还是个年轻人的时候，太阳常常从这里升起。
And he's pointing kind of 45 degrees with his left hand, and pointing out the window.
他用左手以 45 度角指向窗外。
And he says, now I'm an old man, and after the long polar night, the sun comes up over here.
他说，现在我已经是个老人了，漫长的极夜过后，太阳会从这里升起。
And he's pointing 45 degrees out with his right hand.
他用右手向外倾斜 45 度。
In other words, the sun was coming up in the wrong spot.
换句话说，太阳升起的位置不对。
When Ian heard that, he really took notice.
伊恩一听，果然注意到了。
The sunrise Augustine was talking about wasn't just any sunrise.
奥古斯丁所说的日出不仅仅是普通的日出。
He was talking about the year's first sunrise after the polar night, that it was happening at a different place on the horizon than usual.
他正在谈论今年极夜之后的第一次日出，它发生在地平线上与平常不同的地方。
This is the kind of thing people pay close attention to in the Arctic-- the first ray of sunshine after months of 24-hour dusk and darkness.
这就是人们在北极密切关注的事情——几个月24小时的黄昏和黑暗之后的第一缕阳光。
When the sun goes down in the Arctic, it's amazing.
当北极的太阳落山时，景色令人惊叹。
It's kind of like the longest all-nighter you've ever been a part of.
这有点像你经历过的最长的通宵。
The sun goes down for six weeks, seven weeks, and if you're in a culture where you have to find food on that landscape to thrive and feed your family, the return of the sun is a huge deal.
太阳会落下六周、七周，如果你生活在一种文化中，你必须在当地寻找食物才能茁壮成长并养活家人，那么太阳的回归是一件大事。
Augustine is telling us, he's saying, I've been watching this sun come up after the long polar night for my whole life.
奥古斯丁告诉我们，他说，我一生都在看着太阳在漫长的极夜之后升起。
And as a young boy, it came up over here.
当我还是个小男孩的时候，它就出现在这里。
As an old man, it now comes up over here.
作为一个老人，它现在出现在这里。
Augustine and the other elders Ian talked to had an explanation for why this might be happening, but it also sounded kind of impossible.
奥古斯丁和伊恩交谈过的其他长老对为什么会发生这种情况有一个解释，但这听起来也有点不可能。
Here's a clip from Ian and Zach's film.
这是伊恩和扎克的电影的剪辑。
This is a man named Inookie Adamie, who had also seen the sun in the wrong place.
这是一个名叫伊努基·阿达米（Inookie Adamie）的人，他也曾在错误的地方看到过太阳。
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Selena Ross He says, I don't know everything, but I've lived here all my life, and I've also watched the sun.
[非英语演讲] Selena Ross 他说，我不知道一切，但我一生都住在这里，我也看过太阳。
Perhaps the earth has tilted on its axis.
也许地球已经绕其轴倾斜了。
A bunch of people said this to Ian and Zach.
一群人对伊恩和扎克说了这句话。
They thought the earth had changed its tilt.
他们认为地球已经改变了倾斜度。
Their description of what was going on was that the earth had literally changed its position in the universe.
他们对正在发生的事情的描述是，地球实际上已经改变了它在宇宙中的位置。
And we were kind of looking at each other, just going, whoa, what does that mean?
我们互相看着对方，然后想，哇，这是什么意思？
Ian believed the Inuit.
伊恩相信因纽特人。
He believed the elder, Augustine, was seeing the sun come up in a place it never had before.
他相信长老奥古斯丁正在看到太阳从以前从未出现过的地方升起。
But how?
但如何呢？
He started calling around to different scientists-- like, cold-calling people who studied anything to do with the earth spinning.
他开始打电话给不同的科学家——比如，冷酷地打电话给那些研究与地球自转有关的人。
He was asking them, is it possible the earth is tilting?
他问他们，地球有可能在倾斜吗？
That the sun had moved in the sky?
太阳在天空中移动了吗？
And at one point, I contacted NASA scientists, and I said, hey, have you heard of anything like this?
有一次，我联系了美国宇航局的科学家，我说，嘿，你听说过这样的事情吗？
Are you folks seeing anything like this?
大家有看到这样的事情吗？
And they quickly were kind of keen to help and hear what was going on.
他们很快就热衷于提供帮助并了解发生了什么。
And then, at one point, the communication just broke off, because, again, I think they thought it was probably too weird.
然后，在某一时刻，沟通就中断了，因为我认为他们再次认为这可能太奇怪了。
That kind of conversation just kind of dwindled and fizzled out.
这样的谈话就这样逐渐减少并以失败告终。
For the tilt of the earth to change that much, scientists told me, an asteroid would probably have to collide with it.
科学家告诉我，为了使地球的倾斜度发生如此大的变化，小行星可能必须与地球相撞。
Like, we'd have noticed.
就像，我们会注意到的。
The very idea that the earth's axis might have undergone some massive shift actually annoyed a lot of scientists.
地轴可能发生了巨大转变的想法实际上让很多科学家感到恼火。
And the fact that Ian took it seriously really annoyed them.
而伊恩认真对待这件事的事实确实让他们很恼火。
Scientists tended to think it was a figment of people's imaginations or a mistake.
科学家们倾向于认为这是人们的想象或错误。
After Ian went on TV talking about the sun coming up in the wrong spot, he remembers getting a letter from an official Astronomical Society.
伊恩在电视上谈论太阳在错误的位置升起后，他记得收到了一封来自官方天文学会的信。
Actually, they sent it not to him directly, but to his boss at the time, at the university where he was a new professor.
事实上，他们不是直接发给他，而是发给他当时的老板，在他担任新教授的大学里。
That was a particularly juicy letter from those guys.
那是这些人写来的一封特别有趣的信。
Like, in terms of documenting just how irritated they were with me, they actually kind of wrote it down.
就像，在记录他们对我有多么恼怒方面，他们实际上是把它写下来了。
It was like a shaming, because they sent it to either the president or the vice president, saying, we're the leads on whether or not the earth is tilted, and how dare you talk about any of this stuff?
这就像一种耻辱，因为他们将其发送给总统或副总统，说，我们是地球是否倾斜的领导者，你怎么敢谈论这些东西？
And they were quite incensed.
他们非常愤怒。
People told Ian he was fueling conspiracy theories and that he was ruining his own credibility and his career by focusing too much on this.
人们告诉伊恩，他正在助长阴谋论，而且他过分关注这一点正在毁掉自己的信誉和职业生涯。
But Ian kept at it.
但伊恩坚持了下来。
And he got a tip.
他得到了一个小费。
He and Zach were out doing more filming.
他和扎克出去拍更多的电影。
We were doing interviews in Resolute, which is very close to the magnetic north pole.
我们在 Resolute 进行采访，那里距离磁北极非常近。
And somehow, we met this individual from this Weather Service, and he said, I'm seeing things as well.
不知何故，我们遇到了气象局的这个人，他说，我也看到了一些事情。
And he said to me, you should talk to Waldemar Lehn at the University of Manitoba, because he's the world's expert in this.
他对我说，你应该和马尼托巴大学的 Waldemar Lehn 谈谈，因为他是这方面的世界专家。
I'm Waldemar Lehn.
我是瓦尔德马·莱恩。
I'm a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba.
我是曼尼托巴大学的名誉教授。
Waldemar didn't think the earth had tilted on its axis.
瓦尔德马并不认为地球的轴发生了倾斜。
Oh, I reject that.
哦，我拒绝这一点。
Sorry, I don't believe it can happen.
抱歉，我不相信这会发生。
But he didn't hang up, because he did believe that the Inuit we're seeing what they said they were seeing, and he thought he knew why.
但他没有挂断电话，因为他确实相信，我们看到的因纽特人所看到的正是他们所说的，而且他认为他知道原因。
The effect is known in the sciences as the Novaya Zemlya effect.
这种效应在科学上被称为新地岛效应。
Novaya Zemlya?
新地岛？
Waldemar Lehn Yeah, N-O-V-A-Y-A Z-E-M-L-Y-A.
Waldemar Lehn 是的，N-O-V-A-Y-A Z-E-M-L-Y-A。
That's a-- is that a Russian-- what language is that?
那是——那是俄语——那是什么语言？
Yes.
是的。
These are Russian words.
这些是俄语单词。
They describe an island that was discovered, I guess, in the 16th century off the north coast of Siberia.
他们描述了一个岛屿，我猜是在 16 世纪西伯利亚北海岸附近发现的。
In 1597, a bunch of Dutch explorers had been shipwrecked on the island, and they had also seen some weird stuff with the sun.
1597年，一群荷兰探险家在岛上遭遇海难，他们还看到了一些与太阳有关的奇怪东西。
They had to wait out the Arctic winter before they could try to get out.
他们必须等到北极的冬天过去才能尝试离开。
They were counting down the days-- like, if we can just make it till the sun comes back, we'll be OK.
他们正在倒计时——就像，如果我们能坚持到太阳回来，我们就没事了。
The captain knew some astronomy and did some calculations-- the sun should be back on February 8.
船长懂一些天文学，也算了一下——2月8日太阳应该会回来。
They circled that day in their calendars-- February 8, Sunrise Day.
他们在日历上圈出了这一天——2 月 8 日，日出日。
But then--
但接下来——
A couple of the men from his crew were hiking around on January 24, and they saw the sun.
1 月 24 日，他的几个船员在周围徒步旅行，他们看到了太阳。
When they reported this to the captain, he said, no, you're making things up.
当他们向船长报告此事时，船长说，不，你在胡编乱造。
Then, a few days later, he saw it too.
几天后，他也看到了。
And not just a glimmer of the sun, but, quote, "its full roundness, just free of the horizon."
不仅仅是一丝阳光，而是“它的圆度，就在地平线之外”。
One of the sailors wrote a book about the voyage when he got home.
一位水手回家后写了一本关于这次航行的书。
That started a big controversy in the scientific world.
这在科学界引发了一场大争论。
And it was 200 years before people got to the bottom of it.
直到200年后，人们才弄清真相。
The answer-- it was a mirage, a huge one where you see the entire sun, even though it should be hidden over the horizon, out of view.
答案是——这是一个海市蜃楼，一个巨大的海市蜃楼，你可以看到整个太阳，尽管它应该隐藏在地平线上方，看不见。
For this weird thing to happen with the sun, for you to be able to see it even when it should be out of sight, the weather conditions have to be just right.
为了让太阳发生这种奇怪的事情，为了让你即使在看不见的时候也能看到它，天气条件必须恰到好处。
You need a very cold layer of air on the surface and warm air above.
你需要表面有一层非常冷的空气，上面有一层温暖的空气。
If you get that, the boundary between the two acts like a mirror.
如果你明白这一点，两者之间的界限就像一面镜子。
The sun gets reflected in the atmosphere, kind of bounced around the curve of the earth, and the result is, you can see the sun even days before it technically rises.
太阳在大气层中反射，有点绕着地球的曲线反射，结果是，你甚至可以在技术上看太阳升起的前几天看到太阳。
And this, it turns out, could explain what was happening with the Inuit.
事实证明，这可以解释因纽特人身上发生的事情。
Maybe the sun didn't actually move, but it looked like it did.
也许太阳实际上并没有移动，但看起来却移动了。
Or rather, they were getting a sneak peek before it returned from the long polar night.
或者更确切地说，他们是在它从漫长的极夜回来之前先睹为快。
And therefore, it really was in a different spot on the horizon.
因此，它确实处于地平线上的不同位置。
To test whether it was, in fact, the Novaya Zemlya effect, Waldemar needed some data.
为了检验这是否确实是新地岛效应，瓦尔德马需要一些数据。
Around that time, Ian and Zach were in Igloolik to film the return of the sun after the polar night.
大约在那个时候，伊恩和扎克在伊格卢利克拍摄极夜后太阳的回归。
Everything was covered in ice and snow.
一切都被冰雪覆盖。
People were hanging out, burning oil lamps, and eating caribou.
人们闲逛，点着油灯，吃着驯鹿。
In Igloolik, it's a big celebration waiting for the sun.
在伊格卢利克，等待太阳升起时，正在举行盛大的庆祝活动。
It's fun-- very cold, but fun.
很有趣——很冷，但是很有趣。
And I was there in the most amount of thermal gear I could possibly put on my body.
我当时穿着尽可能多的保暖装备。
It was incredibly cold-- in the minus 40s, probably.
天气非常冷——大概零下四十多度。
I got my tripod out, the camera on it, and we were waiting for the sun to return.
我拿出三脚架，把相机放在上面，我们等待太阳回来。
It did return, and they caught it on camera.
它确实回来了，他们用相机捕捉到了它。
It's literally seconds where the glimmer of the top rim of the sun just comes above the horizon, and then it's gone.
从字面上看，太阳上边缘的微光刚刚升到地平线上方，然后就消失了。
That's what always happens on the first day.
这就是第一天总是发生的事情。
It's super short.
真是超级短啊
Ian took the time stamps of his video and told them to Waldemar, who just looked up that time and date in the astronomical charts to find out where the sun actually was then.
伊恩记下视频的时间戳，并将其告诉瓦尔德马，瓦尔德马只是在天文图表中查找该时间和日期，以找出当时太阳的实际位置。
And he confirmed what Ian and the others on the beach had seen was a mirage.
他证实伊恩和其他人在海滩上看到的只是海市蜃楼。
Even though they saw the sun, it wasn't really there that day.
尽管他们看到了太阳，但那天太阳并不真的在那里。
It was below the horizon, still-- far below the horizon.
它位于地平线以下，仍然——远远低于地平线。
As for why it's happening, like, now, we talked to a bunch of climate scientists and asked if global warming could create the Novaya Zemlya effect more often-- make cold and warm air collide more frequently in a way that turns the atmosphere into a giant mirror and produces the reflection.
至于为什么会发生这种情况，就像现在，我们与一群气候科学家交谈，并询问全球变暖是否会更频繁地产生新地岛效应——使冷暖空气更频繁地碰撞，从而将大气变成一面巨大的镜子并产生反射。
Some said yes, some thought no. Waldemar, the scientist, likes the climate change explanation.
有人说是，有人认为不是。科学家瓦尔德马喜欢气候变化的解释。
Oh, yeah, I think there's a logic to that.
哦，是的，我认为这是有逻辑的。
If the climate is getting warmer, you might have more often some warm air moving in at the higher levels.
如果气候变暖，高层可能会更频繁地出现一些暖空气。
And if you get that perhaps more often, then off we go.
如果你更频繁地遇到这种情况，那么我们就出发吧。
And then you have the mirage.
然后你就看到了海市蜃楼。
I mean, it feels crazy to me that climate change could be making the sun look like it's coming up in a different place.
我的意思是，气候变化可能会让太阳看起来像是在不同的地方升起，这让我感觉很疯狂。
I mean, that's such a strange--
我的意思是，这太奇怪了——
Yeah.
是的。
Selena Ross It's such a disorienting thought.
赛琳娜·罗斯（Selena Ross） 这是一个令人迷失方向的想法。
Yes.
是的。
I think it's kind of neat.
我认为这很整洁。
I'd love to see it.
我很想看看。
It turns out, because of those same atmospheric conditions, the Inuit see crazy things all the time, things none of us in the south ever see-- land floating above land like a flying saucer, or mountain ranges where there's actually only ocean.
事实证明，由于同样的大气条件，因纽特人总是能看到一些疯狂的东西，这些东西是我们南方人从未见过的——陆地像飞碟一样漂浮在陆地上，或者山脉实际上只有海洋。
The Inuit have a name for these mirages, [NON-ENGLISH] And hunters can read them.
因纽特人给这些海市蜃楼起了个名字，[非英语]猎人可以读懂它们。
One man told me he's seen what appears to be a towering, skinny polar bear.
一名男子告诉我，他看到了一头高大瘦削的北极熊。
And he knows from how it looks that it really is a polar bear, it's just over the horizon, where it should be out of sight.
从它的外观来看，他知道那确实是一只北极熊，它就在地平线上方，应该是看不见的地方。
And if he heads towards it, he'll find a real animal there.
如果他朝那里走去，他会在那里发现一只真正的动物。
So the sun rising in the wrong spot?
那么太阳升起的位置不对吗？
It's just one more thing.
这只是另一件事。
Selena Ross.
赛琳娜·罗斯。
She's a reporter in Montreal.
她是蒙特利尔的一名记者。
Act four, Period Drama.
第四幕，时代剧。
So a couple of weeks ago, when we were having our story meeting for the show, Diane mentioned this thing.
几周前，当我们为节目举行故事会时，黛安提到了这件事。
She said a friend of hers had told her that there's basically no good scientific evidence for menstrual syncing.
她说她的一个朋友告诉她，基本上没有关于月经同步的良好科学证据。
This is this idea that when a bunch of women spend time together, their periods tend to sync up.
这个想法是，当一群女性在一起度过时光时，她们的月经往往会同步。
And when she said that, every woman in the room was like, what?
当她这么说时，房间里的每个女人都想，什么？
Of course, that's true.
当然，这是事实。
This was not something that was on Diane's list of seven things she needed to know, but all of a sudden, it was on everyone else's list.
这不是黛安需要知道的七件事清单上的事情，但突然间，它出现在其他人的清单上。
So we sent her off to find the answers.
所以我们派她去寻找答案。
Is it really not true?
难道真的不是真的吗？
And if it isn't true, why does everyone still believe it's true?
如果这不是真的，为什么每个人仍然相信这是真的？
Here's Diane.
这是黛安。
When I mentioned this to my coworkers, a lot of them had stories about how period syncing had happened to them.
当我向同事提到这一点时，他们中的很多人都讲述了经期同步是如何发生在他们身上的故事。
Someone said, but wait, my whole swim team was synced up in high school, or the girls in my friends' dorms made t-shirts that said, we cycle together.
有人说，但是等等，我的整个游泳队在高中时就同步了，或者我朋友宿舍里的女孩们制作了 T 恤，上面写着“我们一起骑自行车”。
To many women, it's a natural fact, and it's hard to believe otherwise.
对于许多女性来说，这是一个自然的事实，否则很难相信。
Just a few weeks ago, I went to a dorm room and talked to two roommates-- Rebecca and Saskia.
就在几周前，我去了一间宿舍，与两位室友——丽贝卡和萨斯基亚交谈。
They're juniors.
他们是小学生。
They live in a double on the first floor.
他们住在一楼的双人间。
It has bunk beds, a giant thrift store rug, little plants, and a birdcage decorating the windows.
里面有双层床、巨大的旧货地毯、小植物和装饰窗户的鸟笼。
Our aesthetic is wood nymph.
我们的审美是木若虫。
Saskia Wood nymph.
萨斯基亚·伍德若虫。
We came up with that one.
我们想出了这个。
Saskia Yeah, it was invented-- we came up with it because--
Saskia 是的，它被发明了——我们想出它是因为——
They're best friends.
他们是最好的朋友。
Freshman year, when they both had singles, Saskia would sleep over in Rebecca's room most nights.
大一那年，当他们都有单身时，萨斯基亚大多数晚上都会睡在丽贝卡的房间里。
They're always together.
他们总是在一起。
Like, Sas and I move as a unit.
就像，Sas 和我作为一个整体行动。
So like--
所以就像——
Yeah, we're known as a duo.
是的，我们被称为二人组。
But we spend pretty much all our time together.
但我们几乎所有的时间都在一起度过。
I mean, we have friends outside of each other, so like, if I have--
我的意思是，我们除了彼此之外还有朋友，所以就像，如果我有——
But mostly, our friends are together, yeah.
但大多数情况下，我们的朋友都在一起，是的。
Currently, Sas is on her period, and I'm not.
目前，萨斯正在经期，而我却没有。
But that's because mine is being kind of weird this month, so--
但那是因为我这个月有点奇怪，所以——
I mean, I think-- see, I feel like we do have them synced.
我的意思是，我想——看，我觉得我们确实让它们同步了。
I think you get excited if you think you're synced.
我想如果你认为你已经同步了，你会感到兴奋。
At least I do.
至少我是这样的。
Bex does.
贝克斯确实如此。
Rebecca Yeah, I get so excited if I'm synced with you or with Mina.
丽贝卡：是的，如果我与你或米娜同步，我会非常兴奋。
I think that's just reflective of our personalities.
我认为这反映了我们的个性。
I asked them if they'd heard of any scientific explanations for period syncing.
我问他们是否听说过经期同步的科学解释。
Like, kind of like the way the tides of the water vibe with the moon, you know?
就像，有点像水的潮汐与月亮的共鸣，你知道吗？
Like, maybe it's this similar type of thing with women's bodies.
就像，也许女性的身体也有类似的情况。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I'm not giving a good scientific reason.
我没有给出充分的科学理由。
Well, I remember someone once told me that it had to do with your hormones interacting, or something like that, but I don't really-- I mean, I have no idea.
嗯，我记得有人曾经告诉我，这与你的荷尔蒙相互作用有关，或者类似的东西，但我真的不知道——我的意思是，我不知道。
And also, I feel like that was probably from a Cosmo snap story.
而且，我觉得这可能来自 Cosmo 的快照故事。
I think it's like, when you hang out with someone for a long time and chill with them.
我想这就像，当你和某人一起闲逛很长时间并与他们一起放松时。
And then it's a sign that you guys have been hanging out a ton-- you know, that it means you're tight with somebody.
这表明你们已经经常出去玩了——你知道，这意味着你们和某人关系很密切。
I don't know, it's just--
我不知道，只是——
Your body knows.
你的身体知道。
Rebecca Your body knows.
丽贝卡 你的身体知道。
Before I tell you why period syncing might not be real, I have to tell you why it was real in the first place.
在我告诉你为什么经期同步可能不真实之前，我必须首先告诉你为什么它是真实的。
The story of how it became so popular also starts in a college dorm-- at Wellesley College, back in the late '60s.
它如何如此流行的故事也始于 60 年代末韦尔斯利学院的大学宿舍。
There was a student, Martha McClintock, who had this chore in her shared bathroom.
有一个学生，玛莎·麦克林托克（Martha McClintock），她在共用浴室里做这项家务。
Well, actually, what it was was I had a job stocking Tampax and Kotex.
嗯，实际上，我的工作是采购 Tampax 和 Kotex。
And I just noticed, people would seem to-- there'd be a run on Kotex and Tampax.
我刚刚注意到，人们似乎会抢购 Kotex 和 Tampax。
Mm-hm, all at the same time?
嗯嗯，同时进行？
Martha Mcclintock Yeah.
玛莎·麦克林托克 是的。
I mean, that was just an experience I filed away.
我的意思是，那只是我归档的一次经历。
Period syncing wasn't the familiar idea it is today.
经期同步当时并不像今天这样被人们所熟悉。
Women might have noticed their periods overlapping, but it wasn't a whole phenomenon that everybody knew about.
女性可能已经注意到她们的经期重叠，但这并不是每个人都知道的整体现象。
It didn't have an official name.
它没有正式名称。
So Martha didn't attach any significance to her observation.
所以玛莎并不认为她的观察有任何意义。
It was just a little note she'd made about the world-- that a lot of woman living in her dorm had their periods at the same time.
这只是她对这个世界所做的一个小记录——住在她宿舍的很多女人都会同时来月经。
She was studying biology and spent a summer doing research at a laboratory in Maine.
她正在学习生物学，并花了一个夏天在缅因州的一个实验室进行研究。
The researchers would hold these lunchtime talks.
研究人员将举行这些午餐会谈。
Martha would usually be the only woman in the room, and she sat with the other undergrads in the back.
玛莎通常是房间里唯一的女性，她和其他本科生坐在后面。
During one of these lunches, some scientists were talking about how groups of female mice could affect one another's ovulation.
在其中一次午餐期间，一些科学家正在讨论雌性小鼠群体如何影响彼此的排卵。
It reminded Martha of the pattern she'd seen with how her suite mates used up all the Tampax at the same time.
这让玛莎想起了她所看到的她的室友如何同时用完所有坦帕克斯的情况。
So there was this young woman, undergrad, sitting in the very edge of the group.
这位年轻的本科生女士坐在人群的最边缘。
And I said that women can show a pattern like that.
我说女人可以表现出这样的模式。
And I still remember, they turned and looked at me.
我还记得，他们转过身来看着我。
And they said, what do you mean?
他们说，你是什么意思？
And then I had to say menstruation in front of this group of predominantly men and plus people I really admired, you know?
然后我不得不在这群主要是男性和我真正钦佩的人面前说月经，你知道吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Martha Mcclintock My heart was pounding.
玛莎·麦克林托克 我的心砰砰直跳。
And they said, you can't say that without scientific evidence to back it up.
他们说，如果没有科学证据支持，你就不能这么说。
And I just didn't say anything back.
我什么也没说。
Then when I got back to Wellesley, I talked with my advisor, Patsy Sampson.
然后，当我回到韦尔斯利时，我与我的导师帕齐·桑普森进行了交谈。
And she said, well, why don't you collect the data?
她说，那你为什么不收集数据呢？
So I did.
所以我做到了。
Martha collected the data from the women in her dorm.
玛莎从她宿舍里的女学生那里收集了数据。
She asked about the start dates of everyone's periods between October and March.
她询问每个人十月到三月期间月经的开始日期。
Then she looked at three groups of women-- roommates, closest friends-- these were women who listed each other as closest friends, the sad cases where only one woman thought they were closest friends didn't count for the study-- and random pairs.
然后她观察了三组女性——室友、最亲密的朋友——这些女性将彼此列为最亲密的朋友，只有一名女性认为自己是最亲密的朋友的悲惨案例不计入研究——以及随机配对。
What Martha found was this.
玛莎发现的是这个。
The random pairs didn't change significantly over the school year, but the closest friends and roommates, their periods got closer together.
随机配对在整个学年中没有显着变化，但最亲密的朋友和室友的经期变得更接近。
In October, when they'd only been at school together a little while, their periods started around nine days apart.
十月份，当他们只在一起上学一段时间时，他们的月经间隔大约九天。
By March, the difference had dropped to around five days.
到三月份，差异已降至五天左右。
And I called that synchrony of their menstrual cycles.
我称其为月经周期的同步性。
Menstrual synchrony-- it was the first time the idea had been given a scientific name.
月经同步——这是这个想法第一次被赋予科学名称。
She published her results in the journal Nature in 1971, this study of 135 women in a dorm, and it was an instant sensation.
1971 年，她在《自然》杂志上发表了她的研究结果，这项研究对宿舍中的 135 名女性进行了研究，立即引起了轰动。
Martha's work was exciting to scientists because it suggested that just hanging out with another person could change your body's clockwork.
玛莎的工作令科学家们兴奋不已，因为它表明，与另一个人一起出去玩就可以改变你身体的时钟机制。
It had been recently discovered that insects and mice could send chemical signals to each other through the air, these things called pheromones.
最近发现，昆虫和老鼠可以通过空气相互发送化学信号，这些信号被称为信息素。
And Martha's paper opened up the possibility that maybe we, too, were sending messages in this secret new dimension.
玛莎的论文开启了一种可能性，也许我们也在这个秘密的新维度中发送信息。
We didn't know whether it was pheromones or not.
我们不知道这是否是信息素。
It's just that, gee, who we spend time with is affecting something that is deeply biological.
只是，哎呀，与我们共度时光的人正在影响一些具有深远生物学意义的东西。
I imagine it would make me feel like my body is much more porous to the outside environment than I thought.
我想这会让我觉得我的身体对外部环境的渗透性比我想象的要多得多。
Exactly.
确切地。
That was the main point.
这是重点。
Our bodies are much more porous than people had thought.
我们的身体比人们想象的要多孔得多。
Other scientists began conducting their own period syncing studies.
其他科学家开始进行自己的经期同步研究。
Among lesbians, and sisters, and coworkers, and teammates, and rats, and tamarinds, and hamsters, and chimps, scientists, including Martha, tried to figure out how these pheromones were getting from one person to another by putting cotton balls under one woman's armpit then under another woman's nose.
在女同性恋、姐妹、同事、队友、老鼠、罗望子、仓鼠和黑猩猩中，包括玛莎在内的科学家试图通过将棉球放在一个女人的腋窝下然后放在另一个女人的鼻子下来弄清楚这些信息素是如何从一个人传播到另一个人的。
And at the same time menstrual synchrony was gaining traction in science, it was filtering into the culture.
与此同时，月经同步在科学上越来越受到关注，它也正在渗透到文化中。
Period syncing started coming up in movies, magazines, TV.
经期同步开始出现在电影、杂志和电视中。
Here's a scene from the show Married with Children.
这是电视剧《已婚有孩子》中的场景。
[LAUGHTER] Diane Wu It's from an episode where all the women on a camping trip sync up, attracting bears and ruining it for the guys.
[笑声] Diane Wu 这是来自一集的一集，所有女人在露营旅行中同步，吸引了熊并毁了男人们的生活。
There's a lot of that kind of stuff-- male characters who think they're really hilarious making jokes about periods.
这样的事情有很多——男性角色认为自己开经期玩笑真的很搞笑。
The dad in My Wife and Kids calls it DEFCON 2 when his wife and daughters sync up.
当他的妻子和女儿们同步时，《我的妻子和孩子》中的父亲将其称为“DEFCON 2”。
A scene in the rom-com No Strings Attached where Ashton Kutcher brings cupcakes to an apartment full of menstruating women.
浪漫喜剧《No Strings Attached》中的一个场景，阿什顿·库彻 (Ashton Kutcher) 将纸杯蛋糕带到满是经期女性的公寓。
There's an episode of Charmed where the witches sync up, and it messes with their magic.
《魔咒》有一集女巫们同步了，这扰乱了她们的魔法。
In Sex and the City, Samantha thinks she might be starting menopause because she's out of sync with her friends.
在《欲望都市》中，萨曼莎认为她可能开始更年期，因为她与朋友们不同步。
And then there's Dwight Schrute on The Office, peering into a conference room full of women.
然后是《办公室》中的德怀特·施鲁特（Dwight Schrute），他凝视着满是女性的会议室。
They stay in there too long, they're going to get on the same cycle, wreak havoc on our plumbing.
它们在那里停留太久，它们会进入同一个循环，对我们的管道造成严重破坏。
By the '90s, Martha had become a tenured professor at the University of Chicago, running a lab that studied how behavior and environment affect reproduction.
到了 90 年代，玛莎已成为芝加哥大学的终身教授，负责管理一个实验室，研究行为和环境如何影响生殖。
And everything was going great until a paper came out that challenged the existence of period syncing.
一切都很顺利，直到一篇论文的出现挑战了周期同步的存在。
I know she wasn't very happy about that paper.
我知道她对那篇论文不太高兴。
That's Jeff Schank.
那是杰夫·尚克。
He was a post-doc in Martha's lab when that paper was published in 1992.
1992 年该论文发表时，他是玛莎实验室的博士后。
It was by an anthropologist named Clyde Wilson.
这是一位名叫克莱德·威尔逊的人类学家写的。
Martha had Jeff look through it to see if they could write a rebuttal together.
玛莎让杰夫仔细看一下，看看他们是否可以一起写一篇反驳文章。
Jeff thought it would be easy to find errors.
杰夫认为很容易发现错误。
My mindset was, I'll figure out what the flaws are.
我的想法是，我会找出缺陷是什么。
I thought I had discovered some issues, but then the more that I would think about it, the more I thought, yeah, I think he's right about that.
我以为我发现了一些问题，但我想得越多，我就越想，是的，我认为他是对的。
I became increasingly convinced that he was quite correct.
我越来越相信他是完全正确的。
The argument Jeff found the most persuasive was that a woman's period isn't the same length every month-- it might be 30 days one month, 24 days the next.
杰夫认为最有说服力的论点是，女性每个月的经期长度并不相同，可能一个月是 30 天，下个月是 24 天。
And because of that, when you compare two women's periods, it might look like they're starting to get closer together, but it's really just chance.
正因为如此，当你比较两个女性的经期时，可能看起来她们开始变得越来越接近，但这实际上只是偶然。
To account for this random thinking, you'd need either a really large sample of women or to run your experiment over a long time.
为了解释这种随机思维，你要么需要大量的女性样本，要么需要长时间进行实验。
Martha's paper didn't have either of these.
玛莎的报纸上没有这些。
There were other problems, too.
还有其他问题。
Jeff was convinced by Wilson's arguments, and that made him uncomfortable.
杰夫被威尔逊的论点说服了，这让他感到不舒服。
He had spent almost six years on work he was now learning had rested on a faulty assumption.
他花了近六年的时间进行工作，现在他才知道这项工作建立在一个错误的假设之上。
He started to worry--
他开始担心——
--that what I had done was wrong, was inaccurate.
——我所做的事情是错误的、不准确的。
What do I do about the fact that I don't any longer think that this phenomenon exists?
如果我不再认为这种现象存在，我该怎么办？
He told Martha that he couldn't help her write a rebuttal, that Clyde Wilson had actually gotten it right.
他告诉玛莎，他无法帮助她写反驳文章，克莱德·威尔逊实际上是对的。
After I said, I can't go ahead with this because I think there are some real issues, we never talked much at all since then.
在我说完之后，我不能继续这件事，因为我认为存在一些真正的问题，从那以后我们再也没有谈过太多。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I felt a mixture of guilt about, I guess, not being able to find some errors.
我想，我对未能发现一些错误感到很内疚。
And also, I guess that was mixed with some-- I was just upset.
而且，我想这其中还夹杂着一些——我只是感到沮丧。
Jeff went on to publish a bunch of papers debunking other synchrony studies, showing one by one that their results could all be explained by chance.
杰夫随后发表了一系列论文，驳斥了其他同步性研究，一一表明他们的结果都可以用偶然来解释。
A lot of the critiques of the idea of menstrual synchrony have been presented by men, including you.
许多对月经同步概念的批评都是由男性提出的，包括你。
Yeah.
是的。
Diane Wu What do you make of that?
吴黛安对此有何看法？
Yeah.
是的。
I mean, that's interesting.
我的意思是，这很有趣。
I have personally thought about that.
我个人也考虑过这一点。
You know, I felt kind of funny that I'm a male criticizing it.
你知道，作为一名男性批评它，我感到有点可笑。
All I can say is that, originally, I really wanted it to exist.
我只能说，最初我真的很希望它存在。
I asked Martha about all this.
我向玛莎询问了这一切。
And despite all the evidence to the contrary, she still maintains that menstrual synchrony does exist.
尽管有所有相反的证据，她仍然坚持认为月经同步确实存在。
You can't just make a blanket statement of, it doesn't exist.
你不能笼统地声明它不存在。
It is a good question to ask, when do you observe it?
这是一个很好的问题，你什么时候观察它？
The answer to that question may be never, but Martha stands by her original study.
这个问题的答案可能永远不会，但玛莎坚持她最初的研究。
I went back and forth with her, trying to understand her arguments.
我和她一起来来回回，试图理解她的论点。
Her main one is that maybe syncing can only be measured in just the right conditions.
她的主要观点是，也许同步只能在适当的条件下进行测量。
But nobody's identified what these conditions mighg be-- not Martha, not any of the later researchers.
但没有人知道这些条件可能是什么——玛莎没有，后来的任何研究人员都没有。
I brought a copy of one of Jeff's papers to show Rebecca and Saskia back in their wood-nymphy dorm room.
我带了一份杰夫的论文副本，带丽贝卡和萨斯基亚回到他们的木仙女宿舍。
Oh yeah, it's a very intense title-- "Women Do Not Synchronize Their Menstrual Cycles.
哦，是的，这是一个非常激烈的标题——“女性的月经周期不同步。”
And it's widely believed that women who live together or who are close friends--"
人们普遍认为，同居的女性或亲密的朋友——”
Rebecca read the abstract with her eyebrows furrowed.
丽贝卡皱着眉头读着摘要。
She'd wanted menstrual synchrony to be real.
她希望月经同步是真实的。
Does it matter to me?
这对我来说重要吗？
Probably not, honestly.
老实说，可能不是。
I don't think it does.
我认为不会。
I think I'll still probably get excited about it.
我想我仍然可能会对此感到兴奋。
So it doesn't really matter if there's, like, a study about it.
因此，是否有相关研究并不重要。
Because I think the joy is just thinking that you guys are on the same schedule and having that moment of closeness.
因为我认为快乐就是想到你们有相同的时间表并拥有那亲密的时刻。
So it doesn't really matter if it's actually your hormones, or if it's just chance that you guys are synced.
所以，这是否真的是你的荷尔蒙问题，或者只是你们同步的机会，并不重要。
I'd probably think someone was an asshole if I was like, oh, we're synced up, and they were like, actually, scientifically, that's inaccurate, or whatever.
如果我说，哦，我们是同步的，而他们实际上，从科学角度来说，这是不准确的，或者其他什么，我可能会认为某人是个混蛋。
Yeah.
是的。
Rebecca So like-- but I mean, I guess now, I can't say-- now, I'll be a fraud if I'm like, oh, we're syncing up, because--
丽贝卡：所以就像——但我的意思是，我想现在，我不能说——现在，如果我想，哦，我们正在同步，我就是一个骗子，因为——
Well, you could still say that you were synced, AKA you're having your period at the same time.
好吧，你仍然可以说你们已经同步，也就是说你们在同一时间来月经。
True.
真的。
True, true, true.
真实，真实，真实。
Diane Wu I hate to be that asshole saying period syncing is scientifically inaccurate, but here I am.
黛安·吴（Diane Wu） 我讨厌成为那个说经期同步在科学上不准确的混蛋，但我在这里。
There isn't any good evidence for period syncing.
没有任何证据表明经期同步。
Everyone in this story wanted it to be true, even Jeff, the guy who worked on disproving it, which is a feeling I understand.
这个故事中的每个人都希望它是真的，甚至杰夫，那个致力于反驳它的人，这是我理解的感觉。
When I was a chemist, I was always surprised by how much wishing I did in the lab.
当我还是一名化学家时，我总是对自己在实验室里实现的愿望感到惊讶。
I spent weeks trying to cook up these little nanoparticles that hardly ever came out the way I needed them to.
我花了几周的时间试图烹制这些小纳米颗粒，但它们几乎没有按照我需要的方式出现。
And every time I went to check my latest batch, in that moment just before I looked in the microscope, just before I found out if I'd finally gotten them right-- that was probably the closest I've ever come to praying.
每次我去检查我的最新批次时，就在我用显微镜观察之前，就在我发现我是否最终得到了正确的结果之前——这可能是我最接近祈祷的一次。
It's the exact opposite of how I thought science was supposed to work.
这与我认为科学应该如何运作的方式完全相反。
Diane Wu is one of the producers of our program.
吴黛安是我们节目的制作人之一。
Our show was produced today by Dana Chivvis.
今天我们的节目由 Dana Chivvis 制作。
Our staff includes Elna Baker, Susan Burton, Zoe Chace, Sean Cole, Whitney Dangerfield, Neil Drumming, Stephanie Foo, Chana Joffe-Walt, BA Parker, Robyn Semien, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.
我们的员工包括 Elna Baker、Susan Burton、Zoe Chace、Sean Cole、Whitney Dangerfield、Neil Drumming、Stephanie Foo、Chana Joffe-Walt、BA Parker、Robyn Semien、Christopher Swetala、Matt Tierney、Julie Whitaker 和 Diane Wu。
Our senior producer is Brian Reed.
我们的高级制片人是布莱恩·里德。
Music help from Damien Graef.
达米安·格雷夫 (Damien Graef) 的音乐帮助。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] Our website, ThisAmericanLife.org.
[致谢] 我们的网站 ThisAmericanLife.org。
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
《美国生活》由公共广播电台 PRX 向公共广播电台播出。
Thanks to our boss, Ira Glass.
感谢我们的老板艾拉·格拉斯。
He told me, when you're hosting the show, it's really just one thing you've got to remember.
他告诉我，当你主持节目时，这实际上只是你必须记住的一件事。
Our aesthetic is wood nymph.
我们的审美是木若虫。
David Kestenbaum I'm David Kestenbaum.
大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆 我是大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆。
Join us next week for more stories of This American Life.
下周加入我们，了解更多关于《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。