12日,著名物理学家史蒂芬·霍金开通官方认证微博@史蒂芬霍金_StephenHawking,向中国网友问好,称希望通过社交媒体与网友交流,分享生活趣事和工作心得。记者发现在其发出第一条微博后一个小时左右的时间里粉丝数已经突破30万。中国网友纷纷留言点赞,称 "Welcome! "
13日,霍金通过微博向中国网友表示,联合互联网投资人尤里·米尔纳(Yuri Milner)宣布启动一个新的1亿美元项目,以更好地了解宇宙。该项目的目标是开发数千个邮票大小的纳米小型太空飞船,飞往我们最近的星系,并发回照片。
以下为微博正文:
Greetings to everybody in China from NYC. At the One World Observatory in New York City, Yuri Milner and I launched a mission to the stars. Mark Zuckerberg lent his support by joining the board of our new initiative, Breakthrough Starshot.Within the next generation, Breakthrough Starshot aims to develop a ‘nanocraft’ – a gram-scale robotic space probe – and use a light beam to push it to 20 percent of the speed of light. If we are successful, a flyby mission could reach Alpha Centauri about 20 years after launch, and send back images of any planets discovered in the system.Albert Einstein once imagined riding on a light beam, and his thought experiment led him to the theory of special relativity. A little over a century later, we have the chance to attain a significant fraction of that speed: 100 million miles an hour. Only by going that fast can we reach the stars on the time-scale of a human life.It is exciting to be involved in such an ambitious project, pushing the boundaries of ingenuity and engineering.
我在纽约向中国的各位问好!在纽约城的一号楼观景台,我和尤里·米尔纳启动了“突破摄星”计划 (Breakthrough Starshot),马克·扎克伯格也加入了该计划的董事会,为“突破摄星”助一臂之力。在一代人的时间内,“突破摄星”旨在研发出一台“纳米飞行器” —— 一台质量为克级的自动化太空探测器—— 并且通过光束把它推动到五分之一的光速。如果我们成功的话,这个飞掠任务将会在发射后二十年左右到达半人马座阿尔发星,并发送回来在那个星系中发现的行星的图片。爱因斯坦曾经幻想在宇宙中乘着一道光线飞驰,这个思想实验为他的狭义相对论奠定了基础。一个多世纪后,我们有机会可以达到光速的一小部分:一亿英里每小时。只有通过这么快的速度,我们才有希望在人类的时间尺度内到达那些恒星。这个项目耗资巨大,雄心勃勃地希望探索人类创新和工程学的极限。能参与这样的项目,非常令人兴奋。
- S.H.