ted英語演講稿3篇

as a magician, i try to create images that make people stop and think. i also try to challenge myself to do things that doctors say are not possible. i was buried alive in new york city in a coffin, buried alive in a coffin in april, 1999, for a week. i lived there with nothing but water. and it ended up being so much fun that i decided i could pursue doing more of these things. the next one is i froze myself in a block of ice for three days and three nights in new york city. that one was way more difficult than i had expected. the one after that, i stood on top of a hundred foot pillar for 36 hours. i began to hallucinate so hard that the buildings that were behind me started to look like big animal heads.

作為一個魔術師，我總是嘗試去創造一個現象可以讓人們駐足思考。我也試著挑戰自己做一些醫生看來不可能的事情。我曾於1999年4月，被埋在紐約一口棺材裡整整一個星期。著一個禮拜僅靠水存活下來。但結果是我從中獲得極大的樂趣。於是我決定去追求實現更多這樣的事。下一次就是我把自己凍在一個大冰塊里整整三天三夜，地點是紐約。那次要比我想像的困難許多。接下來的一次，我站在一百多英尺高的柱子頂端整整36個小時。快結束時我開始產生非常強烈的幻覺以至於我覺得身後的建築看起來像巨型動物的頭。

so, next i went to london. in london i lived in a glass box for 44 days with nothing but water. it was, for me, one of the most difficult things i'd ever done, but it was also the most beautiful. there was so many skeptics, especially the press in london, that they started flying cheeseburgers on helicopters around my box to tempt me. (laughter) so, i felt very validated when the new england journal of medicine actually used the research for science.

後來，我去了倫敦。在倫敦，我在一個玻璃箱裡生存了44天也是除了水什麼都沒有。對於我來說，這次是所有挑戰中最艱難的一次，但它仍然是非常美好的一次歷程。當時有許多持懷疑態度的人，尤其是倫敦的記者們，他們坐直升機徘徊在我的玻璃箱周圍到處扔漢堡引誘我。 (笑聲) 我通過這次活動被認可而感到非常高興，事實上新英格蘭醫學雜誌還以此作為研究供科學參考。

my next pursuit was i wanted to see how long i could go without breathing, like how long i could survive with nothing, not even air. i didn't realize that it would become the most amazing journey of my life.

我的下一個追求便是想試試不呼吸能堅持多久，也就是說什麼都沒有的情況下我能活多久，甚至沒有空氣。我並沒有意識到，這一次成就了我生命中最美妙的旅程。

as a young magician i was obsessed with houdini and his underwater challenges. so, i began, early on, competing against the other kids, seeing how long i could stay underwater while they went up and down to breathe, you know, five times, while i stayed under on one breath. by the time i was a teenager i was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds. i would later find out that was houdini's personal record.

作為一個年輕的魔術師我沉迷於霍迪尼和他在水下屏氣挑戰。孩童時候，我就開始與其他的孩子們比試，看可以在水下待多久，當他們得反覆探頭出水面呼吸，大概5次之多，我卻可以一直待在水下，完全不需要換氣。。當我是青少年的時候我已經可以水下屏氣達3分30秒之久，後來我才發現那就是霍迪尼的個人紀錄。

in 1987 i heard of a story about a boy that fell through ice and was trapped under a river. he was underneath, not breathing for 45 minutes. when the rescue workers came they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage. his core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees. as a magician, i think everything is possible. and i think if something is done by one person it can be done by others. i started to think, if the boy could survive without breathing for that long, there must be a way that i could do it.

在1987年，我聽說了一個故事，一個男孩掉進冰封的河裡，困於河底。他45分鐘內沒有呼吸。當救援人員趕到搶救並喚醒他時，發現他並沒有腦損傷，他的心臟溫度降至77度。作為一個魔術師，我相信一切皆有可能。我認為如果某個人可以做到某件事，那么任何人都可以做到。我開始思索，如果這個男孩可以如此長時間不呼吸而活下來，那么必定有某種途徑讓我也可以做到。

so, i met with a top neurosurgeon. and i asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could i go without air? and he said to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage. so, i took that as a challenge, basically. (laughter) my first try, i figured that i could do something similar, and i created a water tank, and i filled it with ice and freezing cold water. and i stayed inside of that water tank hoping my core temperature would start to drop. and i was shivering. in my first attempt to hold my breath i couldn't even last a minute. so, i realized that was completely not going to work.

於是我找了最好的神經科醫師，問他人若是不呼吸最長支撐多久，也就是哪怕連空氣都沒有我能撐多久? 他告訴我，任何超過6分鐘不呼吸的行為，都會因缺氧而造成嚴重腦損傷的危險。那么毫無疑問，我便把它列入了我的挑戰。 (笑聲) 第一次試驗，我打算模擬那個男孩遭遇的情況，弄一個水缸，注滿徹骨的冰水，然後就跳進那個水缸里，希望我的體溫可以下降。當不住地時我顫抖。第一次嘗試我甚至連一分鐘都堅持不了。於是我意識到簡單的模擬行不通，

so, i went to talk to a doctor friend, and i asked him how could i do that? "i want to hold my breath for a really long time. how could it be done?" and he said, "david, you're a magician, create the illusion of not breathing, it will be much easier." (laughter) so, he came up with this idea of creating a rebreather, with a co2 scrubber, which was basically a tube from home depot, with a balloon duct-taped to it, that he thought we could put inside of me, and somehow be able to circulate the air and rebreathe with this thing in me. this is a little hard to watch. but this is that attempt. so, that clearly wasn't going to work. (laughter)

我便找了一位醫生朋友，詢問他我怎樣才能屏氣那么久， “我想在在水下長時間屏氣。怎么樣才可以做到呢?”我問他，他回答，“大衛，你是魔術師，設計一個不呼吸的假象豈不是更容易?” (笑聲) 他想出這么個點子，做一個內呼吸裝置，內置一個co2 滌氣器，其實基本上就是一個家用的管子，再套一個氣球僅此而已。他認為可以把這個東西放到我身體裡，然後用某種方式可以循環空氣達到再呼吸的目的。他是這么把東西放進來的，這過程看起來會不太舒服... 但那是一次嘗試。好了，很顯然它是不會起作用的。 (笑聲)

then i actually started thinking about liquid breathing. there is a chemical that's called perflubron. and it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it. so, i got my hands on that chemical, filled the sink up with it, and stuck my face in the sink and tried to breathe that in, which was really impossible. it's basically like trying to breathe, as a doctor said, while having an elephant standing on your chest. so, that idea disappeared.

接著我開始考慮試試液體呼吸。有一種叫全氟化合物的化學藥劑，含氧量特別高，理論上你是可以用它來呼吸。於是我打算嘗試這種化學試劑，將它灌滿水缸，把臉浸在裡面，試著呼吸。但那實在是不太可能，基本上就如醫生所說，情況如同一頭大象踩住你胸口的同時你還非得呼吸一樣。這個法子看來也行不通。

then i started thinking, would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung bypass machine and have a surgery where it was a tube going into my artery, and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood? which was another insane idea, obviously.

接著我想到，有沒有可能在我的心臟和肺之間用機械搭橋，然後做手術把管子放入動脈，表面沒有呼吸但事實上這些裝備在為我的血液供氧? 但這顯然又是另一個瘋狂的想法。

then i thought about the craziest idea of all the ideas: to actually do it. (laughter) to actually try to hold my breath past the point that doctors would consider you brain dead. so, i started researching into pearl divers. you know, because they go down for four minutes on one breath. and when i was researching pearl divers, i found the world of free-diving. it was the most amazing thing that i ever discovered, pretty much. there is many different aspects to free-diving. there is depth records, where people go as deep as they can. and then there is static apnea. that's holding your breath as long as you can in one place without moving. that was the one that i studied.

後來，我想出了一個最瘋狂的辦法：那就是，真刀真槍的來。 (笑聲) 去真正憋氣至那一刻，那連醫生都認為會腦死亡的時間。於是我開始蒐集有關採珠人的信息。因為他們可以只用一口氣便在水下待4分鐘之久。而且當我在做採珠人調查時我發現了另一番洞天--自由潛水。它幾乎可以說是我至今發現最奇妙的事。自由潛水有很多種，有深度記錄的，人們可以潛到他們能達到的最大深度，還有靜止屏氣，就是能憋氣多久就憋多久，但必須靜止在一個固定的地方。那就是我調查的研究。

the first thing that i learned is when you're holding your breath you should never move at all; that wastes energy. and that depletes oxygen, and it builds up co2 in your blood. so, i learned never to move. and i learned how to slow my heart rate down. i had to remain perfectly still and just relax and think that i wasn't in my body, and just control that. and then i learned how to purge. purging is basically hyperventilating. you blow in and out ... you do that, you get lightheaded, you get tingling. and you're really ridding your body of co2. so, when you hold your breath it's infinitely easier. then i learned that you have to take a huge breath, and just hold and relax and never let any air out, and just hold and relax through all the pain.

我學到的第一個要領就是當你在屏氣時應該一動不動，否則會浪費能量，消耗氧氣，並會使血液中的co2含量升高。所以我試著不去移動。我也學到了怎樣減緩我的心率。必須去保證一動不動並且非常放鬆想像自己已經不在身體裡，並且要持續保持。然後我學了怎樣淨化呼吸，淨化呼吸實際上就是強力呼吸。呼進，呼出然後會感到眩暈，耳鳴，這樣就可以排除身體內的co2，接著當你再屏氣的時候，就會感到輕鬆。然後我學到必須要吸很大的一口氣，憋住，放鬆，別讓一點兒空漏出去，憋著並放鬆著嘗試忍過所有的痛苦感覺。

every morning, this is for months, i would wake up and the first thing that i would do is i would hold my breath for, out of 52 minutes, i would hold my breath for 44 minutes. so, basically what that means is i would purge, i'd breath really hard for a minute. and i would hold, immediately after, for five and half minutes. then i would breath again for a minute, purging as hard as i can, then immediately after that i would hold again for five and half minutes. i would repeat this process eight times in a row. out of 52 minutes you're only breathing for eight minutes. at the end of that you're completely fried, your brain. you feel like you're walking around in a daze. and you have these awful headaches. basically, i'm not the best person to talk to when i'm doing that stuff.

每天早晨，連續幾個月，我醒來第一件事就是屏住呼吸在52分鐘內，我能憋氣44分鐘。那就是說我會用淨化呼吸的方式，用力的呼吸一分鐘然後就馬上屏氣5分半鐘，接著再用力呼吸一分鐘，使最大的力氣去淨化呼吸，然後馬上再一次屏住呼吸5分半鐘。我會連續重複這樣的過程8次。在52分鐘內，我其實只呼吸8分鐘。在快要結束時，我覺得大腦快炸開了，就好像在一片耀眼中行走，頭痛欲裂。似乎我屬於做的出卻描述不出的人。

i started learning about the world-record holder. his name is tom sietas. and this guy is perfectly built for holding his breath. he's six foot four. he's 160 pounds. and his total lung capacity is twice the size of an average person. i'm six foot one, and fat. we'll say big-boned. (laughter) i had to drop 50 pounds in three months. so, everything that i put into my body i considered as medicine. every bit of food was exactly what it was for its nutritional value. i ate really small controlled portions throughout the day. and i started to really adapt my body. (laughter)

我開始了解到這個記錄的保持者叫湯姆斯塔斯。這傢伙就像是為屏氣而生的，他有6尺4，160磅重。而且他的肺活量是正常人的2倍。我呢，6尺1寸，很胖，或者可以硬是說成骨架比較大。 (笑聲) 所以我必須在三個月內減掉50磅。所有放進我嘴裡的東西我都看作是藥物，每一小塊食物都按照營養價值需要來吃。一天內我都保持吃非常小量的食物，漸漸的我開始保持很好的狀態了。 (笑聲)

the thinner i was, the longer i was able to hold my breath. and by eating so well and training so hard, my resting heart-rate dropped to 38 beats per minute. which is lower than most olympic athletes. in four months of training i was able to hold my breath for over seven minutes. i wanted to try holding my breath everywhere. i wanted to try it in the most extreme situations to see if i could slow my heart rate down under duress. (laughter)

我越瘦，就越能長時間屏住呼吸。通過飲食控制搭配艱苦的訓練，我的心率下降到每分鐘38次，比多數奧林匹克選手都要低。在4個月的訓練，我已經可以屏住呼吸長達7分鐘之久。我在任何地方都訓練屏氣，嘗試在極端的環境下屏氣檢驗是否可能降低心率在如此高壓下。 (笑聲)

i decided that i was going to break the world record live on prime-time television. the world record was eight minutes and 58 seconds, held by tom sietas, that guy with the whale lungs i told you about. (laughter) i assumed that i could put a water tank at lincoln center and if i stayed there a week not eating, i would get comfortable in that situation and i would slow my metabolism, which i was sure would help me hold my breath longer than i had been able to do it. i was completely wrong.

終於我準備好要打破世界紀錄，要在黃金時段的電視頻道直播。當時的世界紀錄是8分58秒，湯姆，斯塔斯始終保持，我告訴過你們那個傢伙有鯨魚一樣大的肺。 (笑聲) 我構想可以在林肯中心放一個巨型水缸然後我不吃飯在那裡面先待一個禮拜，就會比較適應了，並且新陳代謝也會緩慢下來，我很肯定這樣做可以幫我更長時間的屏住呼吸。顯然我完全錯了。

i entered the sphere a week before the scheduled air date. and i thought everything seemed to be on track. two days before my big breath hold attempt, for the record, the producers of my television special thought that just watching somebody holding their breath, and almost drowning, is too boring for television. (laughter) so, i had to add handcuffs, while holding my breath, to escape from. this was a critical mistake. because of the movement i was wasting oxygen. and by seven minutes i had gone into these awful convulsions. by 7:08 i started to black out. and by seven minutes and 30 seconds they had to pull my body out and bring me back. i had failed on every level. (laughter)

我提前一個禮拜去到中心，感覺一切都漸漸上了軌道，沒想到的是，在破紀錄憋氣嘗試的前兩天，電視製作人突然覺得光看人憋氣像是快要淹死對觀眾來說太過無聊。 (笑聲) 於是我不得不加上手銬，邊屏氣邊試著掙脫它們。這被證明是個極嚴重的錯誤。開始後我因為掙脫的動作浪費了很多氧氣，到第7分鐘我已經開始不住可怕的抽搐中™ 到7分08秒時，我開始失去知覺， 7分30秒的時候他們必須把我拉出來進行搶救。我輸的一塌糊塗。 (笑聲)

so, naturally, the only way out of the slump that i could think of was, i decided to call oprah. (laughter) i told her that i wanted to up the ante and hold my breath longer than any human being ever had. this was a different record. this was a pure o2 static apnea record that guinness had set the world record at 13 minutes. so, basically you breath pure o2 first, oxygenating your body, flushing out co2, and you are able to hold much longer. i realized that my real competition was the beaver. (laughter)

所以很自然唯一可以擺脫消沉我可以想到的就是去找奧普拉。 (笑聲) 我告訴他我要提高賭注我要屏住呼吸長過所有人。這是個不同的記錄，這次是純氧靜止屏氣記錄，由吉尼斯目前的13分鐘為世界紀錄。也就是先吸入入純氧, 充沛氧氣，排出二氧化碳。然後你就可以屏氣更長時間。當時我意識到，我真正的競爭者是-- 海狸。 (笑聲)

in january of '08 oprah gave me four months to prepare and train. so, i would sleep in a hypoxic tent every night. a hypoxic tent is a tent that simulates altitude at 15,000 feet. so, it's like base camp everest. what that does is, you start building up the red blood cell count in your body, which helps you carry oxygen better. every morning, again, after getting out of that tent your brain is completely wiped out. my first attempt on pure o2, i was able to go up to 15 minutes. so, it was a pretty big success.

XX年1月奧普拉給了我4個月準備和訓練。我每晚睡在低氧艙里，所謂低氧艙就是模擬海拔15000尺的含氧量，跟終極野營似的。這么做的原因是，可以累積體內紅細胞的數目，幫助你更好的保存氧氣。每個早晨，同樣的，從低氧艙里出來時大腦一片空白。第一次嘗試純氧時，我已經可以屏氣15分鐘。這已經算是不小的成功了。

the neurosurgeon pulled me out of the water because in his mind, at 15 minutes your brain is done, you're brain dead. so, he pulled me up, and i was fine. there was one person there that was definitely not impressed. it was my ex-girlfriend. while i was breaking the record underwater for the first time, she was sifting through my blackberry, checking all my messages. (laughter) my brother had a picture of it. it is really ... (laughter)

當那個神經外科醫師把我從水裡拉出來時相當震驚-- 在他看來，15分鐘不呼吸你的大腦就完了，腦死亡-- 可是當他把我拉出來，我卻狀態良好，當時肯定有一個人是覺得沒什麼大不了，就是我的前女友。當我在水下第一次打破紀錄時，她卻在翻我的黑莓手機，檢查我所有的簡訊。 (笑聲) 我哥哥拍了張當時的照片。那真的是... (笑聲)

i then announced that i was going to go for sietas' record, publicly. and what he did in response, is he went on regis and kelly, and broke his old record. then his main competitor went out and broke his record. so, he suddenly pushed the record up to 16 minutes and 32 seconds. which was three minutes longer than i had prepared. you know, it was longer than the record.

終於我宣布公開挑戰斯塔斯的記錄，他所做的回應，就是在regis and kelly節目中，自己打破他以前的記錄。然後他的主要競爭者又出來，並再次打破記錄。這樣，記錄離奇被提到 16分32秒。比我所做的準備長出3分鐘。你知道，比原來紀錄長出很多。

now, i wanted to get the science times to document this. i wanted to get them to do a piece on it. so, i did what any person seriously pursuing scientific advancement would do. i walked into the new york times offices and did card tricks to everybody. (laughter) so, i don't know if it was the magic or the lore of the cayman islands, but john tierney flew down and did a piece on the seriousness of breath-holding.

這下，我打算讓科學時代雜誌來報導這一切，我希望他們也能參與，於是，我做了任何一個嚴謹探索科學的人都該做的事，我走進紐約時報的辦公室給每個人表演紙牌魔術。 (笑聲) 我不知道是魔術的原因還是開曼群島的信仰，約翰，第爾尼被說服了，還寫了一篇論屏住呼吸之嚴重性的報導。

while he was there i tried to impress him, of course. and i did a dive down to 160 feet, which is basically the height of a 16 story building, and as i was coming up, i blacked out underwater, which is really dangerous; that's how you drown. luckily kirk had seen me and he swam over and pulled me up. so, i started full focus. i completely trained to get my breath hold time up for what i needed to do. but there was no way to prepare for the live television aspect of it, being on oprah.

當他在那兒的時候，我試圖給他深刻印象於是我猛地下潛了160尺，大概有16層樓那么高，可我在上浮過程中，昏了過去，那是相當危險的。那就是人們如何溺水的。幸運的是克爾克看到我他游過去把我救了上來。這下我開始全神貫注了。我徹底嚴格的訓練延長屏氣時間，做我該做的事。但不可能完全按照將電視直播的方式而準備，也就是那個奧普拉的節目。

but in practice, i would do it face down, floating on the pool. but for tv they wanted me to be upright so they could see my face, basically. the other problem was the suit was so buoyant that they had to strap my feet in to keep me from floating up. so, i had to use my legs to hold my feet into the straps that were loose, which was a real problem for me. that made me extremely nervous, raising the heart rate.

練習中，我會面朝下，懸浮在水缸中，但上電視時，他們卻希望我面朝前，以便觀眾看見我的臉。另一個問題是，那身衣服讓我易懸浮，所以他們不得不用皮帶綁住我的腳保持我不至上浮，同時我得用雙腿幫助腳站穩在那個松松的皮帶裡面，那對我來說是非常頭疼的事，因為它導致我極度緊張，提高了心率。

then, what they also did was, which we never did before, is there was a heart-rate monitor. and it was right next to the sphere. so, every time my heart would beat i'd hear the beep-beep-beep-beep, you know, the ticking, really loud. which was making me more nervous. and there is no way to slow my heart rate down. so, normally i would start at 38 beats per minute, and while holding my breath it would drop to 12 beats per minute, which is pretty unusual. (laughter) this time it started at 120 beats, and it never went down.

除此之外，他們還裝了，我以前從未試過的，就是裝了一個心率監測器它就在放置在我的球型水缸旁邊，所以，每一次我心跳動時，都會聽到嗶嗶的聲音。你知道，那個聲音，非常吵。它導致我更加緊張。而且我竟然沒有辦法去降低心率。一般情況下我的心率是每分鐘38次，而且當我屏住呼吸時它會降到每分鐘12次，這是可是很不尋常的。 (笑聲) 這一次，它卻以每分鐘120次作為開始，再也沒有降下去。

i spent the first five minutes underwater desperately trying to slow my heart rate down. i was just sitting there thinking, "i've got to slow this down. i'm going to fail, i'm going to fail." and i was getting more nervous. and the heart rate just kept going up and up, all the way up to 150 beats. basically it's the same thing that created my downfall at lincoln center. it was a waste of o2. when i made it to the halfway mark, at eight minutes, i was 100 percent certain that i was not going to be able to make this. there was no way for me to do it.

在水下前5分鐘我瘋狂的嘗試降低心率，當時我只不住地想，“我必須讓心率減速我要失敗了，我要失敗了。” 而且我越來越緊張。心率一直飆升，直到每分鐘150次。其實就是出現了和倫敦中心失敗時一樣的情況，心跳過快浪費氧氣. 當我堅持到一半的時候，大概8分鐘時，我已經百分百確定我不會成功了。我根本做不到。

so, i figured, oprah had dedicated an hour to doing this breath hold thing, if i had cracked early it would be a whole show about how depressed i am. (laughter) so, i figured i'm better off just fighting and staying there until i black out, at least then they can pull me out and take care of me and all that. (laughter)

然後，我想，奧普拉貢獻一整個小時來做這個水下屏氣的節目。如果我早早失敗了它就會變成一個描述我失敗後如何沮喪的節目。 (笑聲) 所以，我發現我還是最好強撐著，直到昏過去，至少這樣他們可以先把我拉出來再搶救什麼的。 (笑聲)

i kept pushing to 10 minutes. at 10 minutes you start getting all these really strong tingling sensations in your fingers and toes. and i knew that that was blood shunting, when the blood rushes away from your extremities to provide oxygen to your vital organs. at 11 minutes i started feeling throbbing sensations in my legs, and my lips started to feel really strange.

我一直堅持到10分鐘，在第十分鐘時我開始有這種非常強烈的手指和腳趾鎮痛的感覺。我知道那是血液分流，也就是血液從肢端回流去為重要的器官供氧。在第11分鐘，我開始感到腿部的抽搐感，而且嘴唇感覺奇怪。

at minute 12 i started to have ringing in my ears, and i started to feel my arm going numb. and i'm a hypochondriac, and i remember arm numb means heart attack. so, i started to really get really paranoid. then at 13 minutes, maybe because of the hypochondria. i started feeling pains all over my chest. it was awful. at 14 minutes, i had these awful contractions, like this urge to breathe. (laughter)

在第12分鐘我開始耳鳴，而且胳膊開始麻木。我是個憂鬱症患者，我記起任何的麻木意味著心臟病。於是我開始恐慌起來。然後在第13分鐘，可能由於憂鬱症，我感到胸前巨痛。太難受了。在第14分鐘，我有一種強烈的欲望，想要呼吸的欲望。 (笑聲)

at 15 minutes i was suffering major o2 deprivation to the heart. and i started having ischemia to the heart. my heartbeat would go from 120, to 50, to 150, to 40, to 20, to 150 again. it would skip a beat. it would start. it would stop. and i felt all this. and i was sure that i was going to have a heart attack. so, at 16 minutes what i did is i slid my feet out because i knew that if i did go out, if i did have a heart attack, they'd have to jump into the binding and take my feet out before pulling me up. so, i was really nervous.

在第15分鐘，我遭受心臟缺氧的症狀，心臟開始供血不足，心率從120，下降到50，又從150到40，20，又到150. 它會忽然停跳一拍，時而開始，時而停止。而且我能感受到這發生的一切。我很確定我快要心臟病了。於是在第16分鐘，我把腳滑出扣帶因為我知道如果我確實要離開水面，或是突發心臟病，他們會先跳進來鬆開我的腳上的扣帶再拉我出水。所以我非常緊張。

so, i let my feet out, and i started floating to the top. and i didn't take my head out. but i was just floating there waiting for my heart to stop, just waiting. they had doctors with the "pst," you know, so, sitting there waiting. and then suddenly i hear screaming. and i think that there is some weird thing -- that i had died or something had happened. and then i realized that i had made it to 16:32. so, with the energy of everybody that was there i decided to keep pushing. and i went to 17 minutes and four seconds. (applause)

我鬆開了我的腳，開始任由身體上浮，但我沒有把頭伸出水面，我只是，等待我心跳停止的那一刻... 等待著... 你知道他們有神經科的醫生坐在那裡等著搶救我。突然，我聽到尖叫聲，我想一定是很瘋狂的事發生了，比如我死了之類的。然而我突然意識到，我堅持到了16：32! 在場每一位觀眾釋放出來給予我的能量讓我決定繼續堅持... 我堅持到了,17分30秒。 (掌聲)

as though that wasn't enough, what i did immediately after is i went to quest labs and had them take every blood sample that they could to test for everything and to see where my levels were, so the doctors could use it, once again. i also didn't want anybody to question it. i had the world record and i wanted to make sure it was legitimate.

即使那還不夠，在出來之後我立刻去了實驗室他們儘可能地提取了各處的血液樣本以測試所有指標以及我的狀況，那樣醫生就可以把它們記錄在案。當然我不希望任何人懷疑，我創造了世界紀錄，我當然希望確定它是堂堂正正的。

so, i get to new york city the next day, and this kid walks up to me -- i'm walking out of the apple store -- this kid walks up to me he's like, "yo, d!" i'm like "yeah?" he said, "if you really held your breath that long, why'd you come out of the water dry?" i was like "what?" (laughter) and that's my life. so ... (laughter)

這樣第二天我去了紐約，有個小孩朝我走過來--我剛走出“蘋果”-- 這孩子走向我，說，“嘿，大衛!” 我說“怎么了?” 他說，“如果你真的可以水下屏氣那么久，為什麼你從水裡出來的時候是乾的?” 我沒反應過來“什麼?” (笑聲) 這就是我的生活。你瞧... (笑聲)

as a magician i try to show things to people that seem impossible. and i think magic, whether i'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. it's practice, it's training, and it's -- it's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that i can be. and that's what magic is to me, so, thank you. (applause)

作為一個魔術師，我試著展現一些東西那些看似不可能的事。我認為魔術，不管是水下屏氣還是搗鼓一副紙牌，道理都很簡單。就是練習，訓練，以及... 就是練習，訓練，以及不斷嘗試。去強忍過那些極痛苦的時刻，做自己能做的一切。這就是魔術對於我的意義。謝謝你們。 (掌聲)

TED英語演講稿：我們在出生前學到了什麼

ted英語演講稿（2） | 返回目錄

my subject today is learning. and in that spirit, i want to spring on you all a pop quiz. ready? when does learning begin? now as you ponder that question, maybe you're thinking about the first day of preschool or kindergarten, the first time that kids are in a classroom with a teacher. or maybe you've called to mind the toddler phase when children are learning how to walk and talk and use a fork. maybe you've encountered the zero-to-three movement, which asserts that the most important years for learning are the earliest ones. and so your answer to my question would be: learning begins at birth.

well today i want to present to you an idea that may be surprising and may even seem implausible, but which is supported by the latest evidence from psychology and biology. and that is that some of the most important learning we ever do happens before we're born, while we're still in the womb. now i'm a science reporter. i write books and magazine articles. and i'm also a mother. and those two roles came together for me in a book that i wrote called "origins." "origins" is a report from the front lines of an exciting new field called fetal origins. fetal origins is a scientific discipline that emerged just about two decades ago, and it's based on the theory that our health and well-being throughout our lives is crucially affected by the nine months we spend in the womb. now this theory was of more than just intellectual interest to me. i was myself pregnant while i was doing the research for the book. and one of the most fascinating insights i took from this work is that we're all learning about the world even before we enter it.

when we hold our babies for the first time, we might imagine that they're clean slates, unmarked by life, when in fact, they've already been shaped by us and by the particular world we live in. today i want to share with you some of the amazing things that scientists are discovering about what fetuses learn while they're still in their mothers' bellies.

first of all, they learn the sound of their mothers' voices. because sounds from the outside world have to travel through the mother's abdominal tissue and through the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus, the voices fetuses hear, starting around the fourth month of gestation, are muted and muffled. one researcher says that they probably sound a lot like the the voice of charlie brown's teacher in the old "peanuts" cartoon. but the pregnant woman's own voice reverberates through her body, reaching the fetus much more readily. and because the fetus is with her all the time, it hears her voice a lot. once the baby's born, it recognizes her voice and it prefers listening to her voice over anyone else's.

how can we know this? newborn babies can't do much, but one thing they're really good at is sucking. researchers take advantage of this fact by rigging up two rubber nipples, so that if a baby sucks on one, it hears a recording of its mother's voice on a pair of headphones, and if it sucks on the other nipple, it hears a recording of a female stranger's voice. babies quickly show their preference by choosing the first one. scientists also take advantage of the fact that babies will slow down their sucking when something interests them and resume their fast sucking when they get bored. this is how researchers discovered that, after women repeatedly read aloud a section of dr. seuss' "the cat in the hat" while they were pregnant, their newborn babies recognized that passage when they hear it outside the womb. my favorite experiment of this kind is the one that showed that the babies of women who watched a certain soap opera every day during pregnancy recognized the theme song of that show once they were born. so fetuses are even learning about the particular language that's spoken in the world that they'll be born into.

a study published last year found that from birth, from the moment of birth, babies cry in the accent of their mother's native language. french babies cry on a rising note while german babies end on a falling note, imitating the melodic contours of those languages. now why would this kind of fetal learning be useful? it may have evolved to aid the baby's survival. from the moment of birth, the baby responds most to the voice of the person who is most likely to care for it -- its mother. it even makes its cries sound like the mother's language, which may further endear the baby to the mother, and which may give the baby a head start in the critical task of learning how to understand and speak its native language.

but it's not just sounds that fetuses are learning about in utero. it's also tastes and smells. by seven months of gestation, the fetus' taste buds are fully developed, and its olfactory receptors, which allow it to smell, are functioning. the flavors of the food a pregnant woman eats find their way into the amniotic fluid, which is continuously swallowed by the fetus. babies seem to remember and prefer these tastes once they're out in the world. in one experiment, a group of pregnant women was asked to drink a lot of carrot juice during their third trimester of pregnancy, while another group of pregnant women drank only water. six months later, the women's infants were offered cereal mixed with carrot juice, and their facial expressions were observed while they ate it. the offspring of the carrot juice drinking women ate more carrot-flavored cereal, and from the looks of it, they seemed to enjoy it more.

a sort of french version of this experiment was carried out in dijon, france where researchers found that mothers who consumed food and drink flavored with licorice-flavored anise during pregnancy showed a preference for anise on their first day of life, and again, when they were tested later, on their fourth day of life. babies whose mothers did not eat anise during pregnancy showed a reaction that translated roughly as "yuck." what this means is that fetuses are effectively being taught by their mothers about what is safe and good to eat. fetuses are also being taught about the particular culture that they'll be joining through one of culture's most powerful expressions, which is food. they're being introduced to the characteristic flavors and spices of their culture's cuisine even before birth.

now it turns out that fetuses are learning even bigger lessons. but before i get to that, i want to address something that you may be wondering about. the notion of fetal learning may conjure up for you attempts to enrich the fetus -- like playing mozart through headphones placed on a pregnant belly. but actually, the nine-month-long process of molding and shaping that goes on in the womb is a lot more visceral and consequential than that. much of what a pregnant woman encounters in her daily life -- the air she breathes, the food and drink she consumes, the chemicals she's exposed to, even the emotions she feels -- are shared in some fashion with her fetus. they make up a mix of influences as individual and idiosyncratic as the woman herself. the fetus incorporates these offerings into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood. and often it does something more. it treats these maternal contributions as information, as what i like to call biological postcards from the world outside.

so what a fetus is learning about in utero is not mozart's "magic flute" but answers to questions much more critical to its survival. will it be born into a world of abundance or scarcity? will it be safe and protected, or will it face constant dangers and threats? will it live a long, fruitful life or a short, harried one? the pregnant woman's diet and stress level in particular provide important clues to prevailing conditions like a finger lifted to the wind. the resulting tuning and tweaking of a fetus' brain and other organs are part of what give us humans our enormous flexibility, our ability to thrive in a huge variety of environments, from the country to the city, from the tundra to the desert.

to conclude, i want to tell you two stories about how mothers teach their children about the world even before they're born. in the autumn of 1944, the darkest days of world war ii, german troops blockaded western holland, turning away all shipments of food. the opening of the nazi's siege was followed by one of the harshest winters in decades -- so cold the water in the canals froze solid. soon food became scarce, with many dutch surviving on just 500 calories a day -- a quarter of what they consumed before the war. as weeks of deprivation stretched into months, some resorted to eating tulip bulbs. by the beginning of may, the nation's carefully rationed food reserve was completely exhausted. the specter of mass starvation loomed. and then on may 5th, 1945, the siege came to a sudden end when holland was liberated by the allies.

the "hunger winter," as it came to be known, killed some 10,000 people and weakened thousands more. but there was another population that was affected -- the 40,000 fetuses in utero during the siege. some of the effects of malnutrition during pregnancy were immediately apparent in higher rates of stillbirths, birth defects, low birth weights and infant mortality. but others wouldn't be discovered for many years. decades after the "hunger winter," researchers documented that people whose mothers were pregnant during the siege have more obesity, more diabetes and more heart disease in later life than individuals who were gestated under normal conditions. these individuals' prenatal experience of starvation seems to have changed their bodies in myriad ways. they have higher blood pressure, poorer cholesterol profiles and reduced glucose tolerance -- a precursor of diabetes.

why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? one explanation is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation. when food is scarce, they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain, and away from other organs like the heart and liver. this keeps the fetus alive in the short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs, deprived early on, become more susceptible to disease.

but that may not be all that's going on. it seems that fetuses are taking cues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. they're preparing themselves for the kind of world they will encounter on the other side of the womb. the fetus adjusts its metabolism and other physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits it. and the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. the meals a pregnant woman consumes constitute a kind of story, a fairy tale of abundance or a grim chronicle of deprivation. this story imparts information that the fetus uses to organize its body and its systems -- an adaptation to prevailing circumstances that facilitates its future survival. faced with severely limited resources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact, have a better chance of living to adulthood.

the real trouble comes when pregnant women are, in a sense, unreliable narrators, when fetuses are led to expect a world of scarcity and are born instead into a world of plenty. this is what happened to the children of the dutch "hunger winter." and their higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease are the result. bodies that were built to hang onto every calorie found themselves swimming in the superfluous calories of the post-war western diet. the world they had learned about while in utero was not the same as the world into which they were born.

here's another story. at 8:46 a.m. on september 11th, XX, there were tens of thousands of people in the vicinity of the world trade center in new york -- commuters spilling off trains, waitresses setting tables for the morning rush, brokers already working the phones on wall street. 1,700 of these people were pregnant women. when the planes struck and the towers collapsed, many of these women experienced the same horrors inflicted on other survivors of the disaster -- the overwhelming chaos and confusion, the rolling clouds of potentially toxic dust and debris, the heart-pounding fear for their lives.

about a year after 9/11, researchers examined a group of women who were pregnant when they were exposed to the world trade center attack. in the babies of those women who developed post-traumatic stress syndrome, or ptsd, following their ordeal, researchers discovered a biological marker of susceptibility to ptsd -- an effect that was most pronounced in infants whose mothers experienced the catastrophe in their third trimester. in other words, the mothers with post-traumatic stress syndrome had passed on a vulnerability to the condition to their children while they were still in utero.

now consider this: post-traumatic stress syndrome appears to be a reaction to stress gone very wrong, causing its victims tremendous unnecessary suffering. but there's another way of thinking about ptsd. what looks like pathology to us may actually be a useful adaptation in some circumstances. in a particularly dangerous environment, the characteristic manifestations of ptsd -- a hyper-awareness of one's surroundings, a quick-trigger response to danger -- could save someone's life. the notion that the prenatal transmission of ptsd risk is adaptive is still speculative, but i find it rather poignant. it would mean that, even before birth, mothers are warning their children that it's a wild world out there, telling them, "be careful."

let me be clear. fetal origins research is not about blaming women for what happens during pregnancy. it's about discovering how best to promote the health and well-being of the next generation. that important effort must include a focus on what fetuses learn during the nine months they spend in the womb. learning is one of life's most essential activities, and it begins much earlier than we ever imagined.

thank you.

Ted英語演講稿:Underwater Astonishment

ted英語演講稿（3） | 返回目錄

we're going to go on a dive to the deep sea, and anyone that's had that lovely opportunity knows that for about two and half hours on the way down, it's a perfectly positively pitch-black world. and we used to see the most mysterious animals out the windowthat you couldn't describe: these blinking lights -- a world of bioluminescence, like fireflies. dr. edith widder -- she's now at the ocean research and conservation association -- was able to come up with a camera that could capture some of these incredible animals, and that's what you're seeing here on the screen.

好了，我們即將潛入海底深處。任何一個有過這種美妙機會的人都知道在這兩個半小時的下降過程中，是一個完全漆黑的世界。我們透過窗戶會看見世界上各種最神秘的動物，各種無法形容的動物。這些閃亮著的光，完美地構成了如螢火蟲般發光的世界。研究保護協會的edith witter博士發明了一種照相機，這種照相機可以拍下這些令人難以置信的生物。這就是你現在在螢幕上看到的。

that's all bioluminescence. so, like i said: just like fireflies. there's a flying turkey under a tree. (laughter) i'm a geologist by training. but i love that. and you see, some of the bioluminescence they use to avoid being eaten, some they use to attract prey, but all of it, from an artistic point of view, is positively amazing. and a lot of what goes on inside ... there's a fish with glowing eyes, pulsating eyes. some of the colors are designed to hypnotize, these lovely patterns. and then this last one, one of my favorites, this pinwheel design. just absolutely amazing, every single dive.

他們全部都是生物發光體。像我說的，就像螢火蟲一樣。這是個會飛的火雞，在樹下。(笑聲) 我知道我現在像是個實習期的地質學家，不過我就是喜歡。你可以看到這些生物發出的光，有些是為了避免被吃掉。有些又是為引誘食物上鉤。儘管如此，用藝術的角度來看，這些都如此神奇。再來看看這裡發生了些什麼—— 這條魚有著會發光，閃爍的眼睛。有些顏色則可以催眠。多么有趣的圖案。這是最後一個：也是我的最愛，像轉輪一樣的設計。每一次潛水都充滿著驚喜。

that's the unknown world, and today we've only explored about 3 percent of what's out there in the ocean. already we've found the world's highest mountains, the world's deepest valleys, underwater lakes, underwater waterfalls -- a lot of that we shared with you from the stage. and in a place where we thought no life at all, we find more life, we think, and diversity and density than the tropical rainforest, which tells us that we don't know much about this planet at all. there's still 97 percent, and either that 97 percent is empty or just full of surprises.

這正是一個未知的世界。到今天為止，我們只探索了其中的極小部分，大約只占了所有海洋的3%。到現在，我們已經發現了世界上最高的山峰，最深的峽谷，水下湖，水下瀑布，還有我們剛才看到的。然而，恰是我們曾經以為根本不可能有生命的地方，我們發現了眾多的生物，還有它們的密度和多樣性，都超過了熱帶雨林。這告訴我們我們實際上對自己的星球還不甚了解。還有剩下的97%，那裡要不就是一片荒蕪，要不就是充滿驚喜。

but i want to jump up to shallow water now and look at some creatures that are positively amazing.cephalopods -- head-foots. as a kid i knew them as calamari, mostly. (laughter) this is an octopus -- this is the work of dr. roger hanlon at the marine biological lab -- and it's just fascinating how cephalopods can, with their incredible eyes, sense their surroundings, look at light, look at patterns. here's an octopus moving across the reef, finds a spot to settle down, curls up and then disappears into the background. tough thing to do.

不過我現在還是想說說淺水裡的世界，來看看那些神奇的生物。頭足類動物，有頭有角。小時候我把他們當作是槍烏賊。這是一條章魚。這是來自roger hanlon博士，海洋生物實驗室的成果。這些頭足類動物真令人著迷，它用它們的眼睛，它們那難以置信的眼睛來觀察周圍的環境，看光，看圖案。這有隻章魚正在穿過礁石。找到一個位置，停下來，捲起，然後馬上消失在背景之中。這很難做到。

in the next bit, we're going to see a couple squid. these are squid. now males, when they fight, if they're really aggressive, they turn white. and these two males are fighting, they do it by bouncing their butts together, which is an interesting concept. now, here's a male on the left and a female on the right, and the male has managed to split his coloration so the female only always sees the kinder gentler squid in him. and the male ... (laughter) we're going to see it again. let's take a look at it again. watch the coloration: white on the right, brown on the left. he takes a step back -- so he's keeping off the other males by splitting his body -- and comes up on the other side ... bingo! now i'm told that's not just a squid phenomenon with males, but i don't know. (laughter)

接下來，再來一起看一對魷魚。這就是魷魚。當雄性魷魚搏鬥時，如果它們想要顯示出自己的侵略性，它們就變為白色了。這有兩條雄魷魚在搏鬥。它們用撞屁股的方式來搏鬥，真是挺有意思的方法。這裡有一條雄性在左邊，雌性在右邊。看，這條雄性能有辦法利用顏色把自己分為兩半，所以雌性只能看到它溫順，優雅的一邊，雄性-- (笑聲)再來看一次。讓我們再看一次。注意它的顏色：白色在右邊，棕色在左邊。它後退一步，讓其它的雄性無法靠近來到另外一邊，並且馬上轉換顏色。瞧!以前有人告訴我這個雄性特徵不僅僅是在魷魚身上，不過我也不太確定。 (掌聲)

cuttlefish. i love cuttlefish. this is a giant australian cuttlefish. and there he is, his droopy little eyes up here. but they can do pretty amazing things, too. here we're going to see one backing into a crevice, and watch his tentacles -- he just pulls them in, makes them look just like algae. disappears right into the background. positively amazing. here's two males fighting. once again, they're smart enough, thesecephalopods; they know not to hurt each other. but look at the patterns that they can do with their skin. that's an amazing thing)

墨魚，我很喜歡墨魚。這是一隻巨型澳大利亞墨魚。看它，看它那雙無精打采的眼睛。不過它們能做很神奇的事。我們馬上就能看到它退入到礁石的夾縫中去，注意它的觸角。它就這樣把觸角拉進來，使自己看起來像海藻一樣。剎那就消失在背景中。多神奇!這又是兩隻雄性在搏鬥。當然，這些頭足類非常聰明，他們知道如何不會傷害到對方。不過看下它們能夠利用皮膚來變換圖案。怎么樣? 很神奇吧!

here's an octopus. sometimes they don't want to be seen when they move because predators can see them. here, this guy actually can make himself look like a rock, and, looking at his environment, can actually slide across the bottom, using the waves and the shadows so he can't be seen. his motion blends right into the background -- the moving rock trick. so, we're learning lots new from the shallow water. still exploring the deep, but learning lots from the shallow water. there's a good reason why: the shallow water's full of predators -- here's a barracuda -- and if you're an octopus or a cephalopod, you need to really understand how to use your surroundings to hide.

這是個章魚。有時候，它們不想被別人發現它們在移動，因為那些食肉動物會發現它們。看，這個傢伙把自己弄的像石頭一樣，觀察著它周圍的環境，然後滑過水底，利用波紋和陰影來隱藏自己，從而不被發現。就是這樣，無聲無息地融入環境之中。這就是移動石頭的手法。我們從淺海中學到了很多新東西。繼續來探索下深海領域，同時從淺海中學到很多新東西。這有個原因來解釋：在淺海里，到處都是捕獵者。這是條梭魚。如果你是條章魚或是頭足類動物的話，你確實需要知道怎么利用周圍的環境來隱藏自己。

in the next scene, you're going to see a nice coral bottom. and you see that an octopus would stand out very easily there if you couldn't use your camouflage, use your skin to change color and texture. here's some algae in the foreground ... and an octopus. ain't that amazing? now, roger spooked him so he took off in a cloud of ink, and when he lands the octopus says, "oh, i've been seen. the best thing to do is to get as big as i can get." that big brown makes his eyespot very big. so, he's bluffing. let's do it backwards -- i thought he was joking when he first showed it to me. i thought it was all graphics -- so here it is in reverse. watch the skin color; watch the skin texture. just an amazing animal, it can change color and texture to match the surroundings. watch him blend right into this algae. one, two, three. (applause) and now he's gone, and so am i. thank you very much.

下個畫面里，你可以看到一個美麗的珊瑚。你會發現，一條章魚如果不進行偽裝，極易被發現。偽裝是改變你皮膚的顏色和紋理。前面這裡有些海藻，還有一條章魚。難道不神奇么?不過現在，顯然roger(攝影師)嚇到了它，它馬上釋放煙霧彈——墨水來掩護逃脫。當它停下來，會想，“啊，我被發現了，那我最好變到最大來保護下自己。那片棕色讓它的眼睛看起來十分大。它在唬人。讓我們看一次倒放。我第一次看到的時候還以為他在開玩笑呢。我以為是電腦特效。讓我們看看倒放。注意看它皮膚的顏色，以及皮膚的紋理。多么神奇的動物，可以改變自己的顏色和質地來變得和背景一樣。看它消失在海藻中。一，二，三。它不見了，我也該下去了。謝謝大家!

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