Drowning in Light

Dirk Hanson

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德國(guó)文豪歌德臨終時(shí)的最后一句話是：“亮些！再亮些！”無獨(dú)有偶，法國(guó)偉大的浪漫主義作家雨果臨終喊道：“我看見了漆黑的光?！比祟愐簧蛲饷鳎瑧峙潞诎导昂诎邓[蔽的丑惡與恐怖。如今，科技進(jìn)步帶來的光亮早就滿足了歌德的要求，并遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了他的想象極限。然而，因?yàn)楣饬?，海龜爬往錯(cuò)誤的生育地點(diǎn)，螢火蟲們找不到配偶，90%的人再也無法用肉眼欣賞美麗的銀河。我們對(duì)光的渴望何時(shí)到達(dá)盡頭？我們對(duì)光的“癮”到何處是個(gè)度？這是我們都需要思考的問題。

In 1996, Yale economist William D. Nordhaus calculated that the average citizen of Babylon would have had to work a total of 41 hours to buy enough lamp oil to equal a 75-watt light bulb burning for one hour.1. 1996年，耶魯大學(xué)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家威廉·D. 諾德豪斯計(jì)算出，要獲得相當(dāng)于一個(gè)75瓦燈泡發(fā)光一小時(shí)所釋放的亮光，一位普通的巴比倫公民需要工作整整41小時(shí)才能買得起足夠的燈油。Babylon: 巴比倫，它的歷史可以追溯到大約公元前二千年。At the time of the American Revolution, a colonial would have been able to purchase the same amount of light, in the form of candles, for about five hours’ worth of work.2. American Revolution: 美國(guó)革命，指在18世紀(jì)后半葉導(dǎo)致了北美13州脫離大英帝國(guó)并且創(chuàng)建了美利堅(jiān)合眾國(guó)的一連串事件。美國(guó)獨(dú)立戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)（1775—1783）是美國(guó)革命的一部分；colonial:（在美國(guó)獨(dú)立前的）13州殖民地時(shí)期的人；purchase: 買，購買。And by 1992, the average American, using compact fluorescents3. compact fluorescent: 節(jié)能燈，指將熒光燈與鎮(zhèn)流器組合成一個(gè)整體的照明設(shè)備，光效比一般白熾燈高。, could earn the same amount of light in less than one second. That sounds like a great deal.

Except for one thing: We treat light like a drug whose price is spiraling4. spiral: （價(jià)值、價(jià)格）暴跌，急劇下降。toward zero. In the words of sleep expert Charles A. Czeisler of Harvard Medical School, “every time we turn on a light, we are taking a drug that affects how we will sleep and how we will be awake the next day.”Simply put, light exposure5. exposure: 袒露，暴露在……之下。affects how we eat, sleep, and work. And for most people, the greater the light, the greater the effects on their sleep.

To complicate matters, our relationship with light is profoundly psychological as well.6. profoundly: 深深地，極度地；psychological: 心理上的，精神的。In her article“Psychological processes in fluencing lighting quality,”Jennifer A. Veitch analyzes the available scienti fic evidence concerning the manner in which lighting conditions affect mood and behavior in of fice settings.7. 在詹妮弗·A. 維奇的文章《影響照明質(zhì)量的心理因素》里，她分析了現(xiàn)有的關(guān)于照明條件如何影響人在辦公環(huán)境中的心情和行為的科學(xué)證據(jù)。Veitch found that “preferences for illuminance8. illuminance: 照度，指每單位面積所接到的光，單位是勒克斯。居家的一般照度建議在100勒克斯—300勒克斯之間。具有代表性的一般日常照度有：滿月照度大約是0.2勒克斯，星光照度一般是0.0003勒克斯，辦公室照度一般是300勒克斯左右。levels are generally higher than the recommended levels.” Researchers in the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada have all documented the same tendency to “overlight” things. Veitch also references studies showing that “people with seasonal affective disorder or the milder, subsyndromal form of this mood disorder consistently preferred higher room illuminance levels than matched, normal controls.”9. 維奇還援引了相關(guān)研究，說明“與正常對(duì)照組相比，患有季節(jié)性情緒失調(diào)癥或該癥中稍微輕微一些的亞癥狀人群總是喜歡更高的居家照度水平?！眗eference:把……引作參考，引用；seasonal affective disorder: 季節(jié)性情緒失調(diào)，也叫做“冬季憂郁癥”，是一種主要因?yàn)殛柟鈺r(shí)長(zhǎng)的變化而產(chǎn)生的感情或情緒失調(diào)。居住在北極圈內(nèi)的人，由于極夜的緣故，極容易患上季節(jié)性情緒失調(diào)。

This founding, put simply, states that people don’t feel comfortable in dim workrooms with no wall lighting. See any film noir10. film noir: （法語）黑色電影，多指好萊塢偵探和犯罪片。一般認(rèn)為，好萊塢經(jīng)典黑色電影時(shí)期從20世紀(jì)40年代持續(xù)至20世紀(jì)50年代末，這個(gè)時(shí)期的黑色電影帶有壓抑黑白片的視覺風(fēng)格。classic for details.

Our lust for light has transformed our cities.11. lust: 強(qiáng)烈的欲望，渴望；transform: 使變化，使改造。We have hobbled the nighttime thieves, perverts, and pickpockets;from the ghosts, goblins, and witches.12. hobble: 阻礙，妨礙；pervert: 變態(tài)，墮落者；pickpocket:扒手；goblin: （調(diào)皮搗蛋的）小妖精，小鬼。Greg Gbur, a professor in the University of North Carolina, reminded me that a wealth of stories—from H. P. Lovecraft’sThe Haunter of the Darkto the moviePitch Black—have focused on the horrible things that come for us when everything goes dark.13. a wealth of: 很多的，豐富的；H.P. Lovecraft: H.P. 洛夫克拉夫特（1890－1937），美國(guó)恐怖、科幻與奇幻小說作家，尤以其怪奇小說著稱，文中提到的《夜魔》（The Haunter of the Dark）是他的一篇著名短篇小說；Pitch Black: 《星際傳奇》，1999年的一部好萊塢科幻片，講述迫降在外星的一艘太空飛船遭遇一群畏懼光線的地下異形的襲擊，這群異形趁日蝕大地一片黑暗期間爬到地面襲擊地面上的生物。Many of the first treatises denying the existence of ghosts and witches came from larger cities in the Netherlands and England, which featured some of the earliest and most extensive street lighting in Europe.14. 那些最早否定鬼魂和女巫存在的論文，許多都來自于荷蘭和英國(guó)的大城市，這些大城市的特點(diǎn)就是它們是歐洲最早啟用街道照明并擁有范圍最廣的街道照明系統(tǒng)的城市。treaty: 論述，訴求；feature: 以……特色，以……特征。At roughly the same time, “failure to illuminate”became a 17th-century crime. As Henry David Thoreau15. Henry David Thoreau: 亨利·戴維·梭羅（1817－1862），美國(guó)作家、哲學(xué)家、廢奴主義者。他最著名的作品有散文集《瓦爾登湖》和《公民不服從》等。concluded: “Men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.” By the mid-1800s,gaslight had changed everything. Artists, bohemians, and ordinary citizens of every stripe ventured forth into the gas-lit night of the city.16. bohemian: 吉卜賽人，流浪漢；stripe: 類型，種類；venture:冒……危險(xiǎn)，冒險(xiǎn)前進(jìn)。In the 1850 pocket guide,New York by Gaslight, we are told how to “penetrate beneath the thick veil of night and lay bare the fearful mysteries of darkness in the metropolis.”17. 一本1850年的袖珍指南《煤氣燈光下的紐約》告訴我們?nèi)绾巍翱赐负谝沟暮衩婕?，將那些大都市暗夜里的可怕秘密公之于眾。?pocket guide: 袖珍指南，袖珍指導(dǎo)；penetrate: 穿透，看透；lay bare: 揭發(fā)，暴露；metropolis: 大都會(huì)，大城市。

Today, engineers are greasing the wheels18. grease the wheels: 給輪子或機(jī)器上油，（引申義）采取辦法使事情更加順利地進(jìn)行。. Lighting prices fall and ef ficiencies rise with the breathtaking semiconductors19. semiconductor: 半導(dǎo)體，一種導(dǎo)電性可受控制、范圍可從絕緣體至導(dǎo)體之間的材料。無論從科技或是經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展的角度來看，半導(dǎo)體的重要性都是非常巨大的。今日大部分的電子產(chǎn)品，如計(jì)算機(jī)、移動(dòng)電話或是數(shù)字錄音機(jī)當(dāng)中的核心單元都和半導(dǎo)體有著極為密切的關(guān)聯(lián)。. As prices fall, our use of light climbs rapidly. Human beings, when faced with the availability of a cheaper and more ef ficient lighting technology,simply use more of it. Like any junkie20. junkie: 吸毒成癮者，做某事上癮者。, we don’t know when we’ve had enough. “One thing that evolutionary anthropologists have learned is that humans are not necessarily natural conservationists,” says biological anthropologist Carol Worthman of Emory University, who has done field work in developing countries with scant night lighting,such as New Guinea and Vietnam.21. 艾默理大學(xué)生物人類學(xué)家卡羅爾·沃斯曼曾在新幾內(nèi)亞和越南那樣夜間照明不足的發(fā)展中國(guó)家做過實(shí)地考察。她說：“進(jìn)化人類學(xué)家的發(fā)現(xiàn)之一便是人類并不一定是天生的自然資源保護(hù)主義者?！眂onservationist: 自然資源保護(hù)論者，提倡保護(hù)自然資源的人；scant: 缺乏的，不足的?！癢e don’t have inbuilt mechanisms22. mechanism: 機(jī)制，機(jī)理。to step down consumption, even in the best interest of our own physical health.” The disruption of sleeping and the disappearing night sky are just a part of the price. We’ve even tried, and failed, to understand how much we need.

After centuries of gorging, however, there may finally be darkness at the end of the tunnel.23. gorge: 狼吞虎咽地吃，塞飽；dark at the end of the tunnel: 反用常用俗語“l(fā)ight at the end of the tunnel”，此處表示人類無節(jié)制的光消耗可能會(huì)停止快速增長(zhǎng)。Tsao’s Sandia group forecasts that “the developed countries are nearing a saturation point in average illuminance, but plausible arguments can be made that the saturation point may yet be higher.”24. saturation: 飽和狀態(tài)；plausible: 似乎有理的，表面上講得通的。

The researchers at Sandia envision a future in which lighting systems will more closely approximate natural lighting, and see a useful analogy in telephony, where bare-bones telephone service evolved into “smart mobile communications systems with a fusion of communications, computation, and display technologies.”25. 桑迪亞的研究者們預(yù)想在將來，照明系統(tǒng)將會(huì)更加貼近自然光照；他們?cè)陔娫捈夹g(shù)領(lǐng)域找到了共同點(diǎn)：過去極其簡(jiǎn)單的電話服務(wù)已經(jīng)進(jìn)化為“融合交流、計(jì)算技術(shù)和顯示技術(shù)為一體的智能移動(dòng)通信系統(tǒng)”。envision: 設(shè)想，預(yù)想；analogy: 相似之處，類比；bare-bones: 極簡(jiǎn)單的，基礎(chǔ)的；fusion: 混合，融合。Real-time control of the mix of light wavelengths and intensity, as well as real-time control of light placement, are the keys.26. real-time: 實(shí)時(shí)的，接到指示立即執(zhí)行的；wavelength: 波長(zhǎng)；placement: 位置，安置。The goal is to customize light to fit people’s preferences, which could cut back on lighting and save energy by ironing out waste.27. customize: 訂制，按客戶具體要求制造；iron out: 消除。Today’s compact fluorescent lamps are expected to give way to SSL LEDs by about 2020, which is when the first rudimentary “smart”lighting will gain ground, say researchers.28. SSL LED: 固態(tài)照明（solid-state lighting），指使用固態(tài)電子元件，即半導(dǎo)體元件，例如發(fā)光二極管、有機(jī)發(fā)光半導(dǎo)體及高分子發(fā)光二極管等作為光源的照明技術(shù)。與使用傳統(tǒng)電燈泡或日光燈等光源的照明技術(shù)相對(duì)；rudimentary: 初期的，剛起步的；gain ground: 流行，普及。This may eventually lead to wireless controls for full on/off dimming29. dimming: 亮度控制，調(diào)光。responses. We will enter an era in which “l(fā)ighting systems have the information necessary to customize light to user preferences.”

On his deathbed, Goethe is supposed to have demanded more light. Today we are living in a world that has met Goethe’s demand beyond his wildest dreams. Sea turtles trundle mistakenly toward seaside condos,30. trundle: 滾動(dòng)，移動(dòng)；condo: 公寓。fire flies fail to find mates,and two thirds of Americans in 2008 and 90 percent of the world’s population could no longer see the Milky Way with the naked eye. How much light can we take? We’re bound to find out. After all, it’s practically free.