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Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.
獨白:聽下面一段天文學課上的演講。
Professor:OK, last time we talked about ancient agricultural civilizations that observed the stars and then used those observations to keep track of the seasons.
教授:好的，上次我們談到古代農業文明，說到古人通過觀察星象，利用觀察結果來追蹤季節變化。
But today I want to talk about the importance of stars for early seafarers, about how the fixed patterns of stars were used as navigational aids.
但是今天我要講的是星象對船員的重要性，是關于怎么利用固定的星象模式作為協助航海的工具的。
OK, you've all heard about the Vikings and their impressive navigation skills, but the seafaring people of the pacific islands, the Polynesians and the Micronesians, were quite possibly the world's greatest navigators.
好的，你們都已經聽過北歐海盜和他們讓人欽佩的航海技術了，但是太平洋島出海的人，即波利尼西亞人和密克羅尼西亞人，他們可能是世界上最為偉大的航海名族了。
Long before the development of, uh, advanced navigational tools in Europe, pacific islanders were travelling from New Zealand to Hawaii and back again, using nothing but the stars as their navigational instruments.
遠在在歐洲先進的航海工具被開發出來之前，太平洋島上的居民就已在新西蘭到夏威夷之間穿梭，沒有借助任何工具，就靠行星來導航。
Um, the key to the pacific islanders' success was probably their location near the equator.
嗯，太平洋島上的居民成功導航的關鍵很可能在于他們所處的位置靠近赤道。
What that meant was that the sky could be partitioned, divided up, much more symmetrically than it could farther away from the equator.
這就意味著這里天空可能被分隔開來，比起遠離赤道的地方，這里被分割開來后更顯對稱。
Unlike the Vikings, early observers of the stars in Polynesia or really anywhere along the equator would feel that they were at the very center of things, with the skies to the north and the skies to the south behaving identically, they could see stars going straight up in the east and straight down in the west.
不像北歐海盜，早期在波利尼西亞或其他沿著赤道觀察星象的人會覺得，他們就在地球的中間地帶，北邊的和南邊的天空的現象相同。他們可以看到星星在東邊直線上升，西邊直線下降。
So it was easier to discern the order in the sky than farther north or farther south, where everything would seem more chaotic.
因此，這里更容易看出星星的移動順序，而在赤道以北以南，什么似乎都雜亂五章。
Take the case of the Gilbert Islands, they are part of Polynesia, and lie very close to the equator.
就拿吉爾伯特群島來說，它們是波利尼西亞的一部分，地處赤道附近。
And the people there were able to divide the sky into symmetrical boxes, according to the main directions, north, east, south and west.
根據主要方位東南西北，那里的人們可以將天空分成對稱的區域。
And they could precisely describe the location of a star by indicating its position in one of those imaginary boxes.
他們可以通過在這些想象區域里面指示某一行星的位置來精確地描述某一星星所處的方位。
And they realized that you had to know the stars in order to navigate.
他們也意識到了，要導航就必須先懂行星。
In fact there was only one word for both in the Gilbert Islands, when you wanted to the star expert, you ask for a navigator.
事實上，在吉爾伯特群島上，人們只用一個詞來描述方向。當你需要咨詢行星專家，你問一名航海員就可以了。
Um, islanders from all over the pacific learned to use the stars for navigation, and they passed this knowledge down from generation to generation.
嗯，遍布太平洋島上居民都學會了怎么使用行星來導航，這種技巧代代相傳。
Some of them utilized stone structures called stone canoes, ah, and these canoes were on land, of course, and you can still see them on some islands today.
某些人還利用石質結構，叫做石制扁舟，額，這些船都放在陸地上，當然，現在你還能在某些海島上看到。
They were positioned as if they were heading in the direction of the points on the sea horizon where certain stars would appear and disappear during the night, and, um, young would-be navigators set by the stones at night and turned in different directions to memorize the constellations they saw, so they could recognize them and navigate… by them later on when they went out to sea.
這些船所處的位置就像指向海平面上的某些點的方向，那里晚上會有某些行星出現又消失。年輕的預備航海員晚上便會將船移向不同方向以記住他們看到的星座，這樣他們便可認出方向出海導航。
One important way the Polynesians had for orienting themselves was by using zenith stars.
波利尼西亞人用以導向的一種重要的方法便是利用天頂星導航。
A zenith star was a really bright star that would pass directly overhead at particular latitude…at a particular distance from the equator, often at a latitude associate with some particular pacific island.
天頂星是一顆很亮的星星，它會在某一特定緯度直接從頭上經過。經過地方在離赤道某一距離外，緯度經常和某一太平洋島嶼相近。
So the Polynesians could estimate their latitude just by looking straight up, by observing whether a certain zenith star passed directly overhead at night, they'd know if they have rates the same latitude as a particular island they were trying to get to.
因此波利尼西亞人要知道所處緯度多少，只需要直仰天空，晚上觀察天際是否有某一顆天頂星經過頭頂，他們便知道自己是否到達了某一緯度，而這一緯度上與他們想抵達的某一島嶼相同。
Um, another technique used by the Polynesians was to look for a star pair, that's two stars that rise at the same time, or set at the same time,
波利尼西亞人使用的另一種技巧是通過觀察星對，這指的是兩顆同時升空的星星，或是同時出現。
and navigators could use these pairs of stars as reference points, because they rise or set together only at specific latitudes.
導航員可以把這些星對當做參考點，因為它們升起或出現的地方是固定的某一緯度。
So navigators might see one star pair setting together.
所以導航員可能看到一對星對一起出現。
And, uh…would know how far north or south of the equator they were.
而，呃，他們便知道了自己離赤道北邊或南邊多遠。
And if they kept on going, and the next night they saw the pairs of stars setting separately, then they would know that they were at a different degree of latitude.
而如果他們繼續前行，第二天晚上他們就會看到星對分開來的情景，他們便知道自己處在不同的緯度上。
So looking at rising and setting star pairs is a good technique.
所以觀察上升或出現的星對來導航是一個不錯的技巧。
Um…actually it makes more sense with setting stars; they can be watched instead of trying to guess when they'll rise.
嗯，事實上，當看到出現的星對時更有用。只要看著出現的行星就行，而不用猜測他們及時會升起。
Uh, OK, I think all this shows that navigating doesn't really require fancy navigational instruments; the peoples of the pacific islands had such expert knowledge of astronomy as well as navigation that they were able to navigate over vast stretches of Open Ocean.
嗯，好的，我想所有這些顯示了導航真的不需要多么花哨的導航工具。太平洋島嶼上的居民就有這樣專業的天文學知識和導航技術，這使得他們能夠在廣闊的海洋上自由航行。
Uh, it's even possible that Polynesian navigators had already sailed to the Americas, centuries before Columbus.
額，甚至有可能的是，波利尼西亞導航員早在哥倫比亞發現新大陸幾個世紀前就到過美洲大陸。
