重新定义探索：工程视角下的故事讲述
在疫情期间，我拥有了一个独特的契机，登上了一艘极为先进的海洋研究船——海洋探险者号（Ocean Explorer），为《国家地理》拍摄纪录片。这艘船不仅是为了科学研究而生，更是为了叙事而设计。作为一名工程师，我的工作是向公众展示从工程技术视角下，真正的探险究竟是什么样的。
很多人对我如何获得这份工作感到好奇。回溯过去，我并非一直是一个优等生，也并非传统意义上的“伟大”工程师，我更倾向于在拆解与创造中学习，而非专注于课业。正是出于对工程技术的纯粹热爱，我与伙伴们构建了低成本水下机器人（Low-cost Underwater Robots: 旨在普及海洋探索技术的经济型自动化设备），通过这种方式践行“探索民主化”。
Original English Source
During COVID, everyone was sequestered in their own corners of the world. I had the strange fortune of being sequestered here, aboard the Ocean Explorer, one of the most advanced research vessels on the planet, filming a show for National Geographic. The ship was designed not just for research but also for storytelling. My job was to travel the world and show people what exploration is like from the perspective of an engineer. When I tell people this, they usually have three questions: What was it like? What did you learn? And how did you get the job? I'll go backward. I wasn't always a great engineer. I wasn't even a good student, I spent more time tinkering than doing homework. But I love engineering, and that has led me on an incredible journey. With friends, I built low-cost underwater robots designed to democratize exploration, and that democratization drew the attention of the show's producers. You can watch the show to see what we discovered, but for me, the most powerful moments were seeing things that no one had ever seen before, using the tools that we had built.从DIY到深海：构建探索的极限工具
在亚速尔群岛，我们与著名的抹香鲸生物学家 Rui Peredo 合作，他几十年来一直致力于研究这些能够下潜到超过一英里深处捕食的深海巨兽。为了记录它们在深海的行为，Rui 组装了一个极其简陋但有效的 DIY 标签。
这个标签系统由拆解后的运动相机、补光灯、无线电发射器以及用于固定在鲸鱼身上的吸盘组成。即便在顶级科研船上，这种亲手打造的工具往往也是获取关键数据最直接的方法。整个构建过程充满了挑战——我们需要通宵达旦地焊接、即兴修改，终于在凌晨两点让它运转起来。将标签成功部署到鲸鱼身上后，我们面临着巨大的未知：标签是会漂浮回海面，还是进水损坏？电池能否坚持？摄像机是否能正常工作？直到我们找回并打开那个标签，确认内部干燥完好，取出 SD 卡时，悬着的心才终于放下。
Original English Source
In the Azores, we teamed up with Rui Peredo, [a] renowned whale biologist who spent decades studying sperm whales. These giants can dive to over a mile deep to hunt, and we know very little about what they do when they're down there. So to find out, Rui had put together a very DIY tag. He used a taken-apart action camera, it had a light, there was a radio beacon, and it had suction cups designed to stick to the whale for a few hours and then pop off and float to the surface. It was very DIY, but even on an advanced research ship, building your own tools is often the way to get the information you need. It barely worked. We had to spend nights soldering and improvising to try to get it going, and at like two in the morning, we finally got it going. And while I overslept, Rui was already out on the boat. He placed the tag on a whale, and I remember him radioing back the tag was on. OK, a huge amount of suspense: Would it ever come back to the surface, or would it flood with water? Would the battery die, would the camera work? We had no idea. But it did come up, we found it. We took it back to the ship, and fingers were crossed. Finally we opened it up. There was no water inside. Oh my God, we pulled out the SD card and like, with bated breath, we put it in the computer and waited for the files to load. And oh my God, we had footage from the back of a sperm whale.超越数据：抹香鲸的社交互动与深度联结
当我们看到那段 footage（原始素材）时，Rui 和我完全被震撼了。我们不仅看到了鲸鱼潜入深海的过程，还记录下了极其宝贵的听觉数据：
- 回声定位（Echolocation: 鲸鱼通过发出声音并接收回声来探测猎物与环境的机制）：我们清晰地听到了它们捕食时的声音。
- 编码序列（Codas: 一连串快速的咔哒声，是抹香鲸彼此交流的特定方式）：我们惊讶地发现它们在深海中进行交流。
更令人难以置信的是，我们在镜头中看到了另一头鲸鱼出现，两头鲸鱼在长达数分钟的时间里并排游泳、相互碰触。这种亲密的行为展示了它们之间深刻的联结，无论它们是家人、朋友还是伴侣，这是人类此前从未观测到的场景。这段记录不仅是科学数据，更是一种鲜活的生命体验，它直抵人心，不仅用眼睛观察，更用心感受。
Original English Source
Rui and I were losing it. The first thing we saw was the whale's head and back as she descended into the bottom. You could hear the water rushing by as she swam faster and faster into the deep. Particles rushed by the camera. And the water pressure was so immense from the speed that eventually the suction cups started to come loose. I thought that was going to be it, we were going to lose it, but one suction cup miraculously held on, and it caused the tag to rotate backward. And now we could see the whale’s massive fluke, these can be 16 feet across on some whales, driving her into the depths. And as it got deeper, we started hearing the camera’s microphone clicking. You guys hear that? That is echolocation. That is the sound of the sperm whale hunting by listening for echoes bouncing off of prey. I couldn't believe it. And it didn't seem like she caught anything that time. But as she came shallower and the light grew brighter, we were just like, amazed at what we were seeing. It didn't seem like this was possible. And then we started hearing a different sound. It was a rapid series of clicks. Dot dot dot, dot, that’s called codas. This is the way sperm whales use to communicate with each other. So we were hearing her talking to another whale. We could not believe our ears, and then we couldn't believe our eyes. Rui and I were losing it. The other whale came into the shot, and they were talking back and forth. They were swimming and bumping alongside each other for minutes. We watched in disbelief ... this exchange of these two whales. Friends, family, lovers, we can never know for sure. But what we were witnessing was something no one had ever seen before. I remember seeing the bond that they had with my eyes and also feeling it with my heart. The footage we had seen was not just data. This was an experience of life.从工具到好奇心：探索的本质意义
这次经历让我深刻意识到，探索的核心远不止是用理性的大脑去理解这个世界。我深信探索具有巨大的潜力，它能让我们通过情感连接（Emotional Connection）去感知事物，从而体会人类在地球上的存在意义。深海并非一个孤独的地方，我们所有生命都在彼此关联。
我们正生活在一个工具极其先进的时代。与能够将电脑放入兜里、在屏幕上获取海量信息的进步一样，这些工具同样能以前所未有的方式帮助我们探索。我们的工具不再是理解的边界，真正限制我们的，往往是好奇心。所以，问题已不再是“我们可以探索什么”，因为触手可及的事物已足够多；真正的课题是：接下来，我们还会对什么感到惊奇？
Original English Source
It was reminding me why exploration really matters. It's not just about understanding the world with our logical minds. I believe exploration has huge potential to allow us to experience things with emotion and feel the context of why we’re here on Earth. We saw that they even dive together, and that is really something that moved me. That one last dive [showed] that maybe it’s not even such a lonely place down there after all. We are all here together, and that is something extremely powerful. So we are living in an era now where our tools can give us amazing ability to understand the world in ways never before possible. The same advances that have put computers in our pockets and access to almost unlimited information on our screens can also allow us to explore in brand-new ways. Our tools no longer limit what we can understand. It's more that our understanding is limited by curiosity. So the question isn’t what can we explore. So much is already within our reach. The real question is, what will we wonder about next? Thank you very much.📌 文中提及的人物和组织
人物: Rui Peredo
公司/组织: National Geographic