TED演讲:气味背后的科学(2)(在线收听) |
Now, while the smell wafts over you, let me tell you the history of an idea. 现在,趁着香味还萦绕在你们周围,我来为你们介绍一个想法形成的过程。 Everything that you're smelling in here is made up of atoms that come from what I call the Upper East Side of the periodic table -- a nice, safe neighborhood. 现在你所闻到的都是由这样一些原子组成的,他们来自被我称为元素周期表“上东区”的地方--一个美好而安全的街区。
You really don't want to leave it if you want to have a career in perfumery. 如果你想从事香水业,你一定不想离开这个地方。
Some people have tried in the 1920s to add things from the bad parts, and it didn't really work. 二十世纪二十年代有一些人尝试在香水中添加来自“坏街区”的原子,没有成功。
These are the five atoms from which just about everything that you're going to smell in real life, from coffee to fragrance, are made of. 这五个原子可以组成从咖啡到香水,现实生活中你所能闻到的一切。
The top note that you smelled at the very beginning, the cut-grass green, what we call in perfumery -- they're weird terms -- and this would be called a green note, 你们最开始闻到的“前味”用香水专有名词说就是割下来青草的香味,听起来很奇怪,这一类被称为绿叶调,
because it smells of something green, like cut grass. 闻起来像绿色的东西,比如割下来的青草。
This is cis-3-hexene-1-ol. 它的成分是顺式-3-已烯-1-醇。
And I had to learn chemistry on the fly in the last three years. 过去的三年里,我可是在匆忙之中学的化学。
A very expensive high school chemistry education. 在一所十分昂贵的中学的化学课上学的。
This has six carbon atoms, so "hexa," hexene-1-ol. 它有六个碳原子,所以写作“hexa”,已烯-1-醇。
It has one double bond, it has an alcohol on the end, so it's "ol," and that’s why they call it cis-3-hexene-1-ol. 它有一个双键,在一端有一个乙醇,这是它的“醇”,这就是为什么大家称之为顺式-3-已烯-1-醇。
Once you figure this out, you can really impress people at parties. 一旦你弄清楚它的结构,你就可以在派对上卖弄了。 |
原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/TEDyj/jyp/455727.html |