2021年经济学人 隧道杀手,让你无处遁形(1)（在线收听）

Underground warfare

地道战

Tunnel vision

隧道视觉

A new system of sensors can detect troglodytic enemy activity

一种新的传感器系统可以探测到穴道敌人的活动

From the collapsing of city walls during medieval sieges, to the laying of giant mines filled with explosives under enemy trenches during the first world war,

从中世纪围攻期间城墙的倒塌，到第一次世界大战期间在敌人战壕下埋设装满炸药的巨型地雷，

to the supply networks of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the war in Vietnam, to the Tora Bora cave complex,

到越南战争期间胡志明步道的供应网络，再到托拉博拉洞穴综合体，

used first by the Mujahideen to oppose the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then by the Taliban to oppose the American invasion, tunnel-digging in times of conflict has a long history.

首先被圣战者用来反对苏联入侵阿富汗，然后被塔利班用来反对美国入侵，在冲突时期挖掘隧道有着悠久的历史。

These days, secret tunnels are used to move weapons and people between Gaza and Egypt, and by Kurdish militia operating on the frontier between Syria and Turkey.

如今，加沙和埃及之间以及叙利亚和土耳其边境的库尔德民兵利用秘密隧道运送武器和人员。

But the same principle applies. What happens underground is hard for the enemy to observe. Digging for victory is therefore often a good idea.

但同样的原则也适用。地下发生的事情敌人很难观察到。因此，为胜利而努力往往是一个好主意。

That, though, may be about to change. Real-time Subsurface Event Assessment and Detection (Resead), a project being undertaken at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico,

不过，这种情况可能即将改变。实时地下事件评估和检测(Resead)是新墨西哥州桑迪亚国家实验室正在进行的一个项目，

uses novel sensors to make accurate maps of what is happening underground. This will, no doubt, have many civilian applications.

该项目使用新型传感器对地下正在发生的事情做出精确的地图。毫无疑问，这将有许多民用用途。

But Sandia is principally a weapons lab, and it is military matters that are uppermost in the mind of the project's leader, Chet Weiss.

但桑迪亚实验室主要是一个武器实验室，而军事问题是该项目的领导者切特·韦斯最关心的问题。

Resead grew out of work that was looking at ways of monitoring earth tremors by means of sensor networks.

Resead的工作是研究通过传感器网络监测地震的方法。

The researchers involved found that the analytical techniques they had developed to handle data so collected were fast enough to process those data more or less in real time.

参与研究的研究人员发现他们为处理收集到的数据而开发的分析技术足够快，能够或多或少地实时处理这些数据。

This would mean they could detect movement underground in a way that would be militarily useful.

这意味着他们将能够以一种军事上有用的方式来探测地下活动。

The versions of these networked sensors used in Resead are embedded in the collars connecting sections of borehole casings, and communicate with the surface via wires. This makes them easy to deploy and use.

这些网络传感器被嵌入到井眼套管连接部分的接箍中，并通过电缆与地面通信。这使得它们易于部署和使用。

The sensors themselves are a mixture of accelerometers, which pick up vibrations, current detectors, which measure the electrical-resistance of rocks and soil, and subsurface radar.

传感器本身是由加速度计、电流探测器和地下雷达组成的混合体。加速度计用来探测震动，电流探测器用来测量岩石和土壤的电阻。