年諾貝爾獎 小者爲王

Bigger isn’t always better.

體積大未必就是好的。

People who are skeptical about this argument just need look at smartphones and personal computers, which have served as the technological driving force of the past century.

智能手機和電腦代表了20世紀科技發展的驅動力，任何人只要看到它們，就會打消對上述這句話的疑慮。

It is the continual shrinkage of components that have unleashed the explosion of computing power and enabled these gadgets to be accessible to people across the world.

正是由於零部件的不斷縮小，這些科技設備的運算效率才得以釋放，讓它火遍全球。

Inspired by this, researchers and scientists have been working on areas where making things small may mean big results.

受此啓發，研究者和科學家們都致力於研發體積小卻意義重大的科技成果。

And this year, the Nobel Prize has defied the convention of celebrating big by presenting the biggest prizes to discoveries on the smallest scales.

而今年的諾貝爾獎，更是一反過往青睞大型科技成果的傳統，將大獎頒給了體積最小的科學新發現。

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to a cellular-level experiment.

今年的諾貝爾生理學或醫學獎花落一項細胞層面的實驗成果。

The committee *bestowed the award upon Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, for his research on *autophagy, which is a self-eating process seen in cells.

評委會將獎項授予了來自東京工業大學的大隅良典，以表彰他在細胞自噬作用研究上所做的貢獻。

What’s more, in recognition of their working on the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states and taking their research all the way down to an atomic scale, the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to three British-born scientists who currently work in the US.

而諾貝爾物理學獎則頒給了三位生於英國、目前正在美國工作的科學家，肯定了他們對極端狀態下物質的特異屬性所做的原子級研究。

Another exceptional new field is that of nanotechnology.

另一個出人意料的新領域是納米技術。

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to a scientist who managed to build the world’s tiniest machines out of molecules.

諾貝爾化學獎頒給了一位嘗試製作世界上最小的分子機器的科學家。

These contraptions, including a nano-sized car, are so small that they’re invisible to the human eye.

這些包括納米汽車在內的輕巧設計小得甚至連肉眼都不可見。

Microscopic as the subjects are, the benefits of the scientists’ research are set to be huge.

儘管這些物質都十分微小，但相關科研成果的意義卻是巨大的。

More importantly, their inventions may even eventually be turned into products that benefit mankind.

更重要的是，這些發明在將來或許還能投入生產，造福人類。

Ohsumi’s research on autophagy shines a light on ubiquitous diseases such as Parkinson’s and diabetes.

大隅在自噬作用上的研究成果，爲帕金森病、糖尿病等常見疾病的治療帶來了一線希望。

As for the molecular motors, they’re geared up to bring huge potential to the fields of medicine and energy.

而分子馬達將會爲醫藥和能源領域帶來巨大的潛力。

The ground-breaking discoveries in physics, have ignited a firestorm of research, and it’s only a matter of time before their research leads to advances as unimaginable to us now as lasers and computer chips were a hundred years ago, Laura H. Greene, president-elect of the American Physical Society told The New York Times.

物理學界這一開拓性的發現已經點燃科學研究的星星之火，而他們的這項研究發展爲前沿科技，也不過是時間早晚的事罷了，就像100年前我們無法想象今天的激光和電腦芯片那樣，美國物理學會候選會長勞拉•H•格林在接受《紐約時報》採訪時表示。