One of the most remarkable aspects of the human brain is its ability to recognize patterns and describe them.
人的大脑有一个惊人的特性，就是能认出事物运作的模式并描述它。
Among the hardest patterns we've tried to understand is the concept of turbulent flow in fluid dynamics.
其中让我们最难了解的是流体力学中紊流的概念。
The German physicist Werner Heisenberg said, When I meet God, I'm going to ask him two questions:
德国物理学家维尔纳·海森堡说，当我见到上帝时，我要问他两个问题：
why relativity and why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
相对论和紊流为什么存在？我很相信他可以回答前者。
As difficult as turbulence is to understand mathematically,
用数理方法理解紊流相当困难，
we can use art to depict the way it looks.
但是我们可以把它画出来。
In June 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted the view just before sunrise from the window of his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence,
1889年六月，梵高画了日出前从圣雷米疗养院窗户望出去的景色，
where he'd admitted himself after mutilating his own ear in a psychotic episode.
他将自己耳朵割除后住在那个精神病院。
In "The Starry Night," his circular brushstrokes create a night sky filled with swirling clouds and eddies of stars.
在画作《星月夜》里，他用漩涡状的笔触画出充满卷云和涡状星星的夜空。
Van Gogh and other Impressionists represented light in a different way than their predecessors, seeming to capture its motion,
梵高和后期印象派画家以另一种形式呈现光影，而前期画家则是著重於刻画动作，
for instance, across sun-dappled waters, or here in star light that twinkles and melts through milky waves of blue night sky.
例如：阳光斑驳的水面在湛蓝夜空中，加上乳白色波浪线条画出摇曳的星光。
The effect is caused by luminance, the intensity of the light in the colors on the canvas.
这个效果是光的亮度，也就是油画中色彩强度造成的。
The more primitive part of our visual cortex, which sees light contrast and motion,
我们视觉皮质里比较原生的部分判断光线对比和物体运动，
but not color, will blend two differently colored areas together if they have the same luminance.
而非辨识色彩也就是将两种不同颜色但同样亮度的区域混在一起。
