1、Was Einstein a Space Alien? 愛因斯坦是外星人嗎?1 Albert Einstein was exhausted. For the third night in a row, his baby son Hans, cr ying, kept the household awake until dawn. When Albert finally dozed off . it was time to get up and go to work. He couldn't skip a day. He needed the job to support his you

2、ng family.阿爾伯特.愛因斯坦精疲力竭。他幼小的兒子漢斯連續(xù)三個晚上哭鬧不停,弄得全家人直到天亮都無法入睡。阿爾伯特總算可以打個瞌睡時,已是他起床上班的時候了。他不能一天不上班,他需要這份工作來養(yǎng)活組建不久的家庭。2 Walking briskly to the Patent Office, where he was a "Technical Expert, Third Cla ss," Albert worried about his mother. She was getting older and frail, and she didn't appro

3、ve of his marriage to Mileva. Relations were strained. Albert glanced at a pas sing shop window. His hair was a mess; he had forgotten to comb it again.阿爾伯特是專利局三等技術專家。在快步去專利局上班的路上,他為母親憂心忡忡。母親年紀越來越大,身體虛弱。她不同意兒子與邁爾娃的婚事,婆媳關系緊張。阿爾伯特瞥了一下路過的商店的櫥窗,看見自己頭發(fā)凌亂,他又忘了梳頭了。3 Work. Family. Making ends meet. Albert f

4、elt all the pressure and responsibility of any young husband and father. To relax, he revolutionized physics.工作,家庭,維持生計阿爾伯特感受到了一位年輕丈夫和年輕父親所要承擔的全部壓力和責任。他想放松下,卻使物理學發(fā)生了突破性進展4 In 1905, at the age of 26 and four years before he was able to get a job as a prof essor of physics, Einstein published five of

5、the most important papers in the history of science-all written in his "spare time." He proved that atoms and molecules exi sted. Before 1905, scientists weren't sure about that. He argued that light came in li ttle bits (later called "photons" and thus laid the foundation fo

6、r quantum mechani cs. He described his theory of special relativity: space and time were threads in a co mmon fabric, he proposed, which could be bent, stretched and twisted.1905年,在他被聘為物理學教授的前四年,26歲的愛因斯坦發(fā)表了科學史上最重要論文中的五篇這些論文都是他在“業(yè)余時間”完成的。他證明了原子和分子的存在。1905年之前,科學家們對此沒有把握。愛因斯坦論證說光以微粒形態(tài)出現(后來被稱為“光子”,這為量子力

7、學奠定了基礎。他把狹義相對論描寫為:時空如同普通織物中的線,他提出,這些線可以彎曲、拉長和交織在一起。5 Oh, and by the way, E=mc2.對了,順便提一下,E = mc2。6 Before Einstein, the last scientist who had such a creative outburst was Sir Isaac Newton. It happened in 1666 when Newton secluded himself at his mother's farm t o avoid an outbreak of plague at Ca

8、mbridge. With nothing better to do, he develop ed his Theory of Universal Gravitation.在愛因斯坦之前,最近一位迸發(fā)出如此創(chuàng)造性思想的科學家當數艾薩克牛頓爵士。事情發(fā)生在1666,為了躲避在劍橋爆發(fā)的瘟疫,牛頓去母親的農場隱居。由于沒有什么更好的事可做,他便建立萬有引力理論。7 For centuries historians called 1666 Newton's “miracle year”. Now those words have a different meaning: Einstein a

9、nd 1905. The United Nations has declared 2005 "The World Year of Physics" to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein's “miracl e year.”幾個世紀以來,歷史學家稱為1666牛頓的“奇跡年”。現在這些話有不同的意義:愛因斯坦和1905。聯(lián)合國已經宣布2005年“世界物理年“慶祝愛因斯坦“奇跡年”的100周年。8 Modern pop culture paints Einstein as a bushy-haired superth

10、inker. His ideas, w e're told, were improbably far ahead of other scientists. He must have come from s ome other planet-maybe the same one Newton grew up on.現代流行文化把愛因斯坦繪畫成一位長著蓬亂頭發(fā)的超級思想家。據說他的思想不可思議地遠遠超過其他科學家。他一定是從其他星球來的也許是牛頓長大的同一個星球。9 "Einstein was no space alien," laughs Harvard Univer

11、sity physicist and science hi storian Peter Galison. "He was a man of his time." All of his 1905 papers unraveled problems being worked on, with mixed success, by other scientists. "If Einstein had n't been born, those papers would have been written in some form, eventually, b y o

12、thers," Galison believes.“愛因斯坦決不是外星人,”哈佛大學物理學家、科學史家彼得加里森笑著說。“他是他那個時代的人。”他所有發(fā)表于1905年的論文解決了當時其他科學家正多多少少在解決的問題,“如果沒有愛因斯坦,其他科學家最終也會以某種形式撰寫出這些論文來的”加里森相信。10 What's remarkable about 1905 is that a single person authored all five papers, plus the original, irreverent way Einstein came to his conclu

13、sions.1905年不同尋常的是,愛因斯坦一個人撰寫的五篇論文,而且他得出結論的方法既富原創(chuàng)性又顯得不合常規(guī)。11 For example: the photoelectric effect. This was a puzzle in the early 1900s. Wh en light hits a metal, like zinc, electrons fly off. This can happen only if light comes i n little packets concentrated enough to knock an electron loose. A spr

14、ead-out wave wouldn't do the photoelectric trick.例如:光電效應。這在20世紀初期的一道難題。當光照射到金屬(如鋅上時,電子飛速飛離電子表面,這種現象只有當光的粒子集聚的程度足以把電子擊撞松動的時候才會發(fā)生。漫延波不會產生光電效應。12 The solution seems simple-light is particulate. Indeed, this is the solution Einst ein proposed in 1905 and won the Nobel Prize for in 1921. Other physic

15、ists like MaxPlanck (working on a related problem: blackbody radiation, more senior and expe rienced than Einstein, were closing in on the answer, but Einstein got there first. W hy?答案似乎很簡單光是粒子。事實上,這是愛因斯坦1905年提出的解答,并因此于1921年獲得諾貝爾獎。其他物理學家們,比如比愛因斯坦資歷更深、經驗更豐富的麥克斯普蘭克(從事研究相關的問題:黑體輻射,其研究正接近該問題的答案,但愛因斯坦捷足先

16、登。為什么?It's a question of authority. 這是對權威的看法問題13 "In Einstein's day, if you tried to say that light was made of particles, you found yourself disagreeing with physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Nobody wanted to do tha t," says Galison. Maxwell's equations were enormously successful

17、, unifying the phy sics of electricity, magnetism and optics. Maxwell had proved beyond any doubt th at light was an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell was an Authority Figure.“在愛因斯坦的時代,如果你試圖說光由粒子組成,你就會發(fā)現自己與物理學家杰姆斯.克拉克.馬克斯威爾持不同觀點。沒有人想那么做,”加里森說道。馬克斯威爾的方程式把物理學中的電學、磁學和光學統(tǒng)一起來,獲得了巨大的成功。麥克斯威爾毫無疑問地證明了光是電磁波。他可是權

18、威人物。14 Einstein didn't give a fig for authority. He didn't resist being told what to do, n ot so much, but he hated being told what was true. Even as a child he was constantl y doubting and questioning. "Your mere presence here undermines the class's resp ect for me," spat his

19、7th grade teacher, Dr. Joseph Degenhart. (Degenhart also predi cted that Einstein "would never get anywhere in life." This character flaw was to b e a key ingredient in Einstein's discoveries.愛因斯坦豪不在乎權威。他不太反對別人要求他做什么,但是他不喜歡別人告訴他什么是正確的。即使在小時候他也不停地質疑和問問題。“你呆在這里損害了全班學生對我尊敬,”他第七年級的老師約瑟夫狄根哈

20、特博士憤怒地說。(狄根哈特還預言愛因斯坦“永遠不會有出息”這一性格缺陷成為日后愛因斯坦作出種種發(fā)現的主要因素。15 "In 1905," notes Galison, "Einstein had just received his Ph.D. He wasn't behol den to a thesis advisor or any other authority figure." His mind was free to roam ac cordingly.“在1905年,”加里森著重指出,“愛因斯坦剛剛獲得博士學位,他不感激于論文導師或任何

21、其他權威人士。”因此,他的思想在自由漫游。16 In retrospect, Maxwell was right. Light is a wave. But Einstein was right, too. Li ght is a particle. This bizarre duality baffles Physics 101 students today just as it baff led Einstein in 1905. How can light be both? Einstein had no idea.回想起來,麥克斯威爾是正確的。光是一種波。但愛因斯坦也是對的。光是粒子。

22、這種異乎尋常的二象性使今天選修無力101課程的同學們感到困惑,就像在1905年使愛因斯坦感到困惑一樣。光怎么可能既是波又是粒子呢?愛因斯坦無法理解。17 That didn't slow him down. Disdaining caution, Einstein adopted the intuitive l eap as a basic tool. "I believe in intuition and inspiration," he wrote in 1931. "At ti mes I feel certain I am right while

23、not knowing the reason."困惑并沒有使愛因斯坦放慢探究的腳步。愛因斯坦不屑謹小慎微,他采用直覺跳躍思維作為基本工具。“我相信直覺和靈感,”他在1931年寫道。“有時盡管不知道原因,但是我肯定我是對的。18 Although Einstein's five papers were published in a single year, he had been thi nking about physics, deeply, since childhood. "Science was dinner-table conversation in the

24、 Einstein household," explains Galison. Albert's father Hermann and uncle Jakob ran a German company making such things as dynamos, arc lamps, light bulbs and telephones. This was high-tech at the turn of the century, "like a Sili con Valley company would be today," notes Galison.

25、 "Albert's interest in science an d technology came naturally."雖說愛因斯坦在短短的一年內發(fā)表了五篇論文,其實他童年時代就一直深入地思考物理的問題。“科學是愛因斯坦在餐桌上聊天的話題。”加里森解釋道。愛因斯坦的父親赫爾曼和叔叔雅各布經營一家德國公司,制造發(fā)電機,電弧燈,燈泡、電話等諸如此類的產品。這是(20世紀之初屬于高科技,“像今天的硅谷公司,”加里森著重提到。“艾伯特對科學技術與生俱來懷有興趣。”19 Einstein's parents sometimes took Albert to pa

26、rties. No babysitter was require d: Albert sat on the couch, totally absorbed, quietly doing math problems while oth ers danced around him. Pencil and paper were Albert's GameBoy!愛因斯坦的父母有時會帶兒子參加聚會。她們不常請人看孩子:當其他人在他周圍跳舞時,阿爾伯特坐在沙發(fā)上,全神貫注,靜靜地做數學題。筆和紙是阿爾伯特的玩具!20 He had impressive powers of concentrati

27、on. Einstein's sister, Maja, recalled ". even when there was a lot of noise, he could lie down on the sofa, pick up a pen an d paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a pr oblem so much that the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him.&quo

28、t; . 他有極強的集中思想的能力。愛因斯坦的妹妹瑪雅,回憶說:“即使周圍非常吵鬧,他也能躺在沙發(fā)上,拿起紙和筆,悠悠地把墨水池放在一個靠背上,專心致志得解題,北京聲音不但沒有打擾他,反而激勵他。”21 Einstein was clearly intelligent, but not outlandishly more so than his peers. "I have no special talents," he claimed, "I am only passionately curious." And again: " The contrast between the popular assessment of my powers . and the reality is si mply grotesque." Einstein credited his discoveries to imagination and pesky questio ning more so than orthodox intelligence.愛因斯坦顯然很聰明,但不比他