Einstein's Inspiring Heir
愛因斯坦的激勵人心的繼承人
1. He is almost totally paralyzed, speechless and wheelchair-bound, able to move only his facial muscles and two fingers on his left hand. He cannot dress or feed himself, and he needs round-the-clock nursing care. He can communicate only through a voice synthesizer, which he operates by laboriously tapping out words on the computer attached to his motorized chair. Yet at age 50, despite these crushing adversities, Stephen Hawking has become, in the words of science writers Michael White and John Gribbin, "perhaps the greatest physicist of our time." His 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, has sold 1.7 million copies around the world.
1、他幾乎完全癱瘓，不能說話，離不開輪椅，能夠活動的只有他面部的肌肉和他左手的兩個指頭。吃飯穿衣他不能自理，白天夜晚都需要人照顧。他只能通過一個發(fā)聲合成器同別人交流。這個計算機式的發(fā)聲合成器固定在他那裝有馬達的輪椅上；他吃力地操作鍵盤，把要說的話一個詞一個詞地打出來。盡管他遭此極度厄運，斯蒂芬·霍金在他年已半百的時候還是成了“也許是當代最偉大的物理學家”。（科技作家邁克·懷特和約翰·格里賓語）他1988年出版的《時間簡史》一書，在世界各地共銷售了170萬冊。
2. Hawking's choice of career was most fortunate, for himself as well as for science. Rejecting the urging of his physician father to study medicine, Hawking chose instead to concentrate on math and theoretical physics, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge. But at age 21 he developed the first symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis （ALS）, a disorder that would inevitably render him paralyzed and incapable of performing most kinds of work. Rs the authors note, theoretical physics was "one of the very few jobs for which his mind was the only real tool he needed."
2、霍金選擇了這一職業(yè)，對科學事業(yè)和他本人都是件極大的好事。他父親是個醫(yī)生，曾敦促他學醫(yī)，但他沒有從命，而是先后在牛津大學和劍橋大學專攻數(shù)學和理論物理�？墒撬�21歲的時候，出現(xiàn)了肌萎縮性（脊髓）側索硬化的征兆；這一疾病不可避免地要導致癱瘓，使他很多事都不能做。用本書的兩位作者的話來說，“研究理論物理是他能做的屈指可數(shù)的幾件工作之一—這些工作實際需要的工具僅是他的大腦�！�
3. He has used that tool with consummate skill. While still a graduate student, Hawking became fascinated by black holes, the bizarre objects created during the death throes of large stars. Working with mathematician Roger Penrose and using Einstein's relativity equations, he developed new techniques to prove mathematically that at the heart of black/holes were singularities—infinitely dense, dimensionless points with irresistible gravity. He went on to demonstrate that the entire universe could have sprung from a singularity and, in his 1966 Ph.D. thesis, wryly noted that "there is a singularity in our past."
3、他嫻熟地使用了這一工具。還在當研究生的時候，他就對研究黑洞現(xiàn)象—巨大星體泯滅過程中產生的奇怪物體—入了迷。他同數(shù)學家羅杰·潘羅斯合作，運用愛因斯坦的相對論等式找到了新的計算方法來證明：在黑洞的中心是一堆密密麻麻的、無邊無際的、具有巨大引力的奇異小點。他繼而證明，整個宇宙都有可能是從某個奇點演變而來的。他在1966年寫的博士學位論文中略帶諷刺意味地寫道：“我們過去的歷史中就有一個奇點�！�
4. Gathering momentum as a fellow at Cambridge, Hawking calculated that the Big Bang, which gave birth to the universe, must have created tiny black holes, each about the size of a proton but with the mass of a mountain. Then, upsetting the universal belief that nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole, he used the quantum theory to demonstrate that these miniholes （and larger ones too） emit radiation. Other scientists eventually conceded that he was correct, and the black-hole emissions are now known as Hawking radiation.
4、在劍橋當研究員時，他再接再勵，并推測出：可能是產生宇宙的大爆炸同時也產生了那些小黑洞，其大小同質子差不多，但質量卻重如一座大山。后來，他用量子理論證明這些小洞（還有大一些的）能發(fā)出射線，從而推翻了認為任何東西（包括光在內）都不能逃脫黑洞的普遍看法。其他科學家最終還是承認他是正確的，而且現(xiàn)在人們還把黑洞射線稱為霍金射線。
5. Engrossed as Hawking is with his work, the authors say, "ALS is simply not that important to him." He certainly does not dwell on his handicap. His succinct, synthesized voice comments are often laced with humor, he enjoys socializing with his students and colleagues, attends rock concerts and Sometimes takes to the dance floor at discos, wheeling his chair in circles. But he can be stubborn, abrasive and quick to anger, terminating a conversation by spinning around and rolling off, sometimes running one of his wheels over the toes of an offender.
5、由于霍金一心撲在工作上，本書的兩位作者說：“癱瘓對他顯得并不那么重要�！彼隙]有老是想著自己的殘疾。他那通過發(fā)聲合作器說出來的簡單話語，時不時還帶著點幽默的味道。他喜歡和學生、同事們一起參加社交活動，參加搖滾音樂會，有時還到迪斯科舞廳去，坐在輪椅上轉圈子�？伤袝r也很執(zhí)拗，對別人有些生硬粗暴，愛發(fā)脾氣，有時他突然中斷同別人的談話，坐著輪椅轉個圈，然后悻悻地離去。他甚至還會用輪椅的一個輪子軋冒犯者的腳趾。
6. Hawking can also be wrong. In 1985, for example, he brashly proclaimed that when and if the universe stopped expanding and began to contract, time would reverse and everything that had ever happened would be rerun in reverse. Eighteen months later, he sheepishly admitted his mistake. Earlier, after trashing another scientist's notion that the 19th century theory of thermodynamics could be applied to black-hole theory, he recanted and began applying it himself.
6、霍金也有出錯的時候。例如他在1985年草率宣布，如果宇宙停止擴大并開始縮小時，時間就會逆轉，凡是發(fā)生過的一切事情就會逆時間順序重演一遍。但過了18個月之后，他難為情地承認了自己看法的錯誤。在這之前，他曾對另一位科學家提出的可以把19世紀的熱力學理論應用于黑洞理論研究的這一觀點（抱著）不屑一顧（的態(tài)度）。但他后來改變了態(tài)度，并在他的研究工作中加以應用。
7. Without his wife Jane, Hawking has always emphasized, his career might never have soared. She married him shortly after he was diagnosed with ALS, fully aware of the dreadful, progressive nature of the disease, giving him hope and the will to carry on with his studies. They had three children in the early stages of their marriage, and later, as he became increasingly incapacitated, she devoted herself to catering to his every need.
7、霍金一直強調，沒有他的妻子珍妮，他的事業(yè)是不會騰飛的。珍妮是在他確診患了肌萎縮性側索硬化之后不久同他結婚的。她完全了解他那不斷惡化的病情及其可怕的嚴重后果；她這時同他結婚給了他繼續(xù)進行研究工作的希望和毅力。婚后早期的一段時間里，他們有了3個孩子。后來，隨著他的自理能力越來越差，她就全力以赴地、無微不至地照顧他。
8. After years of apparently harmonious marriage, however, rifts began appearing. As the accolades and awards poured in for Stephen, Jane—competent and intelligent herself 'began to resent living in his shadow. Deeply religious, she was also offended by his apparent atheism. Particularly galling to her was his concept, enunciated first before the Pope at a scientific meeting at the Vatican, that the universe might be completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, no beginning or end. If that were true, he asked provocatively, "What place, then, for a creator?" Still, friends were shocked in 1990 when Hawking abruptly ended their 25-year marriage, moving in with one of his nurses.
8、然而，在經(jīng)過多年顯然和諧的婚姻生活之后，他們之間開始出現(xiàn)裂痕。隨著他獲得的表彰和獎勵越來越多，能干和富有才智的珍妮不甘心長期生活在他盛名的蔭庇之下。另外，她是個虔誠的教徒，對丈夫不信教也深為不滿。尤其令她惱火的是，他在梵蒂岡的一次科學會議上竟首次當著教皇的面宣布說，宇宙是自成一體的，無邊無界無始無終。他用挑釁性的口吻問道：如果情況確實如此，那么“哪兒還有創(chuàng)世者的位置?”1990年他突然結束了同她25年的婚煙而投向了一名護士的懷抱。這使他的朋友們大為震驚。
9. What this book brings to the already crowded domain of Hawking lore is a rather successful merger of biography and physics. As it traces the course of Hawking's life, it pauses occasionally to prepare the reader for the mind-boggling complexities of relativity theory and the even more bizarre notions of quantum physics—twin pillars on which Hawking has constructed his theories—which he is currently attempting to unite in an all-encompassing theory. The authors characterize their early review of Newton's classical theory of gravitation, for example, as "a gentle workout in the foothills before we head for the dizzy heights."
9、這本書里充滿了關于霍金的傳說與故事，其特點是把傳記同物理學成功地融合在一起。在敘述霍金生平的過程中，作者不時地穿插進一些物理知識（作為鋪墊），以幫助讀者對那深奧莫測的復雜的相對論以及那更為稀奇古怪的量子物理學理論有所了解。這兩個理論是霍金構筑他自己理論的兩根支柱，目前他正試圖把二者兼容為一個總括性的理論。書中一開始就介紹了牛頓的經(jīng)典的萬有引力理論，作者們把這比作是“攀登那令人頭暈目眩的頂峰之前在山腳下進行的輕松的準備活動�！�
10. The exercise works. By the time the higher elevations are reached, such strange notions as Einsteinian curved space-time and the quantum uncertainty principle, heavy meals indeed, seem not so difficult to digest.
10、這個準備鍛煉很有效。當攀登到一定高度時，像愛因斯坦的時空卷曲論和量子不確定原理等概念就出現(xiàn)了；而這些難以咀嚼的食物也就變得不那么難于消化了。
11. Still, it is the man, more than the science, who dominates this book, with his triumph over a terrible affliction, his courage, his humor and his admirable lack of self-pity. As Hawking's computer voice declared during the final scene in a BBC TV show, "I have a beautiful family, I am successful in my work, and I have written a best seller. One really can't ask for more."
11、不過，書中敘述還是以人為主，科學內容位居其次，寫出了主人公戰(zhàn)勝殘疾的極大折磨，他的勇氣，還有他的詼諧幽默和他那令人敬佩的毫不自憐的精神。正如他在英國廣播公司的一個電視節(jié)目的末尾通過他的發(fā)聲合成器所說的話，“我有一個美滿的家庭，我在研究上取得了成就，我出版了一本暢銷書。一個人實在不能有更多地希求了。”
