6-12 诺贝尔大师自传：尼古拉斯·布洛姆伯根（在线收听）

Autobiography of Nobel Prize Winner: Nicolaas Bloembergen

My parents, Auke Bloembergen and Sophia Maria Quint, had four sons and two daughters. I am the second child, born on March 11, 1920, in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. My father, a chemical engineer, was an executive in a chemical fertilizer company. My mother, who had an advanced degree to teach French, devoted all her energies to rearing a large family.

Before I entered grade school¹, the family moved to Bilthoven, a residential suburb of Utrecht. We were brought up in the Protestant² work ethic. At the age of twelve I entered the municipal³ gymnasium⁴ in Utrecht, founded as a Latin school in 1474. Nearly all the teachers held Ph.D. degrees. The rigid curriculum emphasized the humanities: Latin, Greek, French, German, English, Dutch, history and mathematics. My preference for science became evident only in the last years of secondary school, where the basics of physics and chemistry were well taught. The choice of physics was probably based on the fact that I found it the most difficult and challenging subject, and I still do to this day. My maternal⁵ grandfather was a high school principal with a Ph.D. in mathematical physics. So there may be some hereditary⁶ factor as well. I am ever more intrigued by the correspondence between mathematics and physical facts. The adaptability of mathematics to the description of physical phenomena is uncanny⁷.

Professor L. S. Ornstein taught the undergraduate physics course when I entered the University of Utrecht in 1938. He permitted me and my partner in the undergraduate lab, J. C. Kluyver to skip some lab routines and instead assist a graduate student, G. A. W. Rutgers, in a Ph.D. research project.

After the German occupation of Holland in May 1940, the Hitler regime removed Ornstein from the university in 1941. I made the best possible use of the continental academic system, which relied heavily on independent studies. Just before the Nazis closed the university completely in 1943, I managed to obtain the degree of Phil. Drs., equivalent to a M.Sc. degree.

I had always harbored⁸ plans to do some research for a Ph.D. thesis outside the Netherlands, to broaden my perspective. After the devastation of Europe, the only suitable place in 1945 appeared to be the United States. Three applications netted⁹ an acceptance in the graduate school at Harvard University. My father financed the trip and the Dutch government obliged¹⁰ by issuing a valuta¹¹ permit for the purchase of US＄ 1,850. As my good fortune would have it, my arrival at Harvard occurred six weeks after Purcell, Torrey and Pound had detected nuclear magnetic resonance¹²(NMR) in condensed¹³ matter. Since they were busy writing volumes for the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory series on microwave techniques, I was accepted as a graduate assistant to develop the early NMR apparatus¹⁴. My thorough Dutch educational background enabled me to quickly profit from lectures by professors there.

During a vacation trip of a Physics Club I met Deli in the summer of 1948. She had spent the war years in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia, where she was born. She was about to start her premed¹⁵ studies. When I returned to Harvard in 1949, she managed to get on a student hospitality exchange program and traveled after me to the United States on an immigrant ship. I proposed to her the day she arrived and we got married in Amsterdam in 1950. Ever since, she has been a source of light in my life. Her enduring encouragement has contributed immensely to the successes in my further career. After the difficult years as an immigrant wife, raising three children on the modest in come, she has found the time and energy to develop her considerable talents as a pianist and artist. We became U.S. citizens in 1958.

Our children are now independent. The older daughter, Antonia, holds M.A. degrees in political science and demography¹⁶, and works in the Boston area. Our son, Brink, has an M.B.A. degree and is an industrial planner in Oregon. Our younger daughter, Juliana, envisages¹⁷ a career in the financial world. She has interrupted her banking job to obtain an M.B.A. in Philadelphia.

注释：

1.grade school〈美〉小学

2.Protestant [5prCtistEnt] a. 新教的；～ ethic（基督教）新教伦理（强调遵纪守法、勤奋工作、节俭生活、自我约束等；被认为是资本主义意识形态的道德准则）

3.municipal [mju:5nisipEl] a. 市（政）的；市办的，市营的

4.gymnasium [dVim5neiziEm] n. [常 作 G-]（德国等培养学生升入高等学校的）高级中学

5.maternal [mE5tE:nl] a. 母系的；母亲一方的

6.hereditary [hi5reditEri] a. 遗传的，遗传性的

7.uncanny [Qn5kAni] a. 不寻常的；神秘的

8.harbor [5hB:bE] vt. 心怀，怀藏

9.net [net] vt. 使获得；得到

10.oblige [E5blaidV ] vt. 施恩惠于，帮……的忙

11.valuta [vE5lu:tE] n. 外汇；汇率值

12.resonance [5rezEnEns] n. [物] 磁共振

13.condensed [kEn5denst] a. 压缩的；缩短的

14.apparatus [7ApE5reitEs] n. 器械；仪器

15.premed [5pri:5med]〈 口 〉a. 医学预科的

16.demography [di:5mC^rEfi] n. 人口学；人口统计

17.envisage [in5vizidV] vt. 设想；想像