2021年经济学人 《来自未来的人》书评（在线收听）

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Book Review

书评

The history of science -- Martian's landing

科学的历史——火星人的登陆

The Man from the Future. By Ananyo Bhattacharya.

《来自未来的人》，作者：阿南约·巴塔查里亚。

In 1945, while in a state of exhaustion, the mathematician John von Neumann had a kind of stammering premonition.

1945年，处于极度疲惫之下，数学家约翰·冯·诺伊曼产生了一种尚不明朗的预感。

He was in Los Alamos, working on the atom bomb, and he told his wife Klari that the “energy source” he was helping to develop would make scientists “the most hated and also the most wanted citizens of any country”.

他当时在洛斯阿拉莫斯研究原子弹，他告诉他的妻子Klari，他正在帮助开发的这种“能源”将使科学家“成为所有国家最讨厌也最想招入麾下的公民”。

Then he informed her that his other ongoing project, the computer, would one day be even more important—and potentially even more dangerous.

然后，他告诉她，他正在进行的另一个项目——计算机，有一天会变得更加重要——而且可能更加危险。

Good biographies of some of the greatest mathematical minds are rare: because they were polymaths, biographers who can interpret their manifold achievements for the ordinary mortal are themselves thin on the ground.

关于某些最伟大的数学家的优秀传记是很少的：因为这些数学家博学多才，能把他们的众多成就解释给普通人看的传记作家本身就寥寥无几。

This has been von Neumann’s fate, and the upshot is that he has not had the recognition he deserves.

这就是冯·诺伊曼的命运，结果就是他没能得到应有的认可。

Ananyo Bhattacharya, a science journalist formerly at The Economist, sets out to correct that injustice, and so fill a yawning gap in the history of science.

《经济学人》的一名前科学记者阿南约·巴塔查里亚打算纠正这种不公正，以此填补科学史上的一个巨大空白。

Von Neumann belonged to a small group of brilliant Hungarians, of mainly Jewish backgrounds, who in the 1930s fled Nazism for America, where they were dubbed “the Martians” because of their strange language and even stranger brains.

冯·诺伊曼是一小群才华横溢的匈牙利人中的一员，他们主要生长于犹太背景下，在20世纪30年代为逃离纳粹主义来到美国，在美国他们因拥有奇怪的语言和更奇怪的大脑而被称为“火星人”。

All would transform science, but von Neumann would transform daily life, and he did so in varied and profound ways.

所有这些人都将改变科学，但冯·诺伊曼将改变日常生活，他以多样又深刻的方式做到了这一点。

He was undoubtedly a genius, and reading this book gives you an inkling of what that overused word really means.

毫无疑问，他是一个天才，读了这本书，你就会对这个被滥用的词的真正含义有所了解。

More than one highly intelligent acquaintance remarks that it was as if von Neumann was the only person who was really awake.

不止一位极其聪明的熟识冯·诺伊曼的人说，冯·诺伊曼似乎是唯一一个真正清醒的人。

The problem facing the biographer of a mathematician is that conveying mathematical concepts in mere words risks either boring the cognoscenti or bemusing the uninitiated.

为数学家写传记的作家所面临的问题是，仅仅用文字来表达数学概念，要么会让专家感到厌烦，要么会让外行感到困惑。

Rather like the books of Stephen Hawking or Carlo Rovelli, though, this one is rewarding on different levels.

就像史蒂芬·霍金或卡洛·罗维里的传记一样，这本书在不同的层面上都很有价值。

Everyone can grasp the significance of the puzzles posed, and if readers want to follow the genius through the steps of his solutions then Mr Bhattacharya is a clear and authoritative guide.

每个人都能领会到这些谜题的意义，如果读者们想跟随这位天才一步步解开谜题，那么巴塔查里亚先生就是一位清晰而权威的向导。

Perhaps it was because he was fluent in the language of the universe that von Neumann flitted so easily between disciplines.

也许正是因为冯·诺伊曼精通全球语言，他才能如此轻松地穿梭于各个学科之间。

While still a young man he made important contributions to quantum mechanics.

他年轻时就对量子力学做出了重要贡献。

Later he played a seminal role in the Manhattan Project that built the bomb, and devised the architecture for the first programmable computers.

后来，他在制造原子弹的曼哈顿计划中发挥了影响甚远的作用，并为第一台可编程计算机设计了架构。

He laid the foundations of game theory (introducing the term “zero-sum” along the way), stimulating revolutions across the social sciences and biology.

他奠定了博弈论的基础（在此过程中引入了“零和”这一术语），推动了社会科学和生物学领域的革命。

At times he was in such demand that a US Air Force plane was kept on standby to whisk him from one top-secret government lab to another.

有时，对他的需求如此之大，以至于一架美国空军飞机随时待命，以将他从一个最高机密政府实验室送到另一个实验室。

He was equally comfortable in basic and applied research, sitting with pencil and paper in his dining room in Princeton or debating with top military brass out in the New Mexico desert; but his interests were clearly linked.

他在基础研究和应用研究方面同样得心应手，坐在他普林斯顿家中的餐厅里手拿纸笔演算，或者在新墨西哥州的沙漠里与高级军事将领辩论；不过他的兴趣显然是相互联系的。

He needed programmable computers to calculate the size and force of shock waves from explosions, and game theory to address the thorny question of nuclear deterrence.

他需要可编程的计算机来计算爆炸冲击波的大小和力量，还需要博弈论来解决核威慑这个棘手的问题。

The years of the second world war were especially productive for him, as if he were propelled by the destruction of the “perfect intellectual setting” that was the Central Europe of his youth, not to mention the deaths of millions of its inhabitants.

他在第二次世界大战的那些年间尤其高产，他年轻时生活的中欧“完美的智识环境”遭到的破坏，更不用说那里数百万居民的死亡，似乎在推动着他前进。

And yet, Mr Bhattacharya argues, the reputation that von Neumann acquired as the coldest of cold warriors was undeserved.

然而，巴塔查里亚认为，冯·诺伊曼的最冷酷的冷战分子这一名声有些冤枉。

He knew the depths to which humankind could sink, but he was by nature more co-operative than competitive.

他清楚人类能够堕落到什么程度，但他天生更愿意合作而不是竞争。

The man from the future had seen for himself that science could be used for both good and bad, and considered the only legitimate response to be the exercise of intelligent judgment.

这位来自未来的人亲眼目睹了科学是把双刃剑，并且认为唯一合理的应对就是运用智慧的判断。

“For progress,” he wrote, “there is no cure.”

“对于进步，”他写道，“没有良方。”