大科學家愛因斯坦鮮爲人知的十件事情(上)

Everyone knows Albert Einstein as a wild-haired, violin-playing genius who revolutionized physics, and many have heard how he arrived at his groundbreaking theories via one ingenious thought experiment, or gedankenexperiment, after another. But did you know that he was also an eccentric who gleefully eschewed socks, dodged German military service and spurned social conventions? Or that he was an enthusiastic but third-rate sailor?

在衆人眼中阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦是一位偉大的物理學家，他梳着一頭標誌性的亂髮，喜歡拉小提琴,開創了物理學的新紀元。衆所周知，他經過一次次巧妙的假想和試驗，最終創立了相對論。可是你瞭解這位天才的怪脾氣嗎？他從來不穿襪子、在德國逃避兵役、藐視社會習俗，他還是一個狂熱的航海愛好者，不過他的航海技術實在讓人不敢恭維。

Ever since solar eclipse observations in 1919 made him front-page news, we haven't been able to get enough of this guy. And why not? Einstein's influence extended beyond the scientific fields he revolutionized. His theories of relativity, which departed from the classical Newtonian view of the cosmos, came to symbolize a broader societal shift away from Enlightenment-influenced concepts of art, literature, morality and politics. More than that, thanks to his strong political and social views, often distilled into playful, philosophical and pithy quotes, he's been a mainstay of dorm-room posters and pop culture for decades. But with the revelations that accompanied the release of his private papers 30 years after his death, do we finally have too much of Einstein? Do they remind us to never meet our heroes, or merely that all geniuses are, finally, human?

1919年，一場日食觀測活動讓他成爲頭條新聞,可是我們對這位偉大科學家的瞭解還不夠多。愛因斯坦的影響力不僅在於開創了科學領域的新紀元。他提出相對論，這一理論從經典牛頓宇宙觀出發，象徵一種更加廣泛的社會轉變——使藝術、文學、道德和政治等領域的觀念更加成熟。他不僅擁有堅定的政治觀和社會觀，而且常常感悟出一些精闢、富於哲理又不失幽默的至理名言。因此，幾十年來，他一直都是最受崇拜和歡迎的偶像。在他去世30年後，隨着一些私人信件的公開，他的個人生活逐漸曝光，我們終於能夠更好地瞭解愛因斯坦了嗎？這些曝光的個人生活是讓我們心中的偶像形象破滅，還是讓我們明白天才也不過是個普通人？

Took Up Speaking Late as a Child

10.他很晚纔會說話

Einstein did not speak until comparatively late in childhood, and he remained a reluctant talker until the age of 7. This fact, combined with his single-minded devotion to physics, his imposition of routines on his wife, his musical talent and other factors have led some to argue that Einstein had Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that affects language and behavioral development in children.

愛因斯坦在幼年時很晚纔會說話，在7歲之前一直沉默寡言。這一事實，以及他對物理學研究的專一，他在生活中強加給妻子的束縛和他的音樂天賦等種種事情綜合在一起，讓一些人認爲愛因斯坦患有阿斯伯格綜合症——一種影響兒童語言和行爲發育的自閉症。

Other historical talents, including physicists Isaac Newton and Marie Curie and artists like Wassily Kandinsky and J.M.W. Turner, have received similar postmortem armchair diagnoses. Departing from this view, Stanford economist and author Thomas Sowell coined the term "Einstein Syndrome" to describe non-autistic gifted people with delayed speech. How his ideas are viewed by child development experts, or how they differ from the more commonly known phenomenon of asynchronous development, in which gifted children develop faster than average in some areas and more slowly in others, remains unclear. In the end, Einstein, a lifelong visual thinker, might simply have had a rich inner life and no need for speech because, as one famous anecdote claims he said, "up to now everything was in order."

人們經過分析發現，歷史上很多天才都有類似的自閉特徵，其中包括物理學家艾薩克·牛頓和瑪麗·居里，以及瓦西里·康定斯基和約瑟夫·馬洛德·威廉·透納等藝術家。斯坦福大學經濟學家兼作家托馬斯·索維爾根據此觀點創造出一個新詞彙——“愛因斯坦綜合症”，用來形容那些沒有患上孤獨症，但是語言發育遲緩的人。一些兒童發育專家認爲艾斯伯格綜合症與一般的自閉症不同，患有這種病症的兒童在某些方面天賦過人，而在另一些方面卻發育遲緩，但是目前爲止該理論並未得到證實。愛因斯坦，身爲一個視覺思想家，或許他的內心生活十分豐富，但無需向人表達，正如他曾說過的那句話：“目前來看一切都井然有序。”

Did Not Actually Do Poorly in School

9.他的學習成績其實沒那麼糟糕

We love to swap ironic facts about famous people, especially in our click-bait-driven Internet culture. So it's no surprise that the notions that Einstein struggled with math and that he failed his college entrance exams have such staying power. In truth, he excelled in physics and math from a young age and studied calculus while only 12 years old. He also knew his way around Greek conjugation and Latin declension. So how did the idea that he failed math gain traction? Possibly because, during one year of Einstein's education, school officials reversed the grading system, turning the numerical equivalent of A's into F's (and confusing unwary future biographers).

我們都喜歡八卦名人軼事，尤其在拼點擊率的互聯網文化的驅使下，這些名人軼事被更快地傳播開。因此，有關愛因斯坦數學很爛,而且沒通過大學入學考試這樣的傳聞會深入人心，也就不足爲奇了。事實上，他從小擅長物理和數學，甚至12歲時就學習了微積分。對希臘語和拉丁語也略知一二。那麼有關他數學很爛的傳聞從何而來呢？原來，在愛因斯坦入學考試那年，學校管理者更改了評分制度，將成績“A”檔改成了“F”檔（後來的傳記作家沒有仔細考證才造成了今天的誤會）。

Einstein did fail his first round of entrance exams -- due to extenuating circumstances. When the young man applied to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he was a 15-year-old dropout who lacked the equivalent of a high school diploma. Moreover, the rigid educational system that he grew up in did not provide him the background in French, chemistry and biology that he needed to pass the institute's exams. He scored so highly on his mathematics and physics tests, however, that the university accepted him anyway, on the condition that he complete his secondary education soon after.

愛因斯坦的確沒有通過第一輪入學考試——但是情有可原。他向蘇黎世聯邦理工學院提出入學申請時，只有15歲，因爲中途退學而沒有拿到高中文憑。此外，他就讀的學校，教育體制僵化，沒有開設法語、化學和生物學等課程，而這些是入學考試的必考科目。由於他的數學和物理學成績優異，學校最終還是錄取了他，但前提是要他完成高中學業。

Had an Illegitimate Daughter With a Mysterious Fate

8.他有一個私生女，命運成謎

While attending university in Zurich, Einstein fell in love with an older physics student, Mileva Maric, who would eventually become his first wife. By the standards of late 19th-century Europe, theirs was a modern love affair. They soon grew quite close and gave one another nicknames: He called her "Dollie," and she nicknamed him "Johnnie."

在蘇黎世上大學期間，愛因斯坦和物理系學姐——米列娃·瑪麗克墜入愛河，米列娃·瑪麗克最終成爲他的第一任妻子。從19世紀後期歐洲的開放程度來看，姐弟戀是一件非常時髦的事。他們的戀情發展迅速，彼此之間還起了暱稱：愛因斯坦叫妻子“多莉”，妻子則親暱地叫他“約翰尼”。

Maric was a remarkable woman, having overcome enormous social resistance to earn a place as the fifth woman accepted to the prestigious university. But for years after graduation, Einstein remained too poor to marry her. Moreover, his parents rejected Maric as a too-old, bookish Eastern Orthodox Serb, and his father did not approve the marriage until just before his death in 1902. Earlier that year, in January, the couple had a daughter named Lieserl (diminutive for Elisabeth). Maric returned to her parent's home near Novi Sad, a Serb cultural center then located in the Kingdom of Hungary but today part of Serbia's rural Vojvodina region. There she gave birth to the child, after which the couple never spoke of their daughter to others, even friends. Lieserl's fate remains a mystery to this day. The two prevalent theories hold that she died of scarlet fever or was given up for adoption.

瑪麗克是一位非凡的女性，她衝破社會阻力，成爲第五位就讀名牌大學的女性。可是畢業多年以後，愛因斯坦仍然窮得娶不起她。這樁婚事還遭到愛因斯坦父母的反對，在他們看來，瑪麗克不僅年紀太大，而且還是個信仰東正教的書呆子。他的父親直到1902年去世之前，才同意他們的婚事。同年一月，他們的女兒來到世上，取名麗瑟爾（伊麗莎白的愛稱）。瑪麗克回到父母身邊，他們住的地方離諾維薩德很近。當時的諾維薩德位於匈牙利帝國，是塞爾維亞的文化中心，而如今的諾維薩德則隸屬於塞爾維亞伏伊伏丁那自治省。自從瑪麗克在那裏生下女兒之後，這對夫妻從未向別人提起過她，連他們的朋友也不知道。直到今天，麗瑟爾的命運仍是一個謎。人們普遍持兩種觀點：一種觀點認爲麗瑟爾死於猩紅熱，另一種觀點認爲她被遺棄，隨後被人收養。

Was a Cad With a Tumultuous Family Life

7.他是個花心男，私生活混亂不堪

Whatever closeness Einstein and Maric shared did not survive long into their marriage, as their correspondence makes clear. Indeed, his own letters paint him as an unkind philanderer who neglected and mistreated her while openly enjoying several flirtations and affairs. One mistress, his cousin Elsa, would eventually become his second wife, although he also considered marrying her daughter, his future stepdaughter. This must have made family reunions both uncomfortable and confusing, especially since Elsa was Einstein's first cousin on his mother's side and his second cousin on his father's side. He cheated on Elsa as well, but she allowed it as long as he kept his affairs quiet.

曾經的親密無間也沒能延長愛因斯坦和瑪麗克的婚姻，這一點從他們的信件中很容易看出來。實際上，從愛因斯坦的信中可以看出，他是個無情無義的花花公子。他喜歡到處和異性調情，絲毫不掩飾自己的風流韻事，也不在乎這些事對妻子造成的傷害。他的表姐艾爾莎，也是他的情婦之一，後來成了他的第二任妻子。然而在此之前，他甚至考慮娶她的女兒，也就是自己未來的繼女爲妻。從他們的親戚關係來看，這樁婚姻讓家庭聚會變得十分尷尬，因爲對於愛因斯坦來說，艾爾莎既是他的表姐又是他的堂姐。這段婚姻也沒能讓愛因斯坦有所收斂，但是隻要他不公開這些風流韻事，艾爾莎都默然接受了。

Meanwhile, because he could not afford to support himself and his first wife in the case of a divorce, Einstein struck a deal with Maric: She would grant him a divorce, and he would give her and their two sons the prize money from his presumably imminent Nobel. Finally, after five years living apart, Maric divorced Albert in 1919. Thereafter, he grew estranged from his sons, one of whom was schizophrenic, leaving Maric to care for them and her own crumbling family.

另一方面，愛因斯坦負擔不起與第一任妻子的離婚費用，因此與瑪麗克達成協議：她同意離婚，如果將來愛因斯坦獲得諾貝爾獎，必須把獎金交給她和兩個兒子。1919年，瑪麗克和愛因斯坦分居五年後，兩人正式離婚。從此以後，他與兩個兒子漸漸疏遠，其中一個患有精神分裂症，瑪麗克只好獨自照顧他們，支撐起這個破碎的家庭。

Had One Heck of a Year

6.愛因斯坦奇蹟年

In 1905, Einstein published four papers that rocked contemporary views of space, time, mass and Energy and helped set the stage for modern physics, all while writing a doctoral dissertation and working as a third-class examiner in the Swiss patent office. After graduation, Einstein had applied for numerous academic posts, but school after school had rebuffed him. Their rejections stemmed in part from a letter of recommendation that Einstein had foolishly requested from Heinrich Weber, a professor whose classes he had regularly ditched. As decisions go, it was an object lesson in the difference between intelligence and wisdom. But the clerkship left Einstein enough daydreaming time to conceive his four landmark Annals of Physics journal papers, all published in a single annus mirabilis:

1905年，愛因斯坦發表了四篇論文，顛覆了當時有關空間、時間、質量與能量的一切觀點，爲現代物理學的發展奠定了基礎。同年，他還取得了博士學位，並且晉升爲瑞士專利局的三級技術員。畢業之後，愛因斯坦向多所學校申請了學術職位，但均遭到拒絕。他們之所以拒絕愛因斯坦，一部分因爲海因裏希·韋伯教授爲他寫的推薦信。上學時，愛因斯坦經常翹這位教授的課。雖然他智力超羣，但是找海因裏希·韋伯寫推薦信實在不是明智之舉。愛因斯坦只得到了試用職位，卻讓他有大把的時間用來構思四篇劃時代的論文。四篇論文均在《物理學年鑑》上發表，並於同一年出版，人們稱這一年爲“愛因斯坦奇蹟年”。

"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" explained the photoelectric effect using quantum theory.

《關於光的產生和轉化的一個試探性觀點》用量子理論解釋了光電效應。

"On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat" experimentally proved the existence of atoms.

《基於熱分子運動論的靜止液體中懸浮粒子的運動研究》從實驗上證明原子的存在。

"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" established the mathematical theory of special relativity.

《論動體的電動力學》創立狹義相對論。

"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" explained how relativity theory led to a mass-energy equivalence of E = mc2.

《物體的慣性同它所含的能量有關嗎？》解釋如何用相對論推導出質能等價方程式：E = mc²

翻譯：劉安琪 審閱：煙囪 來源：前十網