愛因斯坦癖好大公開：狂愛吃雞蛋

Albert Einstein is perhaps the world's greatest scientist. The Nobel Prize winner, who solved the riddle of the photoelectric effect and proposed the general theory of relativity, died on April 18, 1955, aged 76 after laying the foundation of modern physics and changing mankind's views on space, time, mass, and energy. But did you know he was obsessed by fried eggs? That's one of 10 quirky things about the man behind the famous equation E = mc 2 that we learn from the book Einstein at Home, which will be published in English in May 2016 for the first time. The book contains five interviews conducted by scientist Friedrich Herneck with Herta Waldow, née Schiefelbein, who was the live-in housekeeper of Einstein in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of Berlin for six years.
阿爾伯特•愛因斯坦可能是世界上最偉大的科學家。他是諾貝爾獎得主，破解了光電效應的謎題，提出了廣義相對論，奠定了現代物理學的基礎，改變了人類對空間、時間、質量和能量的認識。他於1955年4月18日逝世，享年76歲。但是，你知道他對煎蛋非常癡迷嗎？我們也是從《愛因斯坦的家庭生活》這本書知道的。這個提出著名等式E = mc 2的科學家有10個癖好，都收錄在這本書中。此書的英文版將於2016年5月第一次出版。書中還收錄了科學家弗里德里希•赫爾內克對赫塔•沃爾多（孃家姓席費爾拜因）女士的五次採訪，沃爾多女士曾經在愛因斯坦位於柏林夏洛滕堡-威爾默斯多夫區的家中當了六年的住家管家。

下面，我們就來看看這本書中揭祕的愛因斯坦的那些“怪癖”。

The mad hair came on the cheap
凌亂的頭髮是省錢省出來的

Einstein's second wife was his cousin Elsa Loewenthal. Elsa could not persuade Einstein to pay for a barber so she would cut his hair herself. Waldow recalled: "When his hair was too long, when it was beyond the pale, Elsa would cut off his hair with scissors and he was willing to put up with it. As well as his disheveled hair, Elsa also trimmed the great scientist's moustache.
愛因斯坦的第二任妻子是他的堂姐艾爾莎•洛文塔爾。艾爾莎沒法勸服愛因斯坦，讓他花錢找理髮師理髮，只能自己給他剪。沃爾多回憶說：“當他的頭髮長得太長，長得讓人無法忍受時，艾爾莎就會拿剪子給他剪頭髮，他也願意讓她這麼剪。除了修剪凌亂的頭髮，艾爾莎還會給這個大科學家刮鬍子。

He made his shoes last
他的鞋壽命很長

Penny-pinching seems to have been a thing in the Einstein household - a seven-room apartment. Waldow, who was the housekeeper from 1927-1933, said that he was always short of cash and his wife was very penny pinching. He wore shoes with holes in them, even if they were no longer watertight. "He would wear them until it was no longer possible." She said his favourite footwear was sandals. No wonder he kept a sign up in his office in later life in Princeton that said: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
愛因斯坦住的公寓有七間屋子，節儉似乎是他家的主題。沃爾多在1927-1933年間在這裏當管家，她說愛因斯坦手頭總是很緊，他的妻子也非常節儉。他的鞋有破洞了，甚至都不防水了，他還在穿。“他要把它們穿到實在穿不了了爲止。”她說他最喜歡穿的鞋就是涼鞋。怪不得他晚年在普林斯頓大學的辦公室裏掛着一句話：“不是所有有價值的都可以被計算，不是所有能計算的都有價值。”

He really was an egghead (especially fried eggs )
他真是雞蛋（特別是炒雞蛋）愛好者

Waldow had to deliver fried eggs and scrambled eggs almost every day for his breakfast. There were eggs for breakfast, usually fried. There was also a lot of honey, which we bought by the pail, brought by a beekeeper. "Herr Professor always ate fried eggs, at least two." They bought their fresh eggs from an elderly Jewish man. "Dear me, he was so grubby!" Waldow said. Einstein also enjoyed mushrooms with his eggs. "He would probably have eaten mushrooms three times a day, that's how fond he was of them."
沃爾多幾乎每天都給他送煎蛋和炒蛋當早餐。早餐的雞蛋通常是煎的，裏面還加了很多蜂蜜。蜂蜜是從一個養蜂人那裏一桶一桶買來的。“教授先生總是吃煎蛋，一次至少吃兩個。”他們的鮮雞蛋是從一個老猶太人那裏買的。“天吶，那個賣蜂蜜的可邋遢了！”沃爾多說，愛因斯坦還喜歡在雞蛋里加蘑菇。“他幾乎一天吃三頓蘑菇，他就是這麼喜歡。”But he didn't want to eat 'bloody' steak
但他不吃“帶血的”牛排

He would only eat steak if it was very well done. He would always say: "I am not a tiger". Einstein didn't like having his private remarks published and later wrote, "it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell."
牛排只有烤得非常熟他纔會吃。他總是說：“我又不是老虎。”愛因斯坦不喜歡他的個人言論被出版，後來他寫道：“我從來沒想過我每句不經意的言論都會被捕捉並記錄下來。否則的話，我就會爬進殼裏安靜地待着了。”

And he hated English cooking
他討厭英式烹飪

Einstein visited England in 1933 but wasn't much impressed with our cuisine, saying of English cooking, "it's ghastly, they cook everything with mutton fat". But give him a strawberry and he was content. Einstein was "passionately fond of strawberries" - he liked a strawberry dish served with whipped cream, together with what he called "strawberry snow".
愛因斯坦1933年到訪過英國，但卻對那裏的食物不怎麼感興趣，他說英式烹飪“可怕，所有的食物都是羊脂油做的”。但是給他一個草莓他就會很開心。愛因斯坦“狂熱地喜歡草莓”，他還喜歡草莓上加生奶油，他管這道菜叫“草莓積雪”。

He hardly drank alcohol
他不怎麼喝酒

Einstein only drank caffeine-free coffee called Kaffee Haag and black tea. The inveterate pipe smoker didn't drink much alcohol but like celery punch. Just imagine, celery punch!
愛因斯坦只喝一種叫做Kaffee Haag的脫咖啡因咖啡和紅茶。老煙槍愛因斯坦不怎麼喝酒，但喜歡喝芹菜汁。你能想象得到嗎？芹菜汁！

He had a toy telescope on his desk
他桌上有架小望遠鏡

Waldow recalled that next to his desk Einstein kept a telescope for observing the stars. "It was a kind of school telescope mounted on a tripod," she said.
沃爾多回憶，愛因斯坦在桌子旁邊放了架望遠鏡，用來看星星。“那是一個學生用的望遠鏡，架在三腳架上，”她說。He loved playing the violin – but was terrible
他喜歡拉小提琴——但是拉得不好

Einstein liked to play the violin at night. He did not play pieces of music but "his own improvisations as he did his thinking to them". He played in the kitchen because he liked the way the tiles made the music resonate. Alas, he wasn't that good. Fellow scientist Professor Walter Frierich said of Einstein's playing that he "bowed like a lumberjack".
愛因斯坦喜歡在晚上拉小提琴。他不拉奏音樂作品，而是“他自己的即興創作，想到什麼拉什麼”。他在廚房裏拉小提琴，因爲他喜歡牆磚與音樂共鳴的聲音。可是啊，他拉得並不好。科學家沃爾特•弗瑞爾裏希說愛因斯坦的演奏就像“伐木工人在鋸樹”。

Einstein was not a party animal
愛因斯坦不喜歡派對

He hated attending social events and "he often railed against it very angrily". He did sometimes have dinner parties and special nights in with stars such as Charlie Chaplin.
他討厭參加社交活動，並且會“經常非常生氣地抱怨”。不過他確實參加過幾次宴會，與查理•卓別林等明星度過了幾個特別的夜晚。

He liked to wander round starkers
他喜歡光着身子游蕩

"Herr professor just liked to look at beautiful women, he always had a weakness for lovely ladies," said Waldow. The woman he called Fraulein Herta was 21 when she first started working for the 48-year-old Einstein. Waldow remembered that she blushed when she saw him naked. "It was very embarrassing for me. Either Herr Professor had not bothered putting on his bathrobe, or he was too lost in thought to remember wearing it". Ah, the old absent-minded professor excuse.
沃爾多說：“教授先生喜歡看漂亮的女人，對她們總是沒有抵抗力。”愛因斯坦48歲時僱傭了一個21歲的叫做赫塔的姑娘。沃爾多回憶稱，當她看到愛因斯坦沒穿衣服的時候臉都紅了。“我那時很尷尬，教授先生要麼是懶得穿浴袍，要麼是沉迷於思考忘了穿。”啊哈，什麼年紀大了心不在焉，都是藉口。

Vocabulary

beyond the pale: 超出範圍，出格
lorgnette: 長柄眼鏡
penny-pinching: 小氣的，吝嗇的
grubby: 骯髒的，邋遢的
whipped cream: 生奶油
inveterate: 根深的；積習的；成癖的
pipe smoker: 菸斗客
improvisation: 即興創作；即席演奏
lumberjack: 伐木工人
starkers: 一絲不掛地，赤身裸體地