白宫里的科学狂 读《三体》的奥巴马
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has started initiatives to study the brain and gene-based diseases. He has led attacks on the Ebola virus and antibiotic resistance. Last month, he wrote an academic article in a prominent medical journal.
华盛顿——美国总统贝拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)发起了研究大脑和遗传类疾病的计划。他领导着针对埃博拉病毒和抗生素耐药性的攻坚战。上个月，他还在一本一流医学期刊上发表了一篇学术论文。
But the science event many in the White House remember most powerfully was the kid with the marshmallow cannon.
但对白宫许多人而言，最令人印象深刻的科学事件，要数那个带来了棉花糖大炮的小男孩。
“So would it, like, hit the wall up there?” Obama asked during the 2012 White House Science Fair when he came upon Joey Hudy, 14, standing before his homemade Extreme Marshmallow Cannon.
“那么，它会击中那边的墙壁吗？”在2012年的白宫科学展(White House Science Fair)上遇到14岁的乔伊·胡迪(Joey Hudy)时，奥巴马这样问道。胡迪当时站在自己制作的“超级棉花糖大炮”前。
“Yeah,” Joey answered.
“是的，”胡迪回答。
“Would it stick?”
“它会黏在上边吗？”
“I don’t know.”
“我不知道。”
“Let’s try it,” Obama said with glee.
“让我们试试吧，”奥巴马兴高采烈地说道。
And so, for what may have been the first time since the British burned the house down in 1814, a fast-moving projectile hit the State Dining Room wall. The marshmallow did not stick.
于是，一枚高速射出的炮弹击中了国宴厅的墙壁——自英国人在1814年火烧白宫之后，这种事或许还是第一次发生。棉花糖炮弹并未黏在墙上。
Obama has changed in many ways since winning the presidency. His hair is speckled with gray. He is more skeptical of military solutions to intractable foreign problems. His teenage daughters, he has said many times, no longer think he is cool.
赢得总统大选以后，奥巴马在很多方面都发生了变化。他的头发染上了霜华。他愈发怀疑能否以军事手段解决棘手的外交问题。再有，他说过好些遍，两个十几岁的女儿再也不觉得他有多酷了。
But another change that has received far less attention has been Obama’s embrace of science.
但还有一个关注度小得多的变化，那就是奥巴马开始涉足科学领域。
He began an annual tradition of science fairs, arguing that if he celebrates the nation’s top athletes at the White House, he should do the same for the best young scientific talent. He often mentions the students he has met at the fairs, including Elana Simon, who at age 12 survived a rare form of liver cancer and before graduating high school helped discover its genetic cause.
他创立了每年举办科学展的传统，他的理由是，既然他会在白宫祝贺美国的顶级运动员，就应当为最优秀的年轻科学人才做同样的事情。他经常提及自己在科学展上遇到的学生，其中包括埃莱娜·西蒙(Elana Simon)，她在12岁时成为一种罕见肝癌的幸存者，并在高中毕业前帮助发现了这种疾病的遗传基因。
Obama’s presidential science advisory committee has been the most active in history, starting 34 studies of subjects as varied as advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity. Scientists on the committee said they worked so hard because Obama was deeply engaged in their work.
奥巴马总统的科学顾问委员会是有史以来最活跃的，总共启动了34项研究，涉及从尖端制造技术和网络安全的多种课题。该委员会的科学家说，他们如此勤奋工作是因为奥巴马深度参与其中。
In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Obama listed science as one of the few subjects he intends to pursue after the presidency.
近日接受《彭博商业周刊》(Bloomberg Businessweek)采访时，奥巴马表示，科学是他在总统任期结束后想要追寻的几个目标之一。
“The conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying,” Obama said. Of the potential breakthroughs in genomic sequencing, “That’s just an example of something I can sit and listen and talk to folks for hours about,” he said.
“通过与硅谷人士以及一些风险资本家交谈，我对科学和组织的兴趣被点燃了，这让我有一种真正的满足感，”奥巴马说。谈及基因测序取得突破的可能性，他说，“这就是那种可以让我坐下来倾听和交谈几个小时的话题。”
Obama has always loved science fiction — he was a “Star Trek” fan as a kid, and grew up reading comic books like “Spider-Man.” His favorite movie last year was “The Martian,” according to the White House.
奥巴马一直都很喜欢科幻小说——他从小就是《星际迷航》(Star Trek)的拥趸。《蜘蛛侠》(Spider-Man)之类的漫画书陪伴他长大成人。来自白宫的消息称，他去年最爱看的电影是《火星救援》(The Martian)。
After Leonard Nimoy, the actor who made the character Spock famous in the original “Star Trek” series, died last year, Obama released a statement: “Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy.”
出演最初的《星际迷航》电视剧，并让斯波克(Spock)一角闻名遐迩的演员伦纳德·尼莫伊(Leonard Nimoy)去世后，奥巴马发表了一份声明：“早在书呆子气被视为一种酷之前，我们有伦纳德·尼莫伊。”
Obama described Spock with many of the same adjectives often used to describe Obama: “Cool, logical, big-eared and levelheaded, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.”
人们常常用来形容奥巴马的很多言辞，都被奥巴马用来描绘斯波克：“酷，有逻辑，耳朵大，头脑清醒，是《星际迷航》关于人类未来的乐观包容愿景的核心。”
“I loved Spock,” Obama concluded.
“我爱斯波克，”奥巴马总结道。
Obama’s reading lists are peppered with science and science fiction titles such as Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction,” Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” and Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem.”
奥巴马的阅读书目中，穿插着一些科学读物和科幻小说的名字，比如伊丽莎白·科尔伯特(Elizabeth Kolbert)的《第六次灭绝》(The SixthExtinction)，阿图尔·加万德(Atul Gawande)的《身为凡人》(Being Mortal)，以及刘慈欣的《三体》。
But Obama’s grasp of real science before becoming president was sketchy. He once admitted to a room full of scientists to not doing “well enough in chemistry or physics to impress you much on those topics.” And some scientists who met Obama before the presidency said they were not wowed by his grasp of their fields.
但当上总统前，奥巴马对真正的科学只有粗略的了解。有一次，他在一屋子科学家面前承认，他的“化学或物理”并未“好到在谈论这类话题时能让你们印象深刻的程度”。和出任总统前的奥巴马有过接触的一些科学家说，那时候，他对他们所在领域的了解，是让他们不以为然的。
“His views at the time were just sort of developing,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton.
“当时，他的观点在某种程度上还处于形成阶段，”普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)地球科学及国际事务教授迈克尔·奥本海默(Michael Oppenheimer)说。
But he was always enthusiastic, several top government scientists said. Within days of his election in 2008, Obama became enmeshed in selecting those who would serve on his science advisory board.
但政府的几位首席科学家说，他一直充满热情。2008年当选总统不久后，奥巴马就开始沉迷于为他的科学顾问委员挑选成员。
“I was really surprised by the avidity of his interest,” said Dr. Harold Varmus, who was a chairman of the board in its early days and was the director of the National Institutes of Health during the Clinton administration.
“他的兴致勃勃让我十分惊讶，”曾在奥巴马的科学顾问委员会运行之初担任主席、还在克林顿治下担任过国立卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health)院长的哈罗德·瓦默斯(Harold Varmus)博士说。
Researchers on the campus of the National Institutes of Health were abuzz for months after Obama’s visit there in December 2014, when he spoke extemporaneously about a lab he had just visited using such terms as “gel electrophoresis,” “microplate” and “multiparameter flow cytometer.” The crowd gave a quiet science roar.
奥巴马曾于2014年12月到访国立卫生研究院，此后好几个月，那里的研究人员都在谈论他的来访。当时，他即兴谈及刚刚去过的一个实验室，口中不时冒出“凝胶电池”、“微孔板”、“多参数流式细胞术”之类的词语。人群发出了科学界特有的那种不甚响亮的惊呼。
“I’d seen his speech, so I knew his remarks were impromptu,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Boom, he starts talking like a fundamental basic scientist, and he just blew everybody away.”
“我看过他的演讲，因此我知道他的发言是即兴的，”国家过敏及传染性疾病研究所(National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)所长安东尼·S·福奇(Anthony S. Fauci)博士说。“忽然间，他开始像个地地道道的基础科学家一样说话，让所有人都大为惊讶。”
