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Summer Book List from Bill Gates
這些書，連比爾·蓋茨都在讀！
Every summer, I try to do a little extra reading. Here's a few books I read recently that you might enjoy:
每個夏天，我都會試著多讀一點書。這里是幾本我最近讀的、你也許會喜歡的書：
On Immunity by Eula Biss. She explains the history of vaccination. Why children who don't get vaccinated can even affect those who are vaccinated? She's a very good writer. I wish I could write as nicely as she writes.
Eula Biss 的《免疫力》。她解釋了疫苗接種的歷史。為什么沒有接種疫苗的孩子甚至能影響那些已經接種疫苗的孩子？她是一位非常優秀的作家。我希望我的文筆能和她一樣好。
Should We Eat Meat? by Vaclav Smil. It's provocative, the way he does the title as though he's passing the responsibility to the reader. Well, we know it's pretty hard for people to give up meat. There are books that touch on this topic that don't have numbers in them, but, you know, this is Smil, you are gonna get the numbers. You might even get a few sentences in between the numbers.
Vaclav Smil 的《我們應該吃肉嗎？》。這本書極具爭議性，他下標題的方式就好像他在向讀者傳遞這樣的責任。好吧，我們知道，對人類來說，要戒掉吃肉很難。有幾本提到這個議題且沒有數據在其中的書，但，你知道的，這是 Smil，你一定看得到數據。你甚至可能在數據之中看到一些解釋。
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. Being able to understand what you're looking at, and being willing to say, "Hey, where did that come from? Is that accurate?" It's a quick read. It's got a lot of good examples in it. It's a trip to the past even though the basic points it makes are still valid today.
Darrell Huff 的《別讓統計數字騙了你》。讓你能夠知道你在看什么，也會讓你愿意去問：“嘿，那是從哪里來的？那精確嗎？”它是本能很快讀完的書。里頭有很多好例子。那是趟回到過去的旅行，但它舉出的基本觀點至今仍然有效。
What If? by Randall Munroe. It's a very clever way of getting you to think about very scientific things going on. This idea of when you see a glass half empty, do you mean "empty," as in, "perfect vacuum?" And, you know, all of a sudden there was a glass sitting there, where you put the water on the top and the vacuum on the bottom, or the vacuum on the top and the water on the bottom. This is clever. Those are the kind of questions that somebody with a good mind who's trying to figure out if they really understand—that's a kind of question you should ask yourself.
Randall Munroe 的《如果這樣，會怎樣？》。這是讓你去思考發生的科學事物的巧妙方法。當你看到一個半空的杯子，你指的“空”是指“完全真空”嗎？然后，你知道，突然就有一個杯子放在那里，在那兒你將水放在上半部，底部是真空，或是上半部是真空，底部是水。這很巧妙。那些是某個有聰明腦袋、試著要探究他們是否真正了解的人會問的問題－－那是你們應該問問自己的問題類型。
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. She's pretty creative and humorous about making fun of herself and revealing her inner thoughts. There was one thing about the dog, where—this is one that I told Melinda to read—where the dog's getting confused where they're moving, and so she's trying to simulate what the dog's thinking. And her dog—maybe it's true—it's one of the most inept, impossible dogs to ever take care of.
Allie Brosh 的《艾莉的夸張人生》。她對于自嘲和吐露內心想法是極有創意且幽默的。書里有件和狗有關的事情－－這是我叫 Melinda(比爾蓋茲的妻子)讀的一個地方－－狗狗對他們要搬去哪感到困惑，所以她試著要模擬狗在想什么。而她的狗，也許她寫得沒錯，是她照顧過最笨、也最難搞的狗。
And finally, The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins. In science, we're all kids. I mean, a good scientist is somebody who's redeveloped the chain of reasoning of why we know what we know from scratch many times, just to see where there's holes or alternate possibilities.
最后，Richard Dawkins 的《真實世界的神奇魔力》。在科學世界里，我們都是小孩。我的意思是，一個好的科學家是那類人，他會反覆從頭重建為何我們了解我們所知的事物背后的推論過程，只為了找到漏洞或其他可能性的存在。
It can never hurt to reread these things and think through what you're learning. We can observe way more stuff than you'd imagine, and we've made more sense out of the stuff we can observe than you can imagine. So, quite a range there in terms of fun to learn, fun to know about. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
重讀這些書、思考你學了什么永遠沒有害處。我們可以觀察的事物比你想像的多更多，而我們也已經從所能觀察的事物中尋出比你想像中還多的智慧。所以，有滿多讀來有趣、也值得認識的書籍。 我希望你們和我一樣享受它們。
