評論
打印
Would Oppenheimer have lost his scholarship at Reed?
那么，如果把蘭根換成奧本海默，奧本海默是否也可能失去里德學院的獎學金？
Would he had been unable to convince his professors to move his classes to the afternoon?
他是否也無法勸說他的老師把早上的課程調到下午？
Of course not, and that's not because he was smarter than Chris Langan.
當然不會。這并不是他比蘭根聰明，
It's because he possessed the kind of savvy that allowed him to get what he wanted from the world.
而是因為他有另外一種悟性，這種悟性能讓他從世人手里如愿得到自己想要的東西。
"They required that everyone take introductory calculus," Langan said of his brief stay at Montana State.
“他們給每個人都講微積分的初步知識，”蘭根說到他在蒙大納州立大學的經歷，
And I happened to got a guy who taught it in a very dry, very trivial way.
“我就遇到過一個講微積分初步的家伙，他講課不僅羅嗦而且枯燥無味。
I didn't understand why he was teaching at this way. So I ask him questions.
我不明白他為什么用這樣的方法講課，所以我就向他提出疑問，
Actually, I had to chase him down to his office, I asked him, 'Why are you teaching this way? Why do you consider this practice to be relevant to calculus?'
我甚至跟著追到了他的辦公室，我問他，‘你為什么這樣教呢？為什么你認為這種處理方法會和微積分相關？’
And this guy, this tall, lanky guy, always had sweat stains under his arms, he turned and looked at me and said, ‘You know, there is something probably you should get straight.
這個家伙，這個瘦長的家伙，他的兩個衣袖都被汗水浸濕了，他轉過頭來，看著我說，‘你知道，有些方面是你必須要承認的，
Some people just don't have the intellectual fire power to be mathematicians.'"
并不是每一個人都有數學家那樣的智商。
There they are, the professor and the prodigy, and what the prodigy clearly wants is to be engaged, at long last, with a mind that loves mathematics as much as he does.
這就是一個教授和一個天才，從始至終，這個天才希望表達的，無非是自己對數學的熱愛，
But he fails. In fact, and this is the most heartbreaking part of all, he manages to have an entire conversation with his calculus professor without ever communicating the one fact most likely to appeal to a calculus professor.
但是他卻未能如愿。事實上——這是整個故事最令人傷心的一部分——他也希望和微積分教授說清楚一切，但卻始終沒能在微積分教授面前說出自己的真實想法。
The professor never realizes that Chris Langan is good at calculus.
這位教授決不可能意識到克里斯.蘭根在數學方面的才華。
The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence."
為自己的謀殺判決辯護，或者勸說老師把自己早上的課程調到下午，這些特別的技巧，心理學家羅伯特.斯騰伯格（RobertSternberg）稱之為“實用智商”。
To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say whom, knowing when to say it and knowing how to say it for maximum effect."
在斯騰伯格看來，“為了達到最佳效果，知道自己應該在什么時候，應該怎樣和他人說出自己應該說的話”，是實用智商的一個方面。
It is procedure. It's about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being able to explain it.
這更像是一個程序上的概念：它指的是你應該怎樣去做一件事情，和你是否清楚自己為什么要這樣做或者能否提供這種行為的合理解釋并無必然聯系。
It's practical in nature: that is, it's not knowledge for its own sake.
它的本質是實踐性的：它不是解釋自我的能力，
It's knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want.
它是一種讓你正確認識自身處境，并且達到自己目的的能力。
And critically, it is a kind of intelligence separate from the sort of analytical ability measured by IQ.
并且，更為關鍵的是，它是一種有別于IQ測試中，一個人的分析能力之外的智商。
To use a technical term, general intelligence and practical intelligence are orthogonal, the presence of one doesn't imply the presence of the other.
在運用這個術語的時候，一個人的一般智商和實用智商常常是“兩兩不相交”的：一種智商的存在并不意味著另一種智商就必定存在。
