評(píng)論
打印
When a journalist asked the British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington
有一位記者問英國天文學(xué)家阿瑟·愛丁頓，
if it was true that he was one of only three people in the world who could understand Einstein’s relativity theories,
他是不是真的就是世界上僅有的三個(gè)能理解愛因斯坦的相對論的人之一。
Eddington considered deeply for a moment and replied: “I am trying to think who the third person is.”
愛丁頓認(rèn)真地想了片刻，然后回答說：“我正在想誰是第三個(gè)人呢。”
In fact, the problem with relativity wasn’t that it involved a lot of differential equations, Lorentz transformations, and other complicated mathematics
實(shí)際上，相對論的問題并不在于它涉及許多微分方程、洛倫茲變換和其他復(fù)雜的數(shù)學(xué)
(though it did—even Einstein needed help with some of it),
（雖然它確實(shí)涉及——有的方面連愛因斯坦也需要?jiǎng)e人幫忙），
but that it was just so thoroughly nonintuitive.
而是在于它不是憑直覺所能完全搞懂的。
In essence what relativity says is that space and time are not absolute, but relative to both the observer and to the thing being observed,
實(shí)質(zhì)上，相對論的內(nèi)容是：空間和時(shí)間不是絕對的，而是既相對于觀察者，又相對于被觀察者；
and the faster one moves the more pronounced these effects become.
一個(gè)人移動(dòng)得越快，這種效果就越明顯。
We can never accelerate ourselves to the speed of light,
我們永遠(yuǎn)也無法將自己加速到光的速度；
and the harder we try (and faster we go) the more distorted we will become, relative to an outside observer.
相對于旁觀者而言，我們越是努力（因此我們走得越快），我們的模樣就越會(huì)失真。
Almost at once popularizers of science tried to come up with ways to make these concepts accessible to a general audience.
幾乎同時(shí)，從事科學(xué)普及的人想要設(shè)法使廣大群眾弄懂這些概念。
One of the more successful attempts—commercially at least—was The ABC of Relativity by the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.
數(shù)學(xué)家和哲學(xué)家羅素寫的《相對論ABC》就是一次比較成功的嘗試——至少在商業(yè)上可以這么說。
In it, Russell employed an image that has been used many times since.
羅素在這本書里使用了至今已經(jīng)多次使用過的比喻。
He asked the reader to envision a train one hundred yards long moving at 60 percent of the speed of light.
他讓讀者想像一列100米長的火車在以光速的60％行駛。
To someone standing on a platform watching it pass, the train would appear to be only eighty yards long and everything on it would be similarly compressed.
對于立在站臺(tái)上望著它駛過的人來說，那列火車看上去會(huì)只有80余米長，車上的一切都會(huì)同樣縮小。
If we could hear the passengers on the train speak, their voices would sound slurred and sluggish,
要是我們聽得見車上的人在說話，他們的聲音聽上去會(huì)含糊不清，十分緩慢，
like a record played at too slow a speed, and their movements would appear similarly ponderous.
猶如唱片放得太慢，他們的行動(dòng)看上去也會(huì)變得很笨拙。
Even the clocks on the train would seem to be running at only four-fifths of their normal speed.
連車上的鐘也會(huì)似乎只在以平常速度的4/5走動(dòng)。
