I have cobbled something together about physics and writing. Neither of us has had a proper breakfast. As we go through the Lincoln Tunnel I recall an anecdote my Nobelist colleague T. D. Lee once told me about Dirac. He was driving him from New York to Princeton through this same tunnel. Sometime after they had passed it, Dirac interrupted his silence to remark that, on the average, about as much money would be collected in tolls if they doubled the toll and had tollbooths only at one end. A few years later the Port Authority seems to have made the same analysis and halved the number of tollbooths. We pass the turnoff that would have taken us to Princeton. It is tempting to pay a visit. But Oppenheimer is by then dead and Dirac living in Florida with his wife, the sister of fellow physicist Eugene Wigner. Dirac used to introduce her to people as Wigner's sister, as in "I would like you to meet Wigner's sister." Dirac died in Florida in 1984.
我胡亂拼湊了一些關(guān)于物理學(xué)與寫作之間的關(guān)系的東西。我們倆都沒好好地吃一頓早飯。當我們穿越林肯隧道時，我想起我的同伴諾貝爾獎獲得者李政道講的一件關(guān)于狄拉克的軼事。他當時正開車穿過這座隧道送狄拉克從紐約去普林斯頓。已經(jīng)通過隧道的某個時候，狄拉克打破沉默說道：平均起來，如果把通行費提高一倍而只把收費站建在隧道的一端，收上來的錢其實是一樣多的。幾年以后，口岸管理部門似乎做了同樣的分析，然后把收費站的數(shù)量減半。我們經(jīng)過了通向普林斯頓方向的岔道。很想去拜訪一下。可是那時奧本海默已經(jīng)去世，狄拉克和妻子住在佛羅里達。他的妻子是他的物理學(xué)家同伴尤金·維格納的妹妹。狄拉克過去常常把妻子以維格納的妹妹的身份介紹給人們，比如：“我想讓你們認識一下維格納的妹妹。”狄拉克于1984年在佛羅里達去世。
We arrived at the conference center a few minutes before my lecture was scheduled to begin. There was no one, or almost no one, in the lecture room. However, in midroom, there was Spender. I recognized him at once from his pictures. Christopher Isherwood once described Spender's eyes as having the "violent color of blue-bells." Spender was wearing a dark blue suit and one of those striped British shirts—Turnbull and Asser?—the mere wearing of which makes one feel instantly better. He had on a club tie of some sort. He said nothing during my lecture and left as soon as it was over, along with the minuscule audience that I had traveled five hours by car to address.
我們到達會議中心的時候距離我做講座的預(yù)定時間僅有幾分鐘了。講堂里沒有任何人，或者說幾乎沒有人。但是在屋子的中央斯彭德正坐在那里。我見過他的照片，所以立刻就認出他來。克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德曾描繪斯彭德的眼睛里如同有“藍鈴花般狂熱的色彩”。斯彭德身著一套深藍色的西裝和一件英式的條紋襯衫——特恩布爾-阿瑟品牌？——僅僅穿上就立即讓人賞心悅目的那種。他系著一條某個俱樂部的領(lǐng)帶。在我的整個講座中他一言不發(fā)，一結(jié)束就立即起身離去，隨之離開的還有那些我駕車奔波了五個小時給他們做講座的一小撮聽眾。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/daxue/201912/601012.shtml
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