卡耐基演讲·1.将事实变为图画

你说月亮有多远？那太阳呢？最近的星星呢？科学家们会以一大堆的数字来回答这些问题。可是科普作家都知道，这不是让普通听众了解的方法，因此，他们将数字转化成图画。How far away is the moon? The sun? The nearest other star? Scientists are apt to answer space travel questions with a lot of mathematics. But science lecturers and writers know this is no way to make a fact clear to an average audience. They turn the figures into pictures.

著名的科学家詹姆·金恩斯爵士对人们想探测宇宙的渴望特别感兴趣。身为数学专家，他自然懂得高深的数学，但是他也知道，自己写作或演讲时若只偶尔用上几个数字，那样效果才最大。The famous scientist Sir James Jeans was particularly interested in mankind's yearnings to explore the universe. As a scientific expert, he knew the mathematics involved, and he also knew that he would be most effective in writing or speaking if he dropped in a figure only here and there.

我们的太阳和周围的行星这样地靠近我们，因此我们不了解在太空中旋转的其他物体究竟离我们有多远，于是他在《我们周围的宇宙》一书里这样讲：“即使是最近的一颗星星（普洛西玛·森多里）也在40233600000000公里以外，那么这是一个多大的数字呢？”为使这数字更鲜明些，他说，假如一个人由地球上起飞，以光速——每秒300000公里飞行，他需要四年又三个月才能到普洛西玛·森多里星。Our sun (a star) and the p1fu.lets around us are so near that we do not realize how far away other objects whirling in space are, he pointed out in his book, The Universe Around Us. "Even the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 25,000,000,000,000 miles away," he said. Then, to make this figure more vivid, he explained that if one were to take off from the earth at the speed of light-186,000 miles a second it would take him four and a quarter years to reach Proxima Centauri.

他以这种方式来说明太空的广阔浩瀚，比起我在密苏里州州立华伦斯堡师范学院听到的描述阿拉斯加的大小这么简单问题的金恩斯的解释可真实多了。那个人说，阿拉斯加的面积是平方公里，人口是64356人，然后就丢下不管了，再不把它的大小描绘给听众。In this way, he made the vast distances in space seem more real than did another speaker whom I once heard describe such a simple thing as distances in Alaska. He said Alaska's area was 590,804 square miles, and dropped the attempt to show its size right there.

这么多平方公里是一个什么样的概念？普通人显然没有这样的概念。大家不会去想到什么平方公里，无法在脑海中形成具体形象，根本想象不出这个面积究竟是和缅因州比谁大谁小。但如果演讲者说：阿拉斯加及其所属岛屿的海岸线比环绕地球一周的距离还长，而它的面积比维蒙特、新罕布什尔、缅因、马萨诸塞、罗得岛、康乃狄克、纽约、新泽西、宾夕法尼亚、迪拉威、马里兰、西弗吉尼亚、北卡罗来纳、南卡罗来纳、左治亚、佛罗里达、密西西比及田纳西等各州加起来还要稍微大一点。这样岂不是能令所有人对阿拉斯加的面积产生一个相当明确的概念吗？Does this give you any kind of picture of the size of the 49th State? It didn't give me one. To visualize its bigness, I had to wait until I learned from another source that its area more than equals the combined areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Now the 590, 804 square miles take on a new meaning, don't they? You realize that in Alaska there's plenty of room to move around.

记得好几年前，我们培训班的一个人，惊心动魄地描述了公路上车祸死亡人数多得可怕：“你现在正驾车横穿美国，从纽约前往洛杉矶。假设路旁竖着的不是路标，而是棺木，每个里面都装着一名去年所发生车祸中的受害者。那么，当你驱车疾驰时，一路上你每隔5秒钟就得经过一个这样阴森恐怖的标示，自全国这头至那头，每1.6公里就竖立着12个！”Some years ago a member of one of our classes described the fearful toll of fatal accidents on our highways by this appalling picture: "You are driving across the country from New York to Los Angeles. Instead of highway markers, imagine coffins standing upright in the earth, each containing a victim of last year's slaughter on the roads. As you speed along your car passes one of these gruesome markers every five seconds, for they are spaced twelve to a mile from one end of the country to the other!"

以后每次乘车，车行不远，这幅景象便十分清晰地浮现在我的脑海里。I never take a ride in a car very far before that picture comes back to me with startling realism.

为什么会有这样的效果？听来的印象不容易持久，它们像霰打在榉树光滑的树皮上，随即滚落。但是看到的印象呢？很多年前，我亲眼看到一发炮弹嵌入一幢立于多瑙河岸边的老屋里——拿破仑的炮兵部队曾在乌尔姆战役中所发射的炮弹。视觉印象就像那发炮弹，以排山倒海之势扑面而来，能够深深嵌入你的脑子难以磨灭和拿破仑驱走奥地利人一样。Why is that so? Because ear impressions are hard to retain. They roll away like sleet striking the smooth bark of a beech tree. But eye impressions? I saw, a few years ago, a cannon ball imbedded in an old house standing on the banks of the Danube - a cannon ball that Napoleon's artillery had fired at the battle of Ulm. Visual impressions are like that cannon ball; they come with a terrific impact. They imbed themselves. They stick. They tend to drive out all opposing suggestions as Bonaparte drove away the Austrians.