万物简史 第7期:引言(7)

"I now know that there is a happy abundanceof science writers who pen the most lucid andthrilling prose.

"现在，我知道有好多好多科普作家，他们写出了通俗易懂而又激动人心的散文--

Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey, and Tim Flannery arethree that jump out from a single station of thealphabet

我一下子就可以点出蒂姆西?费里斯、理查德?福泰和提姆?弗兰纳里等三位

(and that's not even to mention the late but godlike Richard Feynman)-but sadly none of themwrote any textbook I ever used.

(且不说已故的出类拔萃的理查德?费曼)--但是，令人伤心的是，他们没有一人写过我用过的教科书。

All mine were written by men (it was always men) who held the interesting notion

我用过的教科书全都出自那些怀有一种挺有意思的想法的男人(始终都是男人)的笔下，

that everything became clear when expressed as a formula and the amusingly deluded belief

美国的孩子们会喜欢各个章节的结尾都带有问题部分，

that the children of America would appreciate having chapters end with a section of questionsthey could mull over in their own time.

供他们在自己的时代冥思苦想。

So I grew up convinced that science was supremely dull, but suspecting that it needn't be,and not really thinking about it at all if I could help it.

因此，我在成长过程中确信，科学是极其枯燥的，但同时我又认为大可不必如此：科学也可以是非常有趣的，要是我办得到的话。

This, too, became my position for a long time.

在很长的时间里，这成了我的立场。

Then much later-about four or five years ago-I was on a long flight across the Pacific,

接着，很久以后--我想大约是在四五年之前--我正做一次飞越太平洋的长途旅行，

staring idly out the window at moonlit ocean, when it occurred to me with a certainuncomfortable forcefulness

我漫不经心地朝飞机的舷窗外望去，只见一轮皓月挂在天空，下面是洒满银色月光的一望无际的海洋，突然，一种强烈的不安感涌上我的心头，

that I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on.

足迹遍及世界各地的我，对于自己长期以来置身其间，而且这辈子也只能生活其间的地球，竟然是那样的缺乏了解。

I had no idea, for example, why the oceans were salty but the Great Lakes weren't.

比如，我不知道为什么海水是咸的，而五大湖的湖水却是淡的。

Didn't have the faintest idea. I didn't know if the oceans were growing more salty with time orless,

我一点儿也不知道。我不知道随着时间的过去，海水会变得越来越咸，还是越来越淡，

and whether ocean salinity levels was something I should be concerned about or not.

不知道海水的咸度是不是我该关心的问题。

I am very pleased to tell you that until the late 1970s scientists didn't know the answers tothese questions either.

(我很乐意告诉你，直到20世纪70年代，科学家们也不知道这些问题的答案。)

"They just didn't talk about it very audibly.",

他们只是悄悄地议论这些事。