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2010-06-13
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twin02
2010-06-21 15:32
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恭喜赵亚男中标，翻译“THE AMAZING STORY OF QUANTUM MECHANICS ”一书
试译原文：The Future began on December 14, 1900 and August 26, 1928.
On the first date, at the German Physical Society, Max Planck presented a resolution to the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.
Planck’s suggestion that atoms can lose energy only in discrete jumps would tip over the first domino in a chain that by the mid-1920’s would lead to the development of a new field of physics termed Quantum Mechanics.
On the later date, at the end of the summer of 1928, Buck Rogers first appeared in the science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories.
The cover of this issue featured a young man, flying via a levitation device strapped to his back and waist, waving to a young woman and older man standing in front of a modernistic domicile as he rose into the air.[1] In the future envisioned by these pulp magazines we would all be living in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, enjoying the exciting changes to our daily routine made possible by breakthroughs in modern technology.
With its premier issue published in 1926, Amazing Stories was the first magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction stories, or in the term coined by publisher Hugo Gernsback: “scientifiction.”
The magazine’s motto was: “Extravagant Fiction Today…Cold Fact Tomorrow.”
December 14, 1900 marks the dawn of a new field of science, and is the province of nerds, while the second in 1928 represents the commencement of the future as reckoned by geeks.
I should note that as a physics professor who is also an avid fan of science fiction and comic books, I am simultaneously a nerd and a geek.
i
Given the amazing pace of scientific progress at the beginning of the twentieth century – the invention of the telegraph, telephone and automobile had radically altered notions of distance and time, such that, not for the last time, technology had made the world a somewhat smaller place – it is perhaps not surprising that readers of Amazing Stories in 1928 would expect the eventual development of personal flying harnesses and disintegrator rays.
Buck Rogers’ first adventure was described in Philip Francis Nowlan’s novella, Armageddon – 2419 A.D., published in that famous issue of Amazing Stories.
Anthony Rogers – he would not gain the nickname “Buck” until his appearance in a syndicated newspaper comic strip one year later – was a citizen of both the 20th and 25th century.
Exposure to a gas leak in an abandoned mine induced a former Army Air Corps officer to lapse into a form of suspended animation.
Upon awakening in the future, he rapidly adjusted to this new age.
Nowlan’s hero, catapulted into the future, was just as resourceful as Twain’s confederate yankee thrust back into King Arthur’s court.
Rogers, armed with the weaponry of tomorrow and a military acumen acquired during his service in World War I (obviously referred to as “The Great War” in 1928), joins a team of rebels fighting against the evil “Hans” invaders from Asia who had conquered America in the early 22nd century.
In fact, many of the stories published in science fiction pulps of the 1930’s and 1940’s are distinguished by optimism that in the future there would be continued scientific progress coupled with a pessimism that there would be absolutely no improvement whatsoever in international (or interplanetary) relations.
The confidence in scientific advancement, history shows, was justified, as well as, sadly, the expectation in the persistence of global strife.
In the pause in hostilities among European nations between the Great War and the next Great War, a revolution in physics occurred that would lay the foundation for technological innovations that would seem outlandish in the pages of Startling Stories.
The first half of the roaring twenties would see the development of what would eventually be known as Quantum Mechanics, where the tentative guesses and first steps of Planck, Neils Bohr, Albert Einstein and others would inspire Erwin Schroedinger and Werner Heisenberg to separately and independently create a formal, rigorous theory of the properties of atoms and their interactions with light.
Their scientific papers appeared in print the same year that Hugo Gernsback began publishing Amazing Stories.
While quantum mechanics is not, to be sure, the last word in our understanding of nature, it did turn out to be the key, missing ingredient that would enable physicists to develop the field of solid-state physics.
When combined with the electromagnetic theory of the 19th century, quantum mechanics
provides the blueprint for our current wireless world of information and communication.
Scientists today, working on twenty first century nanotechnology, are still dining off the efforts of quantum physicists of the 1920’s.
中标译文：第一章——走向未来三部曲 1900年12月14日和1928年8月26日是人类走向未来的两个标志性日期。1900年12月14日，马克斯•普朗克向德国物理学会提交了针对紫外灾难的解决方案。普朗克认为，原子只有在离散跳跃时才会触发能量损失。该理论翻倒了链动效应中的第一张多米诺骨牌，并于20世纪20年代中期将物理学带入了一个全新发展领域，即量子力学领域。1928年8月26日这个夏末，巴克•罗杰斯在廉价科幻杂志《神奇故事》中首次亮相，该期杂志的封面上画有一个腰背部绑着悬浮装置的年轻男子，他一边升入空中一边向站在现代化房屋前的一个年轻女子和一位年长者挥舞着手臂。 根据这些廉价杂志所设想的未来景象，我们都会与罗杰斯先生比邻而居，并享受着现代技术成果为我们的日常生活带来的惊人变化。 《神奇故事》首期发行于1926年，它是第一本致力于发表科幻故事的杂志，出版商雨果·根斯巴克将此类故事称为“科幻小说”。该杂志的口号是：“今天的天方奇谈……明天的严峻现实。”1900年12月14日是新兴科学领域的诞生日，该领域为书呆子们提供了巨大的发挥空间，而1928年8月26日这第二个标志性日期则开启了那些奇思怪想者所预想的未来世界。我需要指出的是，作为一名痴迷于科幻小说和连环漫画册的物理学教授，我既是一个书呆子也是一个奇思怪想者。[1]20世纪初期，科学技术呈现出了迅猛发展的态势——电报、电话和汽车的发明彻底改变了人们头脑中的时空概念，世界也一再因科技而浓缩。难怪1928年《神奇故事》的读者们会对飞行器和分解射线的发明怀有期待。菲利普·弗朗西斯·诺兰的中篇小说《大决战——公元2419年》中描述了巴克·罗杰斯的首次冒险历程，这篇小说就发表在著名的《神奇故事》杂志上。一年之后，这个故事以漫画连载的形式刊登在多家报纸上面，安东尼·罗杰斯这个20世纪兼25世纪的公民也自此获得了“巴克”的诨号。由于呼吸到了废弃矿井中的泄漏气体，一名前陆军航空队军官陷入了一种假死状态。当他醒来后发现自己已身处未来世界，但他很快便适应了这个新的时代。诺兰笔下一跃步入未来的英雄就像吐温笔下返捣亚瑟王宫的南部同盟军一样足智多谋。凭借未来世界的武器装备和在第一次世界大战（其在1928年期间被堂而皇之地称为“伟大的战争”）中练就的军事才能，罗杰斯加入了一支反叛队伍，抵抗来自亚洲的邪恶“汉斯”侵略者，这些侵略者已在22世纪初攻克了美国。事实上，20世纪30年代和40年代的廉价科幻小说杂志上发表的许多故事都有一个特征：虽然它们对未来科技的进步持乐观态度，但是对国际（或星际）关系的进展却持悲观态度。历史验证了人们对于科学发展的信心，但不幸的是，它也见证了持续不断的国际冲突。第一次世界大战之后至第二次世界大战之前，欧洲国家之间的敌对行动暂时处于间歇期，这一时期，物理学领域所取得的革命性突破为各项技术创新奠定了基础，我们可以在《惊奇故事》中领略这些创新技术的神奇。在喧嚣的20年代上半个时期，一种最终被称为量子力学的学科得以发展，在该领域中，普朗克、内尔斯·玻尔、爱因斯坦和其他科学家的尝试性猜测和初步行动激发了欧文·薛丁格和沃纳·海森堡的灵感，于是他们各自独立开创了一套正规、严谨的理论，来论证原子的特性及其与光之间的相互作用。在他们发表科学论文的同一年，雨果·根斯巴克开始出版《神奇故事》。虽然量子力学并不一定是人们探索自然的最后断语，但它的确是物理学家开启固态物理学发展领域的那把不可或缺的钥匙。通过与19世纪的电磁理论相结合，量子力学为我们当前所处的无线信息通信世界提供了一份蓝图。目前致力于二十一世纪纳米技术的科学家们仍在受益于20世纪20年代量子物理学家的研究成果。
 twin02 最后编辑于 2010-06-21 15:33:30
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