The Centurys Greatest Minds
Albert Einstein
本世纪最伟大的智者
阿尔伯特爱因斯坦
The scientific touchstones of the modern agethe Bomb, space travel, electronics, Quantum physicsall bear his imprint1.
原子弹、太空旅游、电子学、量子物理这类现代科学的代表都有赖于他的影响。
Einstein had conjured2 the whole business, it seemed. He did not invent the thought experiment, but he raised it to high art. Imagine twins , wearing identical watches; one stays home, while the other rides in a spaceship near the speed of light little wonder that from 1919, Einstein wasand remains3 todaythe worlds most famous scientist.
爱因斯坦好象改变了所有些事情。他没创造什么思维的实验，但他将它提高到新高度：试想一对双胞胎，携带相同的手表；一个呆在家，同时另一个在飞船中以近光速运动 毫无疑问，自从1919年到今天，爱因斯坦一直是世界最知名的科学家。
In his native Germany he became a target for hatred4 . As a Jew, a liberal, a humanist, an internationalist, he attracted the enmity of rationalist and anti-百度竞价推广ites. His was now a powerful voice, widely heard, always attended to , especially after he moved to the U.S. He used it to promote zionism, pacifism, in his secret 1939 letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the construction of a uranium bomb.
在他生的德国，他成为了仇恨的对象。作为一个犹太人，一个自由主义者，一个人道主义者，一个国际主义者，他招致了民族主义者和反犹太者的敌意。他的声音当时是有影响力的，广泛传播且被看重的，特别在他到了美国之后。他用它去倡导以色列的犹太人复国主义，和平主义和建造原子弹（在他39年给罗斯福的密信中）。
Meanwhile, like any demigod, he made bits of legend: that he failed math in school . That he opened a book and found an uncashed $1,500 check he had left as a bookmark .That he was careless about socks, collars, slippers5 that he couldnt even remember his address: 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, where he finally settled.
同时，像每一个名人一样，他制造了一些传说；在学校中数学不及格（八成不是真的）。他翻开书却发现一张没兑现的$1500的支票被当成书签扔在里面（可能他对平时的事务心神不定）。他不在乎我们的袜子，领圈和拖鞋 甚至他想不起自己最后定居的住址：普林斯顿莫色尔大街112号。
He died there in 1955 And after the rest of Einstein had been cremated6, his brain remained, soaking for decades in a jar of formaldehyde belonging to Dr. Thomas Harvey. No one had bothered to dissect7 the brain of Freud, Stravinsky or Joyce, but in the 1980s, bits of Einsteinian gray matter were making the rounds of certain neurobiologists, who thus learned absolutely nothing. It was just a brainthe brain that dreamed a plastic fourth dimension, that banished8 the ether, that released the pins binding9 us to absolute space and time, that refused to believe God played dice10.
1955年他死在那里。当他身体其余部分被火化后，他的大脑被保存起来，在一瓶甲醛中侵了几十年，现是托马斯博士。没人费心去解剖弗洛伊德、斯特拉文斯基或乔伊斯的大脑，但在80年代，一些神经生物学家为搞清爱因斯坦的一些灰质大费周折，但最后一无所获。那只是一个大脑，它想象了一个可伸缩的第四维度，它推翻了以太学说，它使大家从绝对时空的束缚中解脱出来，它拒绝相信上帝在抛骰子。
In embracing Einstein, our century took leave of a prior universe and an erstwhile God. The new versions were not so rigid11 and deterministic as the Newtonian world. Einsteins. God was no clockmaker, but the embodiment of reason in nature. This God did not control our actions or even sit in judgment12 on them. This God seemed rather kindly13 and absentminded, as a matter of fact . Physics was free, and we too are free, in the Einstein universe which is where we live.
由于信奉了爱因斯坦，大家的世纪告别了原有些宇宙和上帝。新的宇宙和上帝不再那样刻板、僵硬，象牛顿的世界那样。爱因斯坦的上帝不是钟表匠而是自然定律的化身。这个上帝不控制大家的行动，更不对其加以判决。（爱因斯坦，不要再管上帝该做什么。玻尔最后反驳道）这个上帝事实上好像有的和善，心神不定。在这个爱因斯坦的宇宙中，在这个大家生息繁衍的宇宙中，物理学没了束缚，大家也没了束缚。
Einsteins Theory of Relativity
爱因斯坦的相对论
Special Relativity
狭义相对论
Relativity says that light always moves in a straight line through empty space, and always at the same speed in a vacuum, no matter what your observation point. From these simple claims follow bizarre consequence that challenge common sense and our perception of reality.
它指出光在真空中走直线，且在真空中光速恒定，不论你的观测点怎么样。由这简单的结论得出一些奇怪的推论，它们挑战了大家对现实的平时感知。
* A moving clock runs slower than a stationary14 one from the perspective of a stationary observer.
* 从固定的察看者来看运动中的表比静止的慢。
* A moving object appears to shrink in the direction of motion, as seen by a stationary observer
* 固定的察看者来看运动的物体，它在运动方向上好像会缩小。
General Relativity
广义相对论
In general relativity, time is considered a dimension like height, width and depth, creating a four dimensional universe called space-time. Einstein argued that gravity is really a warping15 of space-time,with the greatest distortions near the most massive objects. Because light travels in a straight line through the contours of space-time, a light beam will curve where space-time curves, this curving was first measured in 1919
在广义相对论中，时间被看作和长宽高中一年级样的维度，并与它们构成了一个四维宇宙被称作时空。爱因斯坦提出万有引力是一种时空变形，在巨大的物体附近有紧急的变形。由于光沿时空走直线，所以光线在时空弯曲的地方会弯曲。这现象在1919年初次被观测到。
