欧美文化博览 阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦(37)（在线收听）

Einstein had to be really afraid that Hilbert would actually take over the whole game and publish the final equations of General Relativity before him.

爱因斯坦真的担心希尔伯特实际上会接管整个大局并在他自己面前发表最终的广义相对论方程式。

All of a sudden, he discovered that several pointers all seemed to point to the same direction.

突然,他发现所有矛头似乎都指向同一个方向。

Einstein remembered that he had given up a very radical solution that he had stumbled upon already in 1912 and that he had then discarded because it looks just physically too unfamiliar, too unacceptable.

爱因斯坦想起他已经放弃的一个非常激进的解决方案,这个方案他偶然在1912发现,之后又是他自己废弃,因为它看起来很不熟悉,有些不可接受。

But now, after he tried out all these other alternatives,

但现在,在他尝试了所有这些其他选择后,

he was ready to return exactly to that equation,

他准备重新返回那个等式,

back to an equation that he had early considered and then discarded three years before.

回到一个他在3年前就曾早考虑过,然后放弃的方程式。

You realized that you've been wrong in a real flash of inspiration because you realized what you should be doing.

你意识到你在一个真正的灵感瞬间已经错了,因为你意识到自己应该做什么。

You know he had it all in his drawer.

你知道他在自己的抽屉里有这一切。

And that's of course an glorious moment.

当然,这是一个辉煌时刻。

There it was, the equation that he had discarded.

它就在那边, 他已经抛弃了的方程式。

And now it was, look much more promising, much more useful than it had in the winter of 1912.

而现在,看起来更有前途, 比在1912年的冬天更有用。

It isn't always a dark time when you realize that you are wrong,

当你意识到你是错误的也并不总是一个黑暗的时代,

sometimes it's a wonderful time.

有时这是一段美好的时光。

The excitement for Einstein comes with the realization that the answer for his new theory can be found in an old astronomical riddle.

爱因斯坦的兴奋来自他意识到这个新理论的答案,这在一个古老的天文谜语中被发现。

Einstein began to look at a mystery that had puzzled astronomers for generations.

爱因斯坦开始寻找一个困扰了天文学家世代的谜。

According to Sir Isaac Newton,

根据艾萨克·牛顿爵士,

the planet Mercury should be going around the sun like this.

水星这样绕太阳运行。

But it was known for quite a while that the orbit of Mercury deviates from Newton's laws of motion.

但是它已经被众人知晓,水星的轨道偏离了牛顿的运动定律。

It tilts a little bit.

它稍微倾斜。

So the orbit instead of going like this begins to tilt and it begins to make a pattern like the petals of a flower.

所以轨道而是不继续像这样开始倾斜,它就花瓣一样开始进入一个模式。