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爱因斯坦奇迹年的一点思考与启示
鲍海飞 2016-12-16
爱因斯坦不仅是科学智慧的象征,更是一种文化的象征,爱因斯坦的研究成为了一门独到的学问。1905年被认为是爱因斯坦的奇迹年。在这一年,他完成了他的博士论文并被授予了博士学位。就在这同一年,他发表了举世瞩目的四篇论文,光电效应,布朗运动,狭义相对论,以及物质与能量的等效。还有一说是他发表了五篇文章,这应该包括他的博士论文了。由此,他开始了他的学术之路。(1905 is known as Einstein’s annusmirabilis, or “miracle year”. On 30 April 1905, he finished his thesis, and wasawarded a PhD by the Universityof Zurich. In the same year, he publishedfour famous papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of matter and energy, which put him on the road toacademic fame.)
但就是这么一个年青的小伙子,并没有给人留下深刻印象的家伙,被大学职位置之门外,做着几乎鲜为人知的小职员服务性的工作,却奠定了20世纪的物理,掀起了物理世界的新革命,他是如何做到的?我们知道他的教育吗?或者,对我们自学生又会有什么启发和启示呢?(这个问题,不仅是我们一直在发问!)(How was it, then, that this unimpressiveyoung person—passed over for university positions and apparently settled in anobscure civil service job—came to revolutionize 20th century physics? What dowe know of the education of Albert Einstein? And what, if anything, does ittell us about the education of our own students?)
我也一直在想,究竟是怎样的一种状态、环境或者动力,使这一个只有26岁的小伙子,在还没有到初出茅庐的年龄,仅仅弱冠尚未而立,便能够取得这样非凡的成就?是什么让他眼界大开,思想走得如此之远,问题涉猎面如此之广,认识力度如此之深?最关注的问题是,他的教育背景又是怎样呢?他对教育的看法又如何?他大学毕业后又有什么经历,和我们有什么相似之处?
据说他小时候语迟(但在中国古时,恰认为‘贵人语迟’,这到暗示了一些问题),反应慢,甚至上学时,也不受到老师的欢迎,中学都几乎勉强毕业,在老师的眼中他没有任何杰出的表现。‘三岁看大’在他的身上似乎根本没有得到验证。我们到是应该改变那种对人一层不变的决定论看法。(In1895, he took and failed the entranceexamination at the Eidgen¨ossiche Technische Hochschule (hereafter the ETH) inZurich—Federal Institute of Technology would be a loose translation. He thenspent a year in a Swiss high school, from which hegraduatedin the spring of 1896. That diploma permitted him to enroll in the ETH, which he attended until his graduation in thesummer of 1900.He did not distinguish himself in the eyes of his teachers atthe ETH, and his prospects upon graduating were poor.)
但另一方面,我们却看到另一个完全不同的童年爱因斯坦。在他这个年龄段,他就表现出坚忍不拔的性格。他会花几个小时的时间去研究那些难题,摆很复杂的积木。
(Persistence and tenacity were already partof his character at this age. He would work on puzzles, erect complicatedstructures with his building block set, and build houses of cards up to 14stories high.)
他的自传中描述,他痛恨德国的教育,痛恨死记硬背填鸭式的学习,考完试之后,更加厌倦读书(厌倦他曾经深思熟虑的问题)。这和我们今天的学生高中一毕业时的状态多么相似!我们的孩子本应该有的创造性,由于类似的教育,由于一路的填鸭,一路的灌输,早已心生厌倦厌烦,考上大学之后,便偃旗息鼓了。(In his Autobiographical Noteshe tells us. .. one had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whetherone liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after Ihad passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientificproblem distasteful to me for an entire year.)
爱因斯坦在学校并不快乐,学校的教育系统是死记硬背,并不鼓励好奇和创新性的思考,把人限制在框框架架里面。相反,他的爸爸和妈妈一直在启发、鼓励、教育他,他的亲戚和指导老师送给他科学、哲学、数学书看。在他14岁的时候,自学了几何和算数。16岁的时候写出了第一篇研究论文,并对光与相对论有了自己的想法!天才出少年。从这儿到验证了‘三岁看大,七岁看老’的中国谚语。
(Einstein was unhappy in school, but this was due to thestrict teaching methods employed in the German school system at that time. Theschool system stressed rote-learning and discouraged curiosity and thinking creatively and outsidethe box, which is whatEinstein excelled at. Thanks to his family’s encouragement, though, Einstein’s intellectandinterests grew and developed. He taught himself Euclidean geometry and calculusby the time he wasfourteen. By the age of sixteen he waswriting his first research science paper, and developing his first ideas oflight and relativity.
Einstein was an intelligent, curious child who received an open-minded upbringing and education from his family. Relatives and other mentors introduced him to important texts in science, mathematics and philosophy, including Immanuel Kant's philosophy and Euclid's Elements. His interests in geometry, classical music (Albertplayed piano and violin), science and mathematics were encouraged andaccompanied himthroughout his life.)
记载中发现,在爱因斯坦5岁的时候,它一直被看不见的力所困惑。有一天,他病榻于床,他的父亲送给他一个罗盘玩,并告诉他磁力使指针总是指向北,从此他迷上了身边的物理现象并试图去理解。这一点,也不由得让我想到了牛顿和他的苹果,苹果的落地更加启发了牛顿!从这里我们看到家庭的教育的的确确相当相当重要,如何教育和启蒙更是个关键问题。
(A famous story is told of Einstein beingawakened to the idea of the invisible forces of nature at the age of five, whenhis father gave him a compass and told him that magnetic forces made it always point northward. From that moment on, Einstein directed hiscuriosity and intellect towards understanding the physical world around him.
As a child offour or five his father brought him a magnetic compass (he was ill in bed). Inhis autobiography Einstein recalled the sense of wonder at how the enclosed andapparently isolated needle responded to an invisible magnetic field)
他的自传里,对当时的‘现代教育’更是深恶痛绝:现代教育没有把我的好奇心完全扼杀掉,这简直是个奇迹。
(It is, in fact, nothing short of a miraclethat the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holycuriosity of inquiry;. . . I believe that it would be possible to rob even ahealthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aidof a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously . . .)
这种教育的观念,即使他做了大学教授,他也丝毫没有改变这种看法。向往着宁静和安详是他内心的向往:“乡村安详宁静的生活在激发一颗创造性的心!如灯塔般在照亮我心。如果是一个年轻人的话,在这样的环境下生活,难道他不会去思考科学问题,那些数学和哲学问题吗?”这流露出他对自然的真情实感。
(Nor did his later experiences as auniversity professor change his mind, to judgefrom this excerpt from a speech in1933:When I was living in solitude in the country, I noticed how the monotonyofa quiet life stimulates the creative mind. . . . Such occupations astheservice of lighthouses and lightships come to mind. Would it notbepossible to place young people who wish to think about scientificproblems,especially of a mathematical or philosophical nature, in suchoccupations?
在他20来岁的时候,他个人的生活似乎也是一团糟,其实,这就像我们今天很多你我之流―――似乎就是一个彻头彻尾的凡夫俗子。他开始谈恋爱了,但家庭宗教信仰的不同等成了他和他女朋友之间巨大的阻力。找工作,更是四处碰壁。学习了四年的数学物理,想在大学某个职位,结果不行。于是到中学去应聘,结果还是无奈。后来,竟然有好几年的时间做教辅工作以维持生计。不得已在联邦知识产权局谋了专利员的位置工作。到此,我想,这才是爱因斯坦真正发生人生转变的地方,也是他智慧之火光绽放的地方。以前在很多资料中,只知道他在专利局中工作,从不知道他在专利局中做什么。有人说,他和朋友之间一直保持着交流,对问题进行很多探讨。但我觉得更重要的是,是他在专利局工作这段时间,极大地拓宽了他的视野,并促成了他对自然、宇宙、物质世界的构成和运动等思想的形成。这里或许道出了其中的一些端倪。因为在这里,他一直负责着电磁器件应用方面的专利,尤其是电磁信号的传输和电机的时间同步问题,涉及到相对论和时空问题,而这能够使他更加专注着这方面工作的进展和所存在的问题。(His personal life was also in turmoilduring much of this period. By 1900, he was deeply involved with Mileva Mari´c,a fellow student and a Serbian from southern Hungary, who had come to the ETHto study mathematics and physics. Alas,Einstein’s family thoroughly disapproved ofMari´c; for that matter, her parents did not think a whole lot more of him.
His determined efforts to attain a university assistantshipwere utterly unsuccessful. Equally unsuccessful were his efforts to find a jobteaching in a secondary school. He survived for several years in a series of temporaryteaching and tutoring jobs.
In 1896 he enrolled in the four year mathematics andphysics teaching diploma program at the Polytechnic in Zurich. After completing the program, Einstein was unable to find a teaching position, so he took a job in Bern, at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office, where heexamined patent applications for electromagnetic devices. Much of his work atthe patent office had to do with transmitting electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization oftime, two things that also play an importantrole in the thought experiments that eventually led him to his revolutionaryideas about relativity and theconnection between space and time. )
在这神奇的1905年之后,在不到三年的时间,我们的爱因斯坦已然从一个局外人脱颖而出转变成了一名身先士卒的科学家。1909年,他离开了专利局,转身大学。(Within three years, he had become a leadingscientist. He began teaching as a lecturer at the University of Bern. The nextyear, he quit the patent office and began teaching physics at the University ofZurich. He later taught in Prague, and then in Germany.)
爱因斯坦之幸在于多亏那些高高在上的大学或者学校没有识得这块‘金镶玉’,招募他去任职任教,让他过上顺利的、体面的、俗人的生活。否则,我们难以想象,如果不是阴差阳错,如果不是他父亲的朋友给他在专利局某的职位,他或许就没有今天这样所能取得的高度和深度。虽然他依然可以成为某一个领域的一个物理大家,或者成为诺奖获得者。但难以想象,他会成为这样一个博学大才之家。另一方面,宿命一点,天才就是天才,即使爱因斯坦依旧任劳任怨地工作在其它的‘岗位’上,我相信他依然会成绩斐然,不会流俗。
小小的专利局里面幽静是固然的,但每一个专利案卷都仿佛是一个个思考的灵魂的激情之火在燃烧,这不能不对一个智者的头脑产生共鸣和心灵感应。此外,这也反映了当时的研究现状和研究之潮流。
如果他成功应聘得到了大学的职位,或者一个二流中学的教师,做一些凡夫俗子的俗不可耐的工作,可能就毁了他。而命运之手却把他带入到一个专利事务所。宁静致远加思绪万千是两个不可或缺的条件。我想小小的专利局给他提供了一个宁静思考的地方;第二,在这小小的专利局里让他能够开阔眼界,看到稀奇古怪的观点,尤其是没有孰是孰非对与错的观点和思考。只有问题,只有问题,答案,似乎在那里,又不在那里!这里,没有边界条件,没有约束限制,让他的思想能够天马行空,让他能够使得极大地深度思考。第三,他虽然也在谈情说爱,但依然心思单一。我有一个最大胆的猜想:或许,他创造的动力和欲望就来自于这里!爱情,数学,世界的样子,这是他们两个人的游戏!
研究都需要什么?研究其实很简单,只需要一张纸,一支笔足矣,还有一颗积极思索的大脑。
奇迹的发生需要多少时间?并不需要多少时间!灵感的来源就在顿悟的那一刻。想到了,做到了,实现了。所谓:思想模型、计算推导、试验验证,这就是科学研究的步骤。
灌输式的教育让我们看到了世界之大和自己的渺小,让人无力反抗,很多人选择了流俗,甚至放弃。这世界只有学习就足够了,不需要我们再创造什么!
走在沉闷而又宁静的教室里,忽然想到,在哪一个宁静的角落里,是否会正坐着一个年轻人,在那里孜孜不倦地读书思考,不久的将来,是否会再诞生出一个又一个的爱因斯坦?
守住一颗宁静的心,守住一颗敞开面向自然的好奇心,守住一颗面向自然的善心。
传奇,射雕英雄!
传奇,思想者…….
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