有位师长来长沙，邀请方约我作陪。聊天中，师长提到他的一位同事，水平很高但是不谙人事，为人处世有贵族精神，科研也有贵族传统。

科研的贵族传统，和科研工作者本人及其家庭是否富有关系不大，而和教育和天性密切相关。量子力学的创始人M. Born家境殷实，做科研的时候需要仪器，就自己买上一套，在家里做。冯诺依曼出身巨富之家，每年换一辆新版卡迪拉克。牛顿，爱因斯坦出生时，家境一般。这些科学家及其科研工作，塑造了科学家和科研工作的本来面目，是科研的原生态。瓠巴鼓瑟流鱼出听，伯牙鼓琴六马仰秣。

Perelman和陈景润的研究具贵族传统。不过这二位离群太甚，不值得推崇，不值得效仿。

什么是科研的贵族传统？且看如下例子。

一：Shapiro面对失去的诺贝尔奖的态度：因为没有坚持，所以不怨他人

和李政道杨振宁提出宇称不守恒想法之前，估计很多人已经感觉到这一点，至少两个人,美国科学家Gell-man和苏联科学家Shapiro,明确地表示了应该检验宇称是否守恒或者提出了宇称不守恒的想法。Okun的回忆如下：

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Landau was absolutely against parity violation because space is mirror symmetric. This is analogous to conservation of momentum and angular momentum, because space is homogeneous and isotropic. Of course the analogy is not complete, because shifts and rotations are continuous, while reflections are discrete.

[Half a year earlier the Lebedev Institute hosted the first Moscow conference on elementary particles in which American physicists participated [11, 12]. I recall that Landau laughed at Gell-Mann (the youngest of the Americans, but already very famous), when the latter during his seminar at the Institute of Physical Problems mentioned that parity violation could be one of the solutions of θτ -problem.

Roughly at the same time Landau reacted similarly at an unpublished note by Shapiro. In this note a Wu-type experiment was suggested. I learned about it three years later, when Shapiro moved from the Moscow university to ITEP and showed me his unpublished note. I remember that there was a wrong statement in this note: the value of energy is different in left- and right-handed coordinates, if P is violated.2 Later Shapiro gave this note to the director of ITEP Alikhanov, and it was lost. There was no copying machine at ITEP.]

---- L.B. Okun, Mirror particles and mirror matter: 50 years of speculation and search

根据何祚庥和庆承瑞两位先生的说法，Shapiro并不为失去诺贝尔奖而懊恼，更没有因此而怨恨Landau，而是轻轻说了一句“当时，我也没有坚持”。

二：Prasher面对失去的诺贝尔奖：当时离开科学界也是正确的决策

2008年的化学诺贝尔奖，颁给了绿色荧光蛋白的发现者Osamu Shimomura, Chalfie和Tsien(钱永健)。可是，Douglas Prasher是发现的关键贡献者。当宣布颁奖消息的时候，Prasher还在一家企业中做穿梭巴士的司机。

当问起他感受时，他的回答是：当时，经费花完了，工作也完了，积蓄花完了，我需要离开科学界，另谋生路。没什么不对。

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In an October 9, 2008 phone interview with National Public Radio (NPR) and October 14, 2008 TV interview with Inside Edition, Prasher reported that he was unable to find a job in science, his life savings had run out, and he was working as a courtesy shuttle bus driver for a Toyota dealership in Huntsville at $8.50 an hour.

---- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher

三：Hugh Everett III：是非审于己毁誉听于人得失安于数

Hugh Everett III(1930 –1982)是量子力学多世界解释的发现者，也是他的博士论文，发表在已经被神话的刊物Rev. Mod. Phys.上，Hugh Everett. "Relative state" formulation of quantum mechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 29 (3) (1957)454–462. Wheeler是他的导师。论文发表后，他离开了物理学界。然后，多世界解释慢慢被量子力学界普遍认识和接受，而且炒得越来越热，认识越来越深。

不过，离开物理学界的Hugh Everett III对量子力学的多世界解释保持适当的距离。1971年，当有人要发表他的博士论文，他的态度如下：请便，但是我不编辑，不校稿，…。对于多世界解释带来的巨大名声敬而远之：1956年我金盆洗手，从此物理学界发生的事情和我无关。

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Everett took no part in that debate. In 1971, he consented to the publication of the long version of the thesis in a small book edited by DeWitt and his student Neill Graham ‘‘with the proviso that [he] would not have to devote any effort to editing, proof reading, etc.’’ In 1977, Wheeler, who was then at the University of Texas in Austin, invited Everett for a conference. There Everett met DeWitt for the first and last time. Everett’s ideas sparked the interest of some of Wheeler’s students who attended the conference. David Deutsch, who was among them, has reported that Everett appeared quite sympathetic to the many-worlds interpretation.  However, answering a letter of that year in which he was explicitly asked if he advocated such an interpretation, Everett said laconically: ‘‘I certainly approve of the way Bryce DeWitt presented my theory, since without his efforts it would never have been presented at all.’’ And referring in another letter to the title of DeWitt’s and Graham’s book, The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, he said: ‘‘This of course was not my title as I was pleased to have the paper published in any form anyone chose to do it in!’’ And he added: ‘‘I, in effect, had washed my hands of the whole affair in 1956.’’  Indeed, Everett made little effort to promote and develop his ideas, and showed himself reluctant to go beyond generic comments in private correspondence either.

---- S. Osnaghi, F. Freitas, O. Freire, The origin of the Everettian heresy, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 40(2)(2009)97-123