约翰·葛瑞宾（John Gribbin），英国著名科学读物专业作家，萨塞克斯大学天文学访问学者。他毕业于剑桥大学，获天体物理学博士学位，曾先后任职于《自然》（Nature）杂志和《新科学家》（New Scientist）周刊。他著有50多部科普和科幻品，其中的科学三部曲《薛定谔猫探秘》（In Search of Schrodinger's Cat）、《双螺旋探秘》（In Search of the Double Helix）和《大爆炸探秘》（In Search of the Big Bang）尤为脍炙人口。蔡信行，台湾大学化学工程系毕业，美国卡内基美隆大学化学博士，曾任东海大学及静宜大学兼任副教授，现为国立台湾科技大学化工系兼任教授及国立成功大学石油策略研究中心兼任研究员，专擅科普文章的写作和翻译。
Almost Everyone's Guide to Science (Excerpt)
《国民科学须知》（节选）
By John Gribbin
文/约翰·葛瑞宾
译/蔡信行
Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technical endeavours.., in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
Albert Einstein, Caltech, 1931
我们致力于所有的技术，无非都是为了我们本身和我们的未来……心中所挂念的是为了创造人类的福祉，而不是制造灾祸。在我们以图表和方程式表现时，总要时时秉持这种信念。
爱因斯坦，于加州理工学院，1931
INTRODUCTION
序
If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.
与实验不一致就是错的。
The fate of specialists in any one area of science is to focus more and more narrowly on their special topic, learning more and more about less and less, until eventually they end up knowing everything about nothing.
不管在哪个科学领域，专家的命运总是如此：在自己专业的主题上，研究焦点愈来愈集中、愈来愈狭窄，于是渐渐对愈来愈少的事情知道得愈来愈多，终于，达到七窍通了六窍的境界。
It was in order to avoid such a fate that, many years ago, I chose to become a writer about science, rather than a scientific researcher. The opportunity this gave me to question real scientists about their work, and to report my findings in a series of books and articles, enabled me to learn less and less about more and more, although as yet I have not quite reached the stage of knowing nothing about everything. After thirty years of this, and many books focusing on specific aspects of science, it seemed a good idea to write a general book, giving a broad overview of science, while I am still at the stage of knowing a little bit about most things scientific.
为了避免走上这种路，从许多年前起，我自己就选择要成为一位科学写作者，而不是科学研究者。这样我就有机会多多请教真正的科学家他们在做些什么，再把我发现到的东西写成一系列的文章与书，使我能够对愈来愈多的事情都约略有些了解，即便只是达到七窍通了两三窍的境界而已。经过了三十年，也写了很多针对某些科学特殊领域的书之后，对于大多数的科学学问，我仍然处于几乎一窍不通的阶段。我想到，也许写一本更一般性的书，对科学做个更宏观的描述，是个不错的好点子，那我不是很快就能涉猎到更宽广的科学领域了吗？
Usually, when I write a book the target audience is myself - I write the book about, say, quantum physics, or evolution, that I wish somebody else had written for me so that I would not have had to go to the trouble of finding things out for myself. This time I am writing for everybody else, in the hope that there will be something here for almost everyone to enjoy. If you know a little quantum physics (or even a lot), you may find here something you didn't know about evolution; if you know about evolution, you may find something new to you about the Big Bang, and so on.
通常我写一本书时，都是以自己为目标读者。譬如说，我在写量子物理学或者是进化论时，总是希望那是别人已经替我写了的书，写得让我在阅读时不会遇到麻烦，轻易就能看懂。而这次我写这本书，则是把每一个人都当成目标读者，希望大家都能乐在其中，有所收获。即使你已经了解一点点量子物理，或甚至懂很多了，也会在这儿发现一些你并不知道的进化论；即使你晓得进化论，也可以从这本书获得大爆炸的新知；等等。
So, although I am aware of the ghost of Isaac Asimov looking over my shoulder (I hope with approval) at such a wide-ranging project, this is not 'John Gribbin's Guide to Science', but a guide for almost everyone else. A guide not so much for fans of science and the cognoscenti but more a guide for the perplexed - anyone who is vaguely aware that science is important, and might even be interesting, but is usually scared off by the technical detail.
所以，虽然我了解阿西莫夫的鬼魂一直在注意着我进行这项包罗广泛的计划（这本书理当是艾大师应该完成的著作，我希望已获得他的允许，越俎代庖），但这本书毕竟不是《葛瑞宾的科学须知》，而是给所有国民、不分男女老少的科学须知。这本科学须知不专是给喜好科学的人或行家看门道，更是给那些为科学所惑的人，不管是对科学的重要性茫然不知的人，或是对科学可能有兴趣、但通常畏惧于技术细节的人，大家一起来看热闹。
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