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String theorist Brian Greene wants to help you understand the cold, cruel universe
弦理论家布莱恩·格林帮你理解这个冰冷残酷的宇宙
By Jeffrey Kluger
文/杰弗里·克鲁格
If you're feeling all dreamy about the universe, here's a pro tip: don't tell Brian Greene.
如果你痴迷于思索有关宇宙的问题，有个专业建议你不妨听一下：不要把你的想法告诉布莱恩·格林。
That guy can chill your cosmic buzz fast.
那哥们儿分分钟就能浇灭你的兴头。
I recently swung by the office of the Columbia University theoretical physicist full of happy, giddy questions and came away pretty much empty.
前不久，我带着满脑子的疑问兴致勃勃地走进了哥伦比亚大学理论物理学办公室，结果，出来的时候大脑基本已经一片空白了！
Is there such a thing as a natural moral order? I wondered.
我在想，世界上是否存在一种自然道德秩序？
Not in this universe, there isn't.
没有，至少我们这个宇宙没有。
What about a purpose to the universe, then—
那……宇宙有目的么？换句话说，
the reason the whole 13.8 billion-year-old shebang with its hundreds of billions of galaxies and trillions of planets happened in the first place?
有着138亿年历史，数千亿个星系和数万亿颗行星的宇宙究竟为什么会产生？
Nope, Greene says, no such purpose, adding, "And that's O.K."
没有，格林说，宇宙并不存在这种目的，他接着说道，“但也不妨事。”
Maybe for him it is.
或许，是对他来说不妨事。
Surely, though, Greene will grant the existence of free will—that first item on the wish list of every freshman-year philosophy student who ever lived.
尽管如此，格林还是会认可自由意志——有史以来的每个哲学一年级学生愿望清单上的第一条都是自由意志——的存在的吧？
Sorry, not a chance.
抱歉，想都别想。
"Your particles are just obeying their quantum-mechanical marching orders," Greene says.
“粒子只是在遵循量子力学的运动命令而已，”格林说。
"You have no ability to intercede in that quantum-mechanical unfolding.
“人是无法介入量子力学环境的。
None whatsoever."
没戏。”
But here's the thing about Greene, founder of the World Science Festival; host of multiple TV series on PBS;
不过，说到格林——世界科学节创始人，PBS电视台多档节目的主持人，
and the author of five books, including the blockbuster The Elegant Universe and the just- released Until the End of Time:
还是五本书的作者，包括大火的《优雅的宇宙》和刚刚发行的《直到时间尽头》，有一点你得知道：
he says it all with such ebullience, such ingenuous enthusiasm,
他回答这些问题的时候回答得那么兴致高昂，那么热忱，
that if he told you the whole cold, amoral universe was ending tomorrow, you'd roll with it the way he would—
即便他说这个冰冷无情的宇宙明天就会终结，你也会买账，会像他一样认为这事不过是
as just one more dramatic chapter in an extraordinary tale in which we all have a precious if fleeting role.
一个不同凡响的故事中的又一个充满戏剧性的篇章而已，而我们所有人在其中都扮演了一个匆匆照面却又颇为宝贵的角色。
That's not to say everyone embraces his cosmic view so easily.
但这并不意味着所有人都能这么轻松地接受他的宇宙观。
"I'll be frank," Greene says.
“老实说，”格林说。
"I have some students come in crying. And they say, 'This is kind of shaking my world up,'
“我有一些学生曾经哭着跑来跟我说，‘我感觉我心态都崩了，’
and I say to them, 'That's not a bad thing. It's fine to have your world shook.
我跟他们说，‘没啥大不了的。 偶尔崩一崩没啥。
The pieces may fall back in the end to where you were, and they may not.'"
最终，（崩掉的）那些碎片可能还是会回到原来的位置，也可能不会。’”
On the day I saw him, the man who has made himself the master of some of the most abstruse aspects of physics—
见到他那天，原本已经在物理学最深奥的领域——超弦理论，空间地貌学——颇有建树的他
superstring theory, spatial topography —was instead being mastered by one of the more basic ones: gravity.
竟突然迷上了物理学的基础领域——重力。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
