错误引用爱因斯坦的现象，主要原因是人们对于神秘和带着“偶像”和“天才”标签的权威人物的追捧——这是人之常情。相对论在上世纪代开始风行，但其实很多人只是在牵强附会。
爱因斯坦：这话我可没说过
作者：Marina Benjamin
译者：徐唱 & 李林治
校对：周树人
策划：鲁迅 & 徐唱
Thus spake Albert
爱因斯坦：我没说过这句话。
You probably know a quote from him. He probably never said it. How did Einstein become a touchstone of all that is wise?
你或许听过他的名人名言。他或许从未说过那句话。爱因斯坦为何会成为一切智慧事物的象征？
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In late , a sheet of paper bearing a 13-word sentence in German in the original handwriting of Albert Einstein went on sale at an auction house in Jerusalem. The city is home to the archives of Einstein, which he willed before his death in 1955 to the Hebrew University, the institution that he helped to found in the 1920s.
去年十月，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦手写的一张13字德语字条在耶路撒冷拍卖。他的档案馆也在那个城市。1955年，爱因斯坦在生前将他的资料遗赠给了该市的希伯来大学——他在上个世纪二十年代帮助建立的学校。
The paper was inscribed and autographed in Japan on the stationery of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and dated November 1922, the month in which Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. He stayed at this hotel during his massively popular lecture tour of Japan, when he attracted even more attention than the Japanese imperial family. Apparently somewhat embarrassed by such frenetic publicity, Einstein decided to record some of his thoughts and feelings about life in writing. He gave this particular sentence (and another shorter one) to a Japanese delivery courier, either because the courier refused to accept a tip, in keeping with local practice, or because Einstein had no small change. ‘Maybe if you’re lucky those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip,’ Einstein apparently told the unnamed Japanese courier, according to the document’s seller, reported by the BBC to be the courier’s nephew.
被拍卖的那句话是写在一张东京帝国酒店的便签纸上。爱因斯坦在上面签署了自己的名字，日期是1911月（他也在那个月被授予诺贝尔物理学奖）。当时，他在日本进行大规模的巡回演讲，这些演讲甚至比他和日本皇室的会晤更受人关注。很显然，因为这种公众狂热而引起某种窘迫感促使爱因斯坦用写作来记录一些想法和感受。他将那张字条（以及另外更短的一张）送给了一位日本的快递小哥——这个举动可能是因为快递小哥为了遵循日本习惯而拒绝接受小费，也可能是因为爱因斯坦当时没有零钱。据文件的卖家（BBC报道称是那位快递员的侄子）说，爱因斯坦显然告诉过那位无名的日本快递小哥：“如果你够幸运，这些字条将比寻常的小费更加值钱。”
The Jerusalem auction house estimated that the note would sell for between $5,000 and $8,000. Bidding started at $2,000. For about 20 minutes, a flurry of offers pushed up the price rapidly, until the final two bidders vied for the trophy by telephone. By the end, the price had risen to a scarcely believable $1.56 million.
耶路撒冷拍卖行估算那张字条将会拍到5000到8000美金。叫价从2000美金开始。在开始的约20分钟内，一阵快速的应价将价格飞速提升，直到剩余两位出价人通过电话进行最后的竞争。结果，拍价升至几乎让人无法相信的156万美元。
vie for compete keenly with sb. (for sth); rival sb. for sth 与某人（为某事物）激烈竞争; 与某人争夺某事物
Translated into English, Einstein’s sentence reads: ‘A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.’
如果翻译成英文，爱因斯坦的字条写着：“比起永不安宁地追逐成功，平静谦逊的生活带来更多的幸福。”
Today, Einstein is history’s most-quoted scientist: way ahead of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking, judging by the number of Einstein quotations in his online entry on Wikiquote – and way ahead of his 20th-century non-scientist contemporaries Winston Churchill, George Orwell and George Bernard Shaw.
直至今日，爱因斯坦是历史上被引用名言最多的科学家：远远超过亚里士多德、伽利略、牛顿、查尔斯·达尔文和史蒂芬·霍金。如果从Wikiquote上面爱因斯坦的引用条目来说，他的引用次数也远远超过同在20世纪的非科学家名人，例如温斯顿·丘吉尔、乔治·奥威尔和萧伯纳。
entry |entri| n. item written in a list, a diary, an account book, etc. （写进清单﹑ 日记﹑ 帐本等的）项目
Unsurprisingly, Einstein is quoted as an authority on science. For example: ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.’ But he is more frequently quoted on a wide variety of non-scientific subjects, including education, intelligence, politics (he was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952), religion, marriage, money and music-making. On education we get: ‘Education is what remains after you have forgotten everything you learned in school.’ On intelligence: ‘The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.’ On politics: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ On religion: ‘God does not play dice.’ On marriage: ‘Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.’ On money: ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’ On music: ‘Death means that one can no longer listen to Mozart.’ And on life in general: ‘Things should be made as simple as possible but not any simpler.’ All of the quotations have appeared, and reappeared, in the world’s leading newspapers, and are extensively disseminated online.
意料之中的是，爱因斯坦在科学领域上被引证为权威。例如：“这个宇宙最让人难以理解的是就是它可以被理解”。而意料之外的是，他更多时候是在非科学领域被引用，包括在教育、智慧、政治（他在1952年被邀请出任以色列总统）、宗教、婚姻、金钱和音乐创作方面。在教育上我们有：“教育就是你忘记所有在学校所学一切之后剩下的东西”。在智慧上有：“天才和愚蠢之间的区别就是天才是有极限的”。在政治上有：“精神错乱就是一遍又一遍地重复做同一件事，而期待会有不同的结果”。在宗教上有：“上帝不掷骰子”。在婚姻上有：“男人因为希望她们永不改变而迎娶女人。女人因为希望他们改变而嫁给男人。结果男女双方总是对彼此失望。”在金钱上有：“并不是每一件能被计算的事情都是有意义的，也不是每一件有意义的事情都是能被计算的”。在音乐上有：“死亡意味着再也不能听莫扎特了”。还有关于生命的：“尽可能简化事情，但勿将事情本身视为简单”。所有这些语录都在世界知名报刊上不断出现，也在网络上广泛流传。
disseminate |dsemnet|v. spread (ideas, beliefs, etc.) widely 散布, 广为传播（思想﹑ 信仰等）
But here we are making an assumption. Did Einstein definitely say or write the above statements? Judging by the detective work on display in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, on Wikiquote and on , plus my own research as an Einstein biographer, there is ample room for doubt. In fact, not a single one of the above quotations has been definitely attributed to Einstein, with the exception of ‘God does not play dice’! And even this is a pithy rendition of Einstein’s precise comment on quantum theory, in a 1926 letter to the physicist Max Born, where he wrote (in German): ‘The theory says a lot, but does not bring us any closer to the secrets of the “old one”. I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.’
但说到这儿，我们其实是在假设这些话真是爱因斯坦说的。爱因斯坦真的说过或写过上面这些话吗？根据《爱因斯坦语录》、Wikiquote、以及中的考证成果，再加上我自己对爱因斯坦生平的研究，这些所谓的“爱因斯坦”语录有很大的质疑空间。实际上，上述的语录除了“上帝不掷骰子”以外，没有一句是可以百分百确定是爱因斯坦说的。就连那句“上帝不掷骰子”也是他对量子理论评论的一个简化版本——这原本是爱因斯坦在1926年（用德文）写给物理学家马克斯·玻恩信中的一句话：“这个理论说了很多，但是它并不能带我们走近旧理论中的秘密。从任何角度来说，我都相信祂不在玩骰子。”
In other words, quotations from Einstein vary vastly in authenticity. Many can be traced to his writings; some are based on the recollections of those who knew him well; some have mutated over time; some resemble his thinking, or seem consistent with his personal behaviour but are not really his. And a number are simply bogus, invented to take advantage of his reputation as a genius and iconoclast – one being a notorious Einstein quotation apparently embracing astrology as ‘science’. As Calaprice observes: ‘Some sound genuine, some are apocryphal, and others are no doubt fakes, created by those who wanted to use Einstein’s name to lend credibility to a cause or an idea.’
换句话来说，爱因斯坦语录的真实性参差不齐。很多句子可以被追溯到他的作品，一些句子来源于曾了解他的人的回忆；一些句子在时间的长河中慢慢变色；一些句子看起来和他的思想或个人行为相似，但其实并不是他所说的。还有数量可观的一些就仅仅是虚构的，为的就是他作为一个天才和打破传统之人的名声。正如卡拉普斯所观察到的那样：“一些句子听起来是真的，一些句子是可疑的，而其他的句子毋庸置疑是杜撰的，是那些想利用爱因斯坦名头来为他们的事业或思想增加可信度的人编造的。”
So why are we still fascinated enough by Einstein to embroider, and even manufacture, extensive quotations from him? The answer must be as diverse, complex and unique as the man and his life, but is surely rooted in Einstein’s scientific genius. But there must be much more to Einstein’s appeal, which goes far beyond the world of science, than his great thinking power. In , Arthur C Clarke – whose own writings and personality reached well beyond readers and cinemagoers who like science fiction – put Einstein’s enduring global fame down to ‘the unique combination of genius, humanist, pacifist and eccentric’. While Newton, for example, is a household name, how many advertisers would think to use his image – as they frequently do Einstein’s – to promote a product for the general public, except perhaps apples? No politician is likely to drop Newton’s name in a speech, and Newton is seldom quoted outside a scientific context. Of course, Newton biographies continue to be written, but Newton does not pop up in newspaper headlines, cartoons and ordinary conversation. There are only a handful of well-known anecdotes about Newton, and no Newton jokes. One cannot imagine a popular book entitled ‘The Quotable Newton’.
所以为什么我们对爱因斯坦如此着迷，以至于去大规模地加工、甚至捏造他的语录呢？基于他多样、复杂和独特的人物个性与人生经历，答案也一定是多样的。不过可以肯定的是，他的科学天才是一切的基础。然而，比起他的思维力量，我们对他的着迷更多来源于超出科学世界的个人魅力。，亚瑟·查理斯·克拉克将爱因斯坦长久的世界声誉归因于“天才、人文主义者、和平主义者和怪人的特殊组合”。（其实克拉克自己的作品和性格的关注度也不仅限于他的读者和观影者）再譬如说，牛顿也是家喻户晓的名字，但多少广告商会像用爱因斯坦的名字那样频繁地用牛顿的形象向公众推广产品呢？当然，如果他们的产品是苹果的话，他们或许会那么做。没有政客会在演讲中抛出牛顿的名字，也鲜有人在科学范畴以外引用牛顿的话。当然还是会有人继续写牛顿的传记，但是牛顿这个名字不会突然出现在新闻标题、卡通或日常谈话当中。坊间流传的牛顿轶事屈指可数，更没有关于他的任何笑话。你是不是也无法想象一本流行读物的名字是《牛顿名言100例》。
anecdote |nkdot| n. short, interesting or amusing story about a real person or event 轶事, 逸闻（关於真人真事的短小有趣的事）
Einstein and Newton shared a great deal in their scientific work, but had very little in common as human beings. For all Einstein’s skepticism about personal relationships and institutional life, his two unsuccessful marriages and family tragedies (his second son, Eduard, spent his last three decades in a Swiss mental hospital), he was frequently highly sociable. He was a regular public speaker, kept up a vast correspondence with friends, colleagues and strangers, and made constant efforts to help scientific ‘rivals’ and newcomers – for example, the then-unknown Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose, with whom he created Bose-Einstein statistics.
爱因斯坦和牛顿在科学研究上有很多共同之处，但作为人，他们却鲜有相似之处。尽管爱因斯坦怀疑人际关系和制度性生活、有两段失败的婚姻和家庭悲剧（他的次子艾多拉德人生的最后三十年在瑞士精神病院度过），但他依旧常常社交。他常常公开演讲，和大量的朋友、同事和陌生人保持联系，不断地帮助科学‘对手’和新人——比如，在当时还不知名的印度数学家萨特延德拉·纳特·玻色，爱因斯坦和他共同创造了玻色-爱因斯坦统计。
Unlike Newton, Einstein’s disagreements over science and all other matters – except anti-Semitism and Nazism – were conducted without polemic, and usually without rancour. There is no malice even in his long and inconclusive battle with Bohr over quantum theory. Einstein hit hard but not in order to wound. Arguing with his close friend Born on the same subject in the 1940s and ’50s, the closest Einstein came to an ad hominem attack was the sardonic comment: ‘Blush, Born, blush!’
不同于牛顿，爱因斯坦对于科学和其他事情的不同意见——除了反犹太主义和纳粹主义外——都不是一种激烈抨击的态度，而且通常不带恨意。即便在他和玻尔对于量子理论长期的、无结果的辩论中，他也不带一丝恶意。爱因斯坦辩口利辞，但不会伤人。和好友波恩在上世纪40和50年代辩论同一问题时，爱因斯坦最像人身攻击的话，也只不过是那句嘲笑性质的评价：“脸红吧，波恩，脸红吧！”
sardonic |sɑ:rdɑ:nk| adj. expressing scorn, use in a grimly humorous way; mocking 嘲笑的; 讥笑的
In addition, almost all the public causes that Einstein supported were admirable and far-sighted. Many required moral courage. He stood up to be counted – and attacked – against anti-Semitism, segregation and the lynching of black people in the US; against the witch-hunts of McCarthyism, the build-up of the military-industrial complex, and against the drift towards nuclear war, at a time when few of these causes was either fashionable or ‘respectable’. Instead of basking in his fame and enjoying himself with physics, music and sailing, Einstein fought oppression wherever he thought his name and reputation might have a desirable impact. One cannot say that his various interventions were decisive, but there is ample testimony that he gave hope to the persecuted and influenced public debate.
此外，几乎所有爱因斯坦支持的公共事业，都是令人敬佩和富有远见的。其中很多事业需要道德勇气。他反对反犹太主义，反对种族隔离和美国针对黑人的私刑；反对针对麦卡锡主义的政治迫害，反对军工复合体，以及反对支持核战争的趋势。他因此经受风浪，甚至收到攻击，而当时这些事业既不流行也不“值得尊敬”。爱因斯坦既没有溺于声名，也没有独自享受物理、音乐和航海的乐趣，而是在认为他的名字和声誉可能获得可观影响的情况下去抗争压迫。虽不能说他的介入起了决定性的作用，但他绝对给遭到迫害的人带去了希望，也对公共辩论产生了影响。
persecute |p:rskju:t| v. treat sb. cruelly, esp. because of his race, his political or religious beliefs, etc. 迫害某人（尤指基於种族﹑ 政治或宗教信仰等原因）
It’s worth noting that Einstein was himself inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, and he shared Gandhi’s indifference to material success – though he rejected Gandhi’s view that civil disobedience could be weaponised against the Nazis. In 1952, Einstein called Gandhi ‘the greatest political genius of our time’. Gandhi proved ‘of what sacrifice man is capable once he has discovered the right path. His work on behalf of India’s liberation is living testimony to the fact that man’s will, sustained by an indomitable conviction, is more powerful than material forces that seem insurmountable.’
值得一提的是，爱因斯坦本人是受到了甘地的启发。他认同甘地不在乎物质成功的理念，尽管他不同意甘地的另一理念，即非暴力不合作可以当做武器来对抗纳粹。1952年，爱因斯坦称甘地为“我们这个时代最伟大的政治天才”。甘地证明了“一旦一个男人发现了正道，到底能牺牲多少。不屈不挠的信念所支撑的意志，比起看似不可逾越的物质力量，更加有力。他对于印度解放所做的贡献，便是活生生的证明。”
indomitable |ndmtbl| adj. that cannot be subdued or defeated; unyielding 不可屈服的; 不可战胜的
Einstein’s answer to religion, which was tantamount to sacralising the scientific endeavour, has been taken seriously across the religious spectrum. In , the biologist and militant atheist Richard Dawkins wrote that:
爱因斯坦对宗教的解答是将科学之路神圣化，这一观点在宗教领域受到很大的重视。，生物学家、激进的无神论者理查德·道金斯写道：
Einstein was profoundly spiritual, but he disowned supernaturalism and denied all personal gods … I gladly share his magnificently godless spirituality. No theist should presume to give Einstein lessons in spirituality.
爱因斯坦有深邃的内在信仰，但他不承认超自然主义，也否认所有的人格神……我欣然同意他那宏伟的无神精神。有神论者都不应该觉得自己能给爱因斯坦上一堂精神课。
How much do artists revere him? During Einstein’s lifetime, Max Brod – Franz Kafka’s literary executor – wrote a novel, his most famous work, Tycho Brahe’s Path to God (1915), in which the character of Kepler was closely based on Einstein, whom Brod came to know in Prague in 1911-12. Brod commented that Einstein ‘time and again filled me with amazement, and indeed enthusiasm, as I watched the ease with which he would, in discussion, experimentally change his point of view, at times tentatively adopting the opposite view, and viewing the whole problem from a new and totally changed angle’. William Carlos Williams, E E Cummings and the Czech writer Karel apek, have all mentioned Einstein in their works.
艺术家有多尊敬他？爱因斯坦的一生中，马克斯·勃罗德——卡夫卡作品的出版者——一生最著名的小说《蒂科·布拉赫走向上帝之路》（1915）中，人物开普勒基本就是按照爱因斯坦原型设计的，勃罗德1911-在布拉格与爱因斯坦相识。勃罗德说爱因斯坦“一次又一次让我惊奇，让我真正感受到热情，正如我观察他在讨论中会实验性地改变观点，尝试接受相反的看法，从全新的角度看待整个问题。”威廉·卡洛斯·威廉斯，卡明斯，和捷克作家卡雷尔·恰佩克在他们的作品中都提及了爱因斯坦。
As for the more subtle influences of Einstein’s ideas on artists, attempts have been made to link him with the works of, among other modernist writers who use multiple viewpoints, T S Eliot, Virginia Woolf and Lawrence Durrell. But as the authors of the study Einstein as Myth and Muse (1985) admit, there is no clinching evidence. Referring to Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet (1957-60), Alan Friedman and Carol Donley comment honestly: ‘Simply because writers say they are using relativity … does not mean either that they understand it or that their adaptations of relativity principles succeed artistically.’
至于爱因斯坦对艺术家的印象所产生的更细微的影响，人们尝试将他和艾略特，弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫和劳伦斯·达雷尔，以及其他使用多种观点的现代主义作家的作品联系起来。但正如Einstein as Myth and Muse一书作者承认的那样，这一点并没有决定性的证据。艾伦·弗里德曼和卡罗尔·唐利引用达雷尔的《亚历山大四部曲》（1957-60），诚实地说道：“仅仅因为作者说他们使用相对论……既不代表他们懂，也不代表他们对相对论的改编在艺术上取得了成功。”
It is tempting to recall here Einstein’s comment on the philosophers of relativity: ‘the less they know about physics, the more they philosophise’. And perhaps also the physicist Paul Dirac’s unintentionally amusing warning about trying to link science and art: ‘In science, one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.’
在此回忆爱因斯坦对相对论的哲学的评论，是很有吸引力的：“他们知道的物理越少，他们就越高谈阔论”。或许人们还可以想起物理学家保罗·狄拉克那虽非有意但有些逗乐的一句话——他当时是对试图把科学和艺术联系的行为发出警告：“在科学上，一个人想要以所有人都理解的方式告诉人们之前从未听过的东西。但在诗歌上，这正好是相反的。”
The phenomenon of Einstein misquotation is largely driven by an all-too-human desire for mystification and for authority figures, epitomised by the two words ‘iconic’ and ‘genius’. When relativity first became popular in the 1920s, many people assumed that Einstein could be cited to the effect that everything is relative, including truth; that all observations are subjective; and that anything is possible. ‘I like quoting Einstein,’ as the Jewish-American author, historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel declared with a grin in an interview with The Guardian on his 90th birthday in 2002. ‘Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.’ Terkel’s quip is especially ironic, given Einstein’s lifelong distrust of authority – particularly in physics, education or politics. But even here, Einstein commands the last word. In an authentic aphorism for an unnamed friend, he wrote in 1930: ‘To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.’
错误引用爱因斯坦的现象，主要原因是人们对于神秘和带着“偶像”和“天才”标签的权威人物的追捧——这是人之常情。相对论在上世纪代开始风行，但其实很多人只是在牵强附会，以为相对论是说世间万物都是相对的，真理也是相对的，所有的观察都是主观的，因而任何事都是可能的。“我喜欢引用爱因斯坦，”美籍犹太作家、史学家、广播员斯特兹·特克尔2002年90岁生日接受《卫报》采访时咧着嘴笑道。“知道为什么吗？因为没人敢反驳你。”特克尔的俏皮话很讽刺，因为爱因斯坦一生都不信任权威——尤其是在物理、教育和政治。但1930年，他写给一位不知姓名的朋友：“为了惩罚我藐视权威，命运让我变成了权威。”
contempt |kntempt| n. feeling that sb/sth is completely worthless and cannot be respected 轻视; 蔑视
