走進劍橋大學(xué) 第16期:輪椅上的天才霍金

所屬教程:走進劍橋大學(xué)

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2018年04月21日

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The Genius in the Wheelchair

輪椅上的天才霍金

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942，the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. He has come to be thought of the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein.

斯蒂芬霍金出生于1942年1月8日，這一天正好是伽利略逝世300周年紀念日。人們認為他是自愛因斯坦以來最偉大的物理學(xué)家。

Hawking grew up outside London in an intellectual family. His father was a physician and specialist in tropical diseases; his mother was active in the Liberal Party. He was an awkward schoolboy, but knew from early on that he wanted to study science. In 1959 he won a scholarship to Oxford University, where his intellectual capabilities became more noticeable. In 1962 he went to Cambridge University to pursue a PhD in cosmology. There he became intrigued with black holes and “space time singularities.”

霍金出生于倫敦郊區(qū)的一個知識分子家庭，他的父親是名擅長醫(yī)治熱帶病的內(nèi)科醫(yī)生，母親是名活躍的英國自由黨分子。上學(xué)時霍金就表現(xiàn)得有些怪異，和其他孩子不同。但很早人們就知道他有志于科學(xué)研究。1959年霍金獲得了牛津大學(xué)的獎學(xué)金，在那里他的研究能力得到了很大提高。1962年霍金前往劍橋大學(xué)攻讀宇宙學(xué)博士學(xué)位。在劍橋大學(xué)，他對黑洞理論和時空奇點理論產(chǎn)生了興趣.

However, Hawking's life was threatened by a terrible disease. He had never been very well coordinated physically as a child, and in his third year at Oxford, he noticed that he seemed to be getting clumsier. Shortly after his 21st birthday, he went into hospital for tests. It was a great shock to Hawking to discover that he had Lou Ge- hrig’s disease (a disease that affects muscle control). The realization that he had an incurable disease was likely to kill him in the first few years.

但是霍金的生命卻因一種嚴重的疾病而受到威脅。當(dāng)霍金還小時，他的身體動作就不太協(xié)調(diào)。在牛津大學(xué)的第三年，他就注意到自己看起來更笨拙了。在他21歲生日過后不久，他去醫(yī)院做了檢查。他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己患有盧伽雷氏癥（一種影響肌肉控制的疾病），這對霍金來說是一個巨大的打擊。在最初的幾年里，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己患有不治之癥這件事差點“殺”了霍金。

The doctors suggested Hawking to go back to Cambridge and carry on with the research he had just started in general relativity and cosmology. Shortly after he came out of hospital, he dreamt that he was going to be executed. He suddenly realized that there were a lot of worthwhile things he could do if he were reprieved. Hawking then began to make progress with his research. And he got engaged to a girl called Jane Wilde, whom he had met just about the time his condition was diagnosed. That engagement changed Hawkins’s life. It gave him something to live for. Jane cared for Hawking until 1991 when the couple separated, reportedly due to the pressures of fame and his increasing disability. Hawking then married his nurse, Elaine Mason in 1995. But they divorced in October 2006.

醫(yī)生建議霍金回到劍橋大學(xué)繼續(xù)他在廣義相對論和宇宙學(xué)方面的研究。在他出院后不久，他就夢到自己要被處死。他突然意識到如果“處死”能夠被暫緩，還有很多有價值的事情等著他去做。從那時起，霍金的研究開始取得進展。他還和簡王爾德訂了婚，霍金在病情剛診斷出來時就遇到了這個女孩。訂婚改變了霍金的生活，給了他活下去的動力。簡一直照顧霍金直到1991年夫婦倆離婚，據(jù)報道婚姻破裂是受霍金的名聲和殘疾加劇所累。1995年，霍金和他的護士伊萊恩梅森結(jié)婚，但兩人于2006年10月離婚。

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. He received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious in theoretical physics in 1978. And in 1979，he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the same post held by Sir Isaac Newton 300 years earlier.

斯蒂芬霍金一直致力于掌控宇宙的基本定理的研究。1978年，霍金獲得了物理學(xué)理論研究領(lǐng)域的最高獎愛因斯坦獎。1979年,他受聘于劍橋大學(xué)任盧卡斯數(shù)學(xué)教授,300年前，這個職位是由艾薩克牛頓爵士擔(dān)任的。