卡耐基演講·1.將事實變?yōu)閳D畫

你說月亮有多遠？那太陽呢？最近的星星呢？科學(xué)家們會以一大堆的數(shù)字來回答這些問題?？墒强破兆骷叶贾?，這不是讓普通聽眾了解的方法，因此，他們將數(shù)字轉(zhuǎn)化成圖畫。How far away is the moon? The sun? The nearest other star? Scientists are apt to answer space travel questions with a lot of mathematics. But science lecturers and writers know this is no way to make a fact clear to an average audience. They turn the figures into pictures.

著名的科學(xué)家詹姆·金恩斯爵士對人們想探測宇宙的渴望特別感興趣。身為數(shù)學(xué)專家，他自然懂得高深的數(shù)學(xué)，但是他也知道，自己寫作或演講時若只偶爾用上幾個數(shù)字，那樣效果才最大。The famous scientist Sir James Jeans was particularly interested in mankind's yearnings to explore the universe. As a scientific expert, he knew the mathematics involved, and he also knew that he would be most effective in writing or speaking if he dropped in a figure only here and there.

我們的太陽和周圍的行星這樣地靠近我們，因此我們不了解在太空中旋轉(zhuǎn)的其他物體究竟離我們有多遠，于是他在《我們周圍的宇宙》一書里這樣講：“即使是最近的一顆星星（普洛西瑪·森多里）也在40233600000000公里以外，那么這是一個多大的數(shù)字呢？”為使這數(shù)字更鮮明些，他說，假如一個人由地球上起飛，以光速——每秒300000公里飛行，他需要四年又三個月才能到普洛西瑪·森多里星。Our sun (a star) and the p1fu.lets around us are so near that we do not realize how far away other objects whirling in space are, he pointed out in his book, The Universe Around Us. "Even the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 25,000,000,000,000 miles away," he said. Then, to make this figure more vivid, he explained that if one were to take off from the earth at the speed of light-186,000 miles a second it would take him four and a quarter years to reach Proxima Centauri.

他以這種方式來說明太空的廣闊浩瀚，比起我在密蘇里州州立華倫斯堡師范學(xué)院聽到的描述阿拉斯加的大小這么簡單問題的金恩斯的解釋可真實多了。那個人說，阿拉斯加的面積是平方公里，人口是64356人，然后就丟下不管了，再不把它的大小描繪給聽眾。In this way, he made the vast distances in space seem more real than did another speaker whom I once heard describe such a simple thing as distances in Alaska. He said Alaska's area was 590,804 square miles, and dropped the attempt to show its size right there.

這么多平方公里是一個什么樣的概念？普通人顯然沒有這樣的概念。大家不會去想到什么平方公里，無法在腦海中形成具體形象，根本想象不出這個面積究竟是和緬因州比誰大誰小。但如果演講者說：阿拉斯加及其所屬島嶼的海岸線比環(huán)繞地球一周的距離還長，而它的面積比維蒙特、新罕布什爾、緬因、馬薩諸塞、羅得島、康乃狄克、紐約、新澤西、賓夕法尼亞、迪拉威、馬里蘭、西弗吉尼亞、北卡羅來納、南卡羅來納、左治亞、佛羅里達、密西西比及田納西等各州加起來還要稍微大一點。這樣豈不是能令所有人對阿拉斯加的面積產(chǎn)生一個相當(dāng)明確的概念嗎？Does this give you any kind of picture of the size of the 49th State? It didn't give me one. To visualize its bigness, I had to wait until I learned from another source that its area more than equals the combined areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Now the 590, 804 square miles take on a new meaning, don't they? You realize that in Alaska there's plenty of room to move around.

記得好幾年前，我們培訓(xùn)班的一個人，驚心動魄地描述了公路上車禍死亡人數(shù)多得可怕：“你現(xiàn)在正駕車橫穿美國，從紐約前往洛杉磯。假設(shè)路旁豎著的不是路標(biāo)，而是棺木，每個里面都裝著一名去年所發(fā)生車禍中的受害者。那么，當(dāng)你驅(qū)車疾馳時，一路上你每隔5秒鐘就得經(jīng)過一個這樣陰森恐怖的標(biāo)示，自全國這頭至那頭，每1.6公里就豎立著12個！”Some years ago a member of one of our classes described the fearful toll of fatal accidents on our highways by this appalling picture: "You are driving across the country from New York to Los Angeles. Instead of highway markers, imagine coffins standing upright in the earth, each containing a victim of last year's slaughter on the roads. As you speed along your car passes one of these gruesome markers every five seconds, for they are spaced twelve to a mile from one end of the country to the other!"

以后每次乘車，車行不遠，這幅景象便十分清晰地浮現(xiàn)在我的腦海里。I never take a ride in a car very far before that picture comes back to me with startling realism.

為什么會有這樣的效果？聽來的印象不容易持久，它們像霰打在櫸樹光滑的樹皮上，隨即滾落。但是看到的印象呢？很多年前，我親眼看到一發(fā)炮彈嵌入一幢立于多瑙河岸邊的老屋里——拿破侖的炮兵部隊曾在烏爾姆戰(zhàn)役中所發(fā)射的炮彈。視覺印象就像那發(fā)炮彈，以排山倒海之勢撲面而來，能夠深深嵌入你的腦子難以磨滅和拿破侖驅(qū)走奧地利人一樣。Why is that so? Because ear impressions are hard to retain. They roll away like sleet striking the smooth bark of a beech tree. But eye impressions? I saw, a few years ago, a cannon ball imbedded in an old house standing on the banks of the Danube - a cannon ball that Napoleon's artillery had fired at the battle of Ulm. Visual impressions are like that cannon ball; they come with a terrific impact. They imbed themselves. They stick. They tend to drive out all opposing suggestions as Bonaparte drove away the Austrians.