萬(wàn)物簡(jiǎn)史 第44期:事物的測(cè)定(2)

At one point the group had to suspend work foreight months while La Condamine rode off to Lima tosort out a problem with their permits. Eventually heand Bouguer stopped speaking and refused to worktogether. Everywhere the dwindling party went itwas met with the deepest suspicions from officialswho found it difficult to believe that a group ofFrench scientists would travel halfway around theworld to measure the world. That made no sense atall. Two and a half centuries later it still seems areasonable question. Why didn't the French maketheir measurements in France and save themselves all the bother and discomfort of theirAndean adventure?

測(cè)量小組有一次不得不停止工作8個(gè)月;同時(shí)，孔達(dá)米納騎馬去利馬，解決一個(gè)許可證問(wèn)題。他最后和布格互不說(shuō)話，拒絕合作。這個(gè)人數(shù)越來(lái)越少的測(cè)量小組每到一處都讓當(dāng)?shù)毓賳T們心存狐疑。他們很難相信，這批法國(guó)科學(xué)家為了測(cè)量世界而會(huì)繞過(guò)半個(gè)地球。這根本說(shuō)不通。兩個(gè)半世紀(jì)以后，這似乎仍是個(gè)很有道理的問(wèn)題。法國(guó)人犯不著吃那么多苦頭跑到安第斯山脈，干嗎不就在法國(guó)搞測(cè)量?

The answer lies partly with the fact that eighteenth-century scientists, the French in particular,seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available, and partlywith a practical problem that had first arisen with the English astronomer Edmond Halleymany years before—long before Bouguer and La Condamine dreamed of going to SouthAmerica, much less had a reason for doing so.

一方面，這是因?yàn)?8世紀(jì)的科學(xué)家，尤其是法國(guó)科學(xué)家，辦事很少用簡(jiǎn)單的辦法。另一方面，這與一個(gè)實(shí)際問(wèn)題有關(guān)。這個(gè)問(wèn)題起源于多年以前--早在布格和孔達(dá)米納夢(mèng)想去南美洲之前，更不用說(shuō)有理由這么做之前--英國(guó)天文學(xué)家埃德蒙·哈雷。

Halley was an exceptional figure. In the course of a long and productive career, he was a seacaptain, a cartographer, a professor of geometry at the University of Oxford, deputy controllerof the Royal Mint, astronomer royal, and inventor of the deep-sea diving bell. He wroteauthoritatively on magnetism, tides, and the motions of the planets, and fondly on the effectsof opium. He invented the weather map and actuarial table, proposed methods for working outthe age of the Earth and its distance from the Sun, even devised a practical method for keepingfish fresh out of season. The one thing he didn't do, interestingly enough, was discover thecomet that bears his name. He merely recognized that the comet he saw in 1682 was thesame one that had been seen by others in 1456, 1531, and 1607. It didn't become Halley'scomet until 1758, some sixteen years after his death.

哈雷是個(gè)不同凡響的人物。在漫長(zhǎng)而又多產(chǎn)的生涯中，他當(dāng)過(guò)船長(zhǎng)、地圖繪制員、牛津大學(xué)幾何學(xué)教授、皇家制幣廠副廠長(zhǎng)、皇家天文學(xué)家，是深海潛水鐘的發(fā)明人。他寫(xiě)過(guò)有關(guān)磁力、潮汐和行星運(yùn)動(dòng)方面的權(quán)威文章，還天真地寫(xiě)過(guò)關(guān)于鴉片的效果的文章。他發(fā)明了氣象圖和運(yùn)算表，提出了測(cè)算地球的年齡和地球到太陽(yáng)的距離的方法，甚至發(fā)明了一種把魚(yú)類保鮮到淡季的實(shí)用方法。他惟一沒(méi)有干過(guò)的就是發(fā)現(xiàn)那顆冠以他名字的彗星。他只是承認(rèn)，他在1682年見(jiàn)到的那顆彗星，就是別人分別在1456年、1531年和1607年見(jiàn)到的同一顆彗星。這顆彗星直到1758年才被命名為哈雷彗星，那是在他去世大約16年之后。