萬物簡史 第49期:事物的測定(7)

　　Once in a great while, a few times in history, ahuman mind produces an observation so acute andunexpected that people can't quite decide which isthe more amazing—the fact or the thinking of it.Principia was one of those moments. It made Newtoninstantly famous.

　　極其偶然，歷史也只有過幾次吧，有人作出如此敏銳而又出人意料的觀察，人們無法確定究竟哪個更加驚人--是那個事實還是他的思想。《原理》的問世就是這樣的一個時刻。它頓時使牛頓聞名遐邇。

　　For the rest of his life he would be draped with plaudits and honors, becoming, among muchelse, the first person in Britain knighted for scientific achievement. Even the great Germanmathematician Gottfried von Leibniz, with whom Newton had a long, bitter fight over priorityfor the invention of the calculus, thought his contributions to mathematics equal to all theaccumulated work that had preceded him. "Nearer the gods no mortal may approach," wroteHalley in a sentiment that was endlessly echoed by his contemporaries and by many otherssince.

　　在他的余生里，他將生活在贊揚聲和榮譽堆里，尤其成了英國因科學(xué)成就而被封為爵士的第一人。連偉大的德國數(shù)學(xué)家戈特弗里德·萊布尼茲也認(rèn)為，他對數(shù)學(xué)的貢獻比得上在他之前的所有成就的總和，盡管在誰先發(fā)明微積分的問題上，牛頓曾跟他進行過長期而又激烈的斗爭。"沒有任何凡人比牛頓本人更接近神。"哈雷深有感觸地寫道。他的同時代人以及此后的許多別人對此一直懷有同感。

　　Although the Principia has been called "one of the most inaccessible books ever written" (Newton intentionally made it difficult so that he wouldn't be pestered by mathematical"smatterers," as he called them), it was a beacon to those who could follow it. It not onlyexplained mathematically the orbits of heavenly bodies, but also identified the attractive forcethat got them moving in the first place—gravity. Suddenly every motion in the universe madesense.

　　《原理》一直被稱為"最難看懂的書之一"(牛頓故意把書寫得很難，那樣就不會被他所謂的數(shù)學(xué)"門外漢"糾纏不休)，但對看得懂的人來說，它是一盞明燈。它不僅從數(shù)學(xué)的角度解釋了天體的軌道，而且指出了使天體運行的引力--萬有引力。突然之間，宇宙里的每種運動都說得通了。