美国印象：爱迪生（2015）

"and unlike the other operators,
我不会被其他器材打扰“
I was not bothered by other instruments."
这种情况
This condition
让他觉得他更能思考
made him feel like he could think more
更加专心
and he could concentrate more.
他变得很内向
He became very introspective.
他常常觉得孤独
He often felt like he was alone
甚至周围有其他人的时候
even when there were other people around.
五年时间爱迪生担任新闻电报员
For five years,Edison worked as a press operator,
解读新闻报道电报的莫斯电码
deciphering the dots and dashes of the news reports as they came in over the wires.
但一旦熟练 这份工作就不再吸引他
But the task,once mastered,ceased to inspire him.
他选择上夜班
Given his druthers,he took the night shift,
这给他足够自♥由♥时间阅读和实验
which gave him plenty of free time to read and experiment.
不久 他开始摆弄电报设备
Before long,he was tinkering with the telegraphic equipment.
爱迪生正式学校教育不多
Edison didn't have a lot of formal schooling.
大部分技术教育
Most of his technical education
来自电报工作实践
came from the practice of telegraphy.
电报房♥是电学学校
The telegraph offices were schools of electricity.
他研究电学本性
The nature of electricity itself was something he studied
并学会思考系统如何运作
and learned how to think about how that system operated,
他如何去改善
how he might improve it.
爱迪生慢慢觉得自己是个发明家
Edison slowly began to think of himself as an inventor.
爱迪生从根本上开始了
Edison starts,at the core,the mother lode
美国技术改造的大趋势
of the technological transformation in America.
这是非常重要的:
That's very,very important
他的思想 信心
to the way that his mind and his confidence
和在工业社会的位置
and his place at that machine
结合在一起的方式
kind of come together
启动他今后的旅程
to launch the rest of his journey.
(汽笛)
(whistling loudly)
1869年初 22岁的爱迪生辞去电报员工作
In early 1869,Edison resigned his post as a telegraph operator
移居纽约
and at the age of 22 moved to New York
破旧西装口袋里揣着借来的少许美元
with a few borrowed dollars in the pocket of his threadbare suit
去追求他作为发明家的事业
to pursue his career as an inventor.
下面几年他在不同短暂合作关系间跳跃
He spent the next several years bouncing from one short-lived partnership to another,
主要接受合约开♥发♥和生产
mainly developing and manufacturing
小批量电♥信♥设备
small lots of telegraphic devices on contract.
爱迪生后来回忆说
"Sleep," Edison later recalled,
那些日子里 “睡眠是个稀罕的物品”
"was a scarce article" in those days.
但他细致而顽强
But he was meticulous and tenacious,
没有技术难题可以吓倒他
and no technical challenge could cow him.
负责完善别人粗糙的机器
Charged with perfecting others' crude machines,
他敏捷的脑子转出
his agile mind spun out
大量不同的产品:
a seemingly infinite array of variations:
自动电报机 电报打印机
automatic telegraphs and printing telegraphs
和所谓多路电报机
and so-called multiplex telegraphs,
能同时同线发送多个消息
which were capable of sending more than one message at the same time on the same wire.
蓬勃发展的产业给了他信心 也让他致富
The booming industry rewarded him with confidence,and also with cash.
正如一位助理说的
As one associate put it,
“如果你告诉我 你可以用机器弄出婴儿
"If you should tell me you could make babies by machinery,
我都不应该怀疑“
I shouldn't doubt it."
到1870年代中期 爱迪生名下
By the mid-1870s,Edison had a growing stack
成功申报的电报专利不断增长
of successful telegraphic patents to his name
并有足够资金在门洛帕克建造他梦想的实验室
and enough capital to finance his dream laboratory in Menlo Park.
爱迪生去门洛帕克是真正的冒险
Edison took a real risk in going to Menlo Park.
你必须得非常大胆
You had to be pretty bold
去建立这个新事物 - 发明实验室 -
to build this new thing-- invention laboratory--
而你要成为一个职业发明家
and you were going to become a professional inventor
需要不断制♥造♥出新技术
who was constantly cranking out new technology.
因为他有如何成为伟大发明家的远见
But it was because he had this vision of how to become a great inventor.
这是惊人的创新
This was astoundingly revolutionary.
“我想要发明
You know,"I want to invent.
我将去发明“ 对么?
I'm going to be about invention," right?
“我真不希望被太多人打扰太多时间"
"And I don't really want to be bothered lots of times with very much else."
这是1876年5月
It was May of 1876,
爱迪生急于开始工作
and Edison was anxious to get down to work.
他的工作人员已经到位
His staff was already in place,
一小群实验助手
a small group of experimental assistants
和熟练机械师
and skilled machinists,
很多人与他共事多年
many of whom he'd worked with for years.
剩下的就是把家搬来
All that remained was to move in his family:
他的妻子玛丽 他们在1871年春天认识
his wife Mary,whom he'd met in the spring of 1871
并于数月后结婚
and married several months later;
他们的孩子 马里昂和小托马斯·阿尔瓦
and their children,Marion and Thomas Alva,Jr,
喜欢莫斯的慈爱父亲曾戏称他们
or as their Morse-loving father had dubbed them,
“小点”和“短线”
"Dot" and "Dash."
爱迪生把他们安置在宽敞的房♥子里
Edison installed them in a spacious house
就在实验室山下
just down the hill from the laboratory,
除了周日
and that,excepting Sundays,
他们基本见不到他
was more or less the last they would see of him.
从最开始 门洛帕克就像蜂巢一样喧闹
From the very beginning,Menlo Park thrummed like a hive.
在实验室长而开放的房♥间里
In the long,open rooms of the laboratory,
十几个人在一起工作
as many as a dozen men were at work at once
进行实验 切割模型
conducting experiments,cutting patterns,
敲打组装粗糙的机器
banging together crude machines.
爱迪生喜欢追寻
Edison loved the chase.
他想去破解
He wanted to break open
非常有趣和有大量潜力
very interesting and challenging problems
喜欢有挑战的难题
with a lot of promise in them.
驱动力和技术探究有联♥系♥:
The drive had something to do with technical inquiry:
一种野心 去认识或找出没人想到过的事物
a kind of ambition to know or to figure out things that nobody had thought of yet.
不只是回答问题
It wasn't just like answering questions
大家都知道问题只是还没有解答
that everybody knew were there and didn't have answers yet;
而是甚至提出问题并回答它们
it was like even coming up with the questions and answering them.
虽然电报设备仍是首要重点
Though telegraphic equipment was still his primary focus,
爱迪生告诉朋友门洛帕克计划
the plan at Menlo Park,as Edison put it to a friend,
“每十天一个小发明
was to bring out "a minor invention every ten days
每个月左右一个大发明“
and a big thing every month or so."
没人有爱迪生那样的资源
Nobody had the kind resources that Edison had.
他会说
He could say,
“你用这种碳试验
"You work on this kind of carbon,
你用那种碳试验
"and you work on this kind of carbon,
“你用这种碳试验“
and you work on this kind of carbon."
他会跟踪
He would keep track
在工作中总共花了多少小时
of how many hours he spent in a row on something
并试图击败他最高记录
and try to beat his last record.
他差不多吃住在工场楼上
He was very into living above the store,if you will,
他还真的私下认为
and he really implicitly thought
其他人也应该是这样
that everybody else should be like that.
“我们整晚做实验 然后睡到中午”
"We work all night experimenting and sleep till noon in the day,"
爱迪生的首席实验助理查尔斯·巴彻勒
Edison's chief experimental assistant,Charles Batchelor,
告诉他弟弟
told his brother.
“爱迪生不知疲倦”
"Edison is indefatigable."
这是群粗人
It was a rowdy group of guys.
这像个兄弟会的房♥子
It was kind of like a frat house,
但他们能多说点别的
but they had the added thing of saying,
“我们这里处于进步的前沿”
"We're at the leading edge of progress right here."
(喧闹 乐队演奏)
(crowd chatter,band playing)
这是个奇迹的时代
It was an age of marvels,
近900万人次参观
as any of the nearly nine million visitors
世纪博览会可以证明
to the Centennial Exposition could attest.
1876年5月10日在费城占地236英亩
Opened on May 10,1876,on a sprawling 236-acre tract
的费尔芒特公园开幕
in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park,
博览会标志美国作为
the exposition marked America's dramatic debut
世界领先工业大国的戏剧性登场
as the world's leading industrial power.
这里的蒸汽机规模如此庞大
Here was a steam engine so massive
可以同时运行数百个机器
that it could run hundreds of machines simultaneously;
一个电梯能让站着的人上升8层楼
an elevator that enabled a man to make an eight-story climb while standing still;
一个使用电池的笔
and a battery-operated pen
同时书写同个文件的多个副本
that produced multiple copies of a document at one time.
“美国的发明