PBS. 新星.约翰·纳什.伟大的疯狂（2002）

Mathematicians have the propensity to be
数学家们比大多数人
Eccentric more than most people,
有着更古怪的倾向
But there was no hint that it would shade over into
但是没有迹象显示这会逐渐发展成为
Fully delusional, psychotic behavior,
绝对的妄想症 或是精神失常行为
We were all aware that he had a great career
我们都知道他在事业上非常辉煌
That was shattered in a few minutes.
但却在几分钟之内毁于一旦
It was a very disastrous fall
对前途无限的人来说
Of someone who was promising beyond any reasonable limit.
这是灾难性的沉重打击
He was so incredibly himself,
他极端自我 令人难以置信
So special and so unusual,
又是如此特殊 与众不同
He was just an oddity
他就是个怪人
And there was something sweet about it.
但又有一些好的方面
The idea that someone who had been mentally ill
一个曾经患有精神疾病
And impoverished
同时身处贫困之中
And really on the fringes of society for decades
几十年来始终生活在社会边缘的人
Was being considered for a Nobel Prize,
能够获得诺贝尔奖的垂青
I thought that was amazing.
我觉得很令人惊讶
Madness can be an escape,
疯狂的行为是一种逃脱
If things are not so good,
如果事情都不顺利的话
You may be want to imagine something better,
你也许会想要幻想一些好的事情
In madness, I thought I was the most important person of the world
在疯狂的世界里 我是世界上最重要的人
And people like the Pope would be just like enemies,
而例如教皇那样的人
Who would try to put me down in some way.
就是费尽心机想阻挠我的敌人
A BRILLIANT MADNESS
伟大的疯狂
In September 1949,
1949年9月
The world learned that
有个消息震♥惊♥全♥球♥
The Soviet Union had joined the United States
苏联跟美国一样
As a nuclear power,
成为拥有核武器的强国
The shocking news intensified fears in the U.S,
令人震惊的消息加剧了美国人的恐惧
And put a premium on mathematicians,
同时开始对数学家也更加重视
Mathematicians had helped win WWII;
数学家帮助他们赢得了二战
Now there was hope they could protect America's strategic edge.
现在人们希望他们能保护美国的战略地位
Princeton University boasted the most elite math department in the world;
普林斯顿大学拥有世界上最好的数学系
Each of its graduate students was handpicked,
每个研究生都是万里挑一的精英
That year, one stood out:
在那一年 有一名学生格外突出
A twenty-year-old from West Virginia
来自西弗及尼亚的20岁小伙
Named John Forbes Nash.
约翰·福布斯·纳什
These young mathematicians were all pretty cocky,
这些年轻的数学家们都很狂妄自大
But he towered over them in arrogance
但是论自大 自信和行为反常
And confidence and also in eccentricity.
他都更胜一筹
John Nash was always an entity unto himself,
约翰·纳什总是独来独往
When John walked into the room
他走进房♥间的时候
You knew that John walked into the room,
你不用看就能知道一定是他进来了
I think he thought of himself as superior,
我想他认为自己在智力上
Intellectually, mathematically superior,
在数学上 都比其他人强
We thought highly of ourselves and each other,
我们都认为自己和其他同学非常出色
But with John it was double,
但是约翰 他比我们自负两倍
John was just very clearly above it.
非常显然 他更胜我们一筹
Nash rarely attended class,
纳什很少去上课
Claiming it would blunt his originality,
他说这会减弱他的创造力
He was obsessed with making a name for himself,
他沉迷于想让自己成名的念头里
And was always on the hunt for problems
总在试图寻找一些
That had defeated other mathematicians.
其他数学家解答不了的问题
There is something of that in my approach to mathematics,
我接触数学就有这方面的原因
I have tended to think that the thing to do
我更倾向于思考一些
Is to get away from what other people are doing
其他人没有做过的事情
And not to follow directly in anyone's recent work.
而且不会直接借鉴任何人的最新研究成果
He didn't study anything,
他什么课都不上
He didn't assimilate other people's work,
不吸收消化其他人的研究成果
What he did was to try to find his own way
只尝试用自己的方法
Of solving very difficult problems.
来解决非常难的问题
And he thought he had the talent to fulfill these ambitions
并且认为自己有才能实现自己的雄心
Of being the world's greatest mathematician.
成为世界上最伟大的数学家
Nash soon acquired a reputation
由于他的才华和古怪性格
For being both brilliant and odd,
纳什很快就小有名气
In the quadrangle, he rode a bicycle in figure-eights,
在学校院子里 他骑着自行车绕8字形
Over and over,
一遍又一遍
And paced the hallways obsessively whistling Bach’s Little Fugue.
在走廊里边走边用口哨吹巴♥赫♥的小赋格
Fine Hall is where the mathematicians met,
费恩大厅是数学家们见面讨论的地方
I went there, and I looked around,
我去那儿 然后环顾四周
I knew a number of the people but I didn't know them all,
一些人我认识 但不全认识
And I thought this is the strangest group of people in the world!?
我觉得他们是世界上最奇怪的一群人
Not only was Nash not an exception to that
不仅因为纳什也在里面
But I think he was quite far off the chart.
而且我觉得他实在是太疯狂了
He obviously irritated some people by
很显然 他极端怪异的行为
what I think they regarded as extremely eccentric behavior,
确实激怒了一些人
He was certainly not a conformist to anyone's standard.
他当然不会遵奉任何人的标准行事
Even as a boy growing up
当他还是个孩子
In Bluefield, West Virginia,
生活在阿帕拉契山脉深处
Deep in the Appalachian Mountains,
西弗吉尼亚市 布卢菲尔特镇时
John Nash stood out.
他就已经很突出了
I was in grade school, I would be doing arithmetic,
当时我在上小学 正在做算术
And I found myself working with larger numbers
我发现我已经能比其他学生
than other students would be using.
运算更大数值的算式了
I would have several digits,
我会算很多位的算术
And they would have maybe two or three digits.
而其他人也许就用两三位数
One time one of the teachers had said he couldn't do the math.
有次一个老师说他不能这样做算术
This was like fourth grade,
这应该是四年级的人才能做的
And my mother laughed,
然后我母亲就笑了
Because it was, obviously the point was he was doing it differently,
因为纳什就是个做事与常人不同的人
I think my parents always knew that John was bright.
我想父母一直都知道约翰才智过人
His father, John,Sr.
他的父亲 大约翰
Was an electrical engineer;
是一位电气工程师
His mother,Virginia,a former teacher,
他的母亲 弗吉尼亚 曾当过老师
Tutored John at home,
在家里自己辅♥导♥约翰
And had him skip a grade in school.
他们让约翰在学校跳了一级
One time, somebody suggested that I was a prodigy,
有一次 有个人说我是个神童
Another time it was suggested that I should be called "bug brains,"
还有一次别人建议应该叫我"烦人脑子"
Because I had ideas,
因为在别人看来
But they were sort of buggy or not perfectly sound.
我总会想出很惹人烦或是不怎么正常的点子
He took his share of abuse from certain groups,
他会在一些团体里遭到别人恶言相向
The brain working a little bit faster than anybody else's
他的头脑运转得比其他人都快一些
So everybody else felt like they had to ridicule it a little bit,
所以大家都想要奚落他一番
His senior year in high school John won a Westinghouse scholarship,
读高三时 约翰赢得了威斯汀豪斯奖学金
One of only ten awarded nationally,
是全美国仅有的10个人之一
Three years later,
三年后
He graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology
他从卡内基科技学院毕业
With a master’s degree in math,
获得数学硕士学位
His advisor wrote him a one-sentence recommendation:
他的指导老师给他的推荐信里只有一句话
"This man is a genius."
"这个人是个天才"
The first thing that he did at Princeton,
他来到普林斯顿大学后
Which wowed everyone and made his reputation,
做的第一件让大家大为赞赏 并为其博得声誉的事
Was he invented this game
就是发明了一个游戏
Which was known around the common room as "Nash."
在公共休息室里广为流行的“纳什”游戏
Nash’s deceptively simple game of strategy
这个表面简单 内在藏有玄机的策略游戏
Swept the math department,
风靡了整个数学系
Before long, he applied his interest in games
不久之后 他把对游戏的兴趣运用到
To a new field of mathematics called game theory,
一个叫做博弈论的新数学领域
Game theory attempted to explain the dynamics of human conflict
博弈论试图通过分♥析♥在游戏中所用的战略
By analyzing strategies used in games.
来解释人类行为冲突的问题
"THEORY OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR"
《博弈理论和经济行为》
Nash was interested in everything in mathematics,
纳什对数学领域的一切都感兴趣
But what he was really interested in were the big problems,
不过他真正感兴趣的是一些大问题
At that moment in time game theory was the sexy,
在那段时间里 博弈论是一个有吸引力
Glamorous field,
有魅力的领域
If you wanted to make a splash, it was a good place to be.
如果你想引起轰动 这绝对是最好的入手点
Just a year after arriving at Princeton,
来到普林斯顿大学仅仅一年
He began work on an idea
他又开始致力于研究一种新思维
That challenged the conventional thinking in game theory.
来挑战关于博弈论的传统思想
Classical game theory was basically
传统的博弈论基本上就是