邊走邊唱
歲月像條河，河中蕩著船，船裏盛滿好聽的歌。
《美麗》譯文
翻譯：打饢的鄉親
原發時間：2005-10-23
原發地址：http://post.baidu.com/f?kz=54079474
《美麗》（節選）
就我所認識的如伊娃和魯思及知道的那些科學家們而言，一個人在對自然法則進行跟進和了解的時候，往往在開始不久，就會與美遭遇。我的一個朋友告訴我說：“我不知道這種美與夕陽落日的美是不是一回事情，但我感覺它們是一樣的。”說這話的朋友是位物理學家，在他的職業生涯中，他花費了大量的時間研究星球內部必然發生的運動和變化。這位朋友使我想起了我初遇迪拉克的量子力學方程式以及愛因斯坦的那些對相對論進行解說的理論時帶給我的激動和震顫。“它們是如此的美麗，你幾乎立即就可以確定他們肯定是真理，或者說，它們處在走向真理的道路之上。”他說到。當我問他，是什麽使得一個理論變得美麗的時候，朋友答到：“樸素、勻稱、典雅和力量”。
關於這一點，即為什麽自然會得與我們認為的美麗的理論保持一致，是很不明顯的。愛因斯坦說，關於宇宙，最不可理解的事情就是，它是可以被理解的。想到我們作為星球上生命如此短暫的動物，居然能夠測量光速，能夠解析原子結構，還能夠計算黑洞引力，這是多麽的難得與奇妙。我們距離全知實在還有太長的路要走，但是在了解自然的運行之路上我們收獲頗豐。一代又一代，我們苦苦地思索著方程式，驗證著它們，然後，相當地出乎人們的預料，我們發現，自然居然是與之吻合的。建築師們在繪圖紙上繪製著設計圖紙，她設計的樓體經受了地震的考驗。我們將人造衛星送入軌道，然後利用衛星在大陸架之間傳遞著信息。我正在用來寫下這些文字的這架機器，將千百個我此時的頓悟物化為具體的形象，印證在這個物質的世界裏。透過那字裏行間，在我的頓悟裏麵，每一個歡跳的字母折射著我的頓悟。它們歇息在屏幕上，我透過鏡片凝視著屏幕，意識到這透視的原理在每一個微小的點滴上，都遵循著古老的牛頓定律。
……
在我試圖對美以文字加以描述和表達的時候，我陷入此前從未遇見過的語言藩籬。語言可以創造它自身的美麗，當然，但它自身卻無法向我們傳達我們自領會這個世界時所感受到的溫暖和光輝。一張捕捉住使人可以產生眩暈感的雄鷹迅飛圖和一張表現出超行星摧枯拉朽之力的成功照片，帶給我們的感受，勝過千言萬語。伊娃的婚禮相冊中所保留住的婚禮本身的光亮屈指可數，相冊中所有的圖像和文字解說都超出了姿勢和表情的範疇。直指我們內心深處的，是那飛揚在圖形之外的光輝和美麗。所以我不停地擺著姿勢。
湯瑪士默頓說：“自然的意義就在於使我們想到天堂。”因為造物主給了我們永不歇場的劇目，美麗的上演就成了免費的欣賞和無窮無盡的存在。但是，除卻那些特別普遍的美麗類型，我們若想享受更多，我們得接受訓練才能達到目的。至今，盡管距離那場大爆炸已經有150億年的時間了，那個大事件的回聲仍然在我們生存背景上稍微高過絕對溫度的地方震蕩著。美刺激起我的欲望，我相信，對美的經曆是彌漫滲透於宇宙之中的秩序和力量的回聲。測量背景的光熱需要精密的儀器，測量美麗，需要的則是我們蘇醒的心智和我們敏銳的五官。
任何一個有眼睛的人，都可以從一張笑臉和一朵花卉上麵得到歡快的感覺。但是，若想從數學、物理學科裏，或國際象棋的遊戲中，從對一棵樹的造型上，對羽翼的形狀或從長笛的孔裏震顫流出的氣流中，若想從上麵這些事物中獲得對美的感覺的話，你不經訓練，恐怕難能消受。就絕大多數的人類曆史而言，這種訓練來自上一代對下一代的教誨，長者告訴子孫應該如何以及怎樣交付注意。通過注意，我們學習著品嚐各種各樣的美麗滋味，從量子力學到拚接而成的被單床罩。隨著這種愛好而至的，是明顯的進化優勢。這種對於模式格調的擇優能力，幫助我們的祖先挑選伴侶、擇取食物、躲避進攻。雖然這種優勢也會對其它的物種產生作用，但是卻隻有我們人類有能力編排交響樂，玩縱橫字謎遊戲，將石塊雕刻成像，給時間和空間繪製坐標。
（不過問題在於）我們是僅僅把我們作為動物的需要精明地發揮到了一個可笑的極致，還是在將我們的智力結構與宇宙結構極力重疊的道路上蹣跚而行？
Beauty (excerpt)
Judging from the scientists I know, including Eva and Ruth, and those whom I've read about, you can't pursue the laws of nature very long without bumping into beauty. "I don't know if it's the same beauty you see in the sunset," a friend tells me," but it feels the same." This friend is a physicist, who has spent a long career deciphering what must be happening in the interior of stars. He recalls for me this thrill on grasping for the first time Dirac' s equations describing quantum mechanics, or those of Einstein describing relativity. "They're so beautiful," he says," you can see immediately they have to be true. Or at least on the way toward truth." I ask him what makes a theory beautiful, and he replies," Simplicity, symmetry, elegance, and power."
Why nature should conform to theories we find beautiful is far from obvious. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe, as Einstein said, is that it's comprehensible. How unlikely, that a short-lived biped on a two-bit planet should be able to gauge the speed of light, lay bare the structure of an atom, or calculate the gravitational tug of a black hole. We' re a long way from understanding everything, but we do understand a great deal about how nature behaves. Generation after generation, we puzzle out formulas, test them, and find, to an astonishing degree, that nature agrees. An architect draws designs on flimsy paper, and her buildings stand up through earthquakes. We launch a satellite into orbit and use it to bounce messages from continent to continent. The machine on which I write these words embodies hundreds of insights into the workings of the material world, insights that are confirmed by every burst of letters on the screen, and I stare at that screen through lenses that obey the laws of optics first worked out in detail by Isaac Newton.
……
I'm never more aware of the limitations of language than when I try to describe beauty. Language can create its own loveliness, of course, but it cannot deliver to us the radiance we apprehend in the world, any more than a photograph can capture the stunning swiftness of a hawk or the withering power of a supernova. Eva's wedding album holds only a faint glimmer of the wedding itself. All that pictures or words can do is gesture beyond themselves toward the fleeting glory that stirs our hearts. So I keep gesturing.
"All nature is meant to make us think of paradise," Thomas Merton observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty is free and inexhaustible, but we need training in order to perceive more than the most obvious kinds. Even 15 billion years or so after the Big Bang, echoes of that event still linger in the form of background radiation, only a few degrees above absolute zero. Lust so, I believe, the experience of beauty is an echo of the order and power that permeate the universe. To measure background radiation, we need subtle instruments; to measure beauty, we need alert intelligence and our five keen senses.
Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need training, however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird' s wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. For most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts. This predilection brings with it a clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, avoid predators. But the same advantage would apply to all species, and yet we alone compose symphonies and crossword puzzles, carve stone into statues, map time and space.
Have we merely carried our animal need for shrewd perceptions to an absurd extreme? Or have we stumbled onto a deep congruence , between the structure of our minds and the structure of the universe?
附 回10樓聊天（轉自 http://post.baidu.com/f?kz=54079474 13樓）
“我一直欣賞著交流電的正弦波在坐標圖上的流淌。它教會我們理解事物的高峰與低穀前持平衡心態。”
聊天，你的這種在觀察理解人事情形時的清醒和欣賞的心態，我此前在你發在刀吧的帖子中已略有領略。
這種對事物發展進程中所難以避免的低穀的接納和對高超的預知與把握，是一種積澱了相當的人生經驗以後才能體現出來的豁達與胸襟。這裏麵包含的，除了善意與智慧外，還具備著成熟的美感和女性的堅韌。我對此深覺欣賞與渴望。
圖形的美，預演和物化了結構的美。有那簡潔有力的人，潛心研究“結構”於世界的意義。我曾聽說，木炭與鑽石不過互為彼此，之所以在價值上具有天壤之別，不過是因為原子的排列不同，意即結構有易。那人由此斷言，這世界是一個“結構”主宰一切的所在。這個觀點與周某常提及的“外部世界不過是個人心境的映照與反觀罷了”的觀點特具異曲同工之勢，就像蘇小妹笑哥哥：你的心中是團牛糞，看人自然就是牛糞了。
世界，包括物質的和精神的兩重世界，究竟什麽是主宰你的力量？真？善？美？這個世界到底是自然演化的產物還是造物主的功績？基督教的傳教者們說，這世界，一定是基督的創造，否則怎麽可能在每一個物種的內部存在那麽嚴謹的程序？這世界所顯示出的秩序和力量，如果沒有精心的設計，何以能顯示出這樣的美麗和井然？
我麵對這生生世世的謎團，啞口無言，默默無語……
《小河淌水》
月亮出來亮汪汪，亮汪汪
想起我的阿哥在深山
哥象月亮天上走，天上走
哥啊哥啊哥啊
山下小河淌水清悠悠
月亮出來照半坡，照半坡
望見月亮想起我阿哥
一陣輕風吹上坡，吹上坡
哥啊哥啊哥啊
你可聽見阿妹叫阿哥
這歌裏竟然沒有說教!