今夏比爾蓋茨一推薦，這五本書就紅遍全球

什麽書能讓超級大腦，億萬富翁比爾蓋茨愛不擇手，讀至深夜仍意猶未盡？

什麽書能激發他的創造性思維，再燃科幻的奇想？

今夏比爾蓋茨一推薦，這五本書就紅遍全球。

喜歡原汁原味的人可以直接在這讀比爾蓋茨的推薦文，喜歡讀中文的人可以讀我的翻譯。

今夏推薦五本書

比爾蓋茨 5/17/2016

 

經曆了九個月風雨，西雅圖終於迎來了夏季。天空晴朗，幾乎沒有任何濕度而且夜晚很涼爽。最重要的是，你有時可以坐在外麵讀一本好書。

今年夏天，我推薦閱讀清單中的書籍都含有相當分量的科學和數學。但是在我選擇的過程中並沒有用任何科學或數學。下麵的五本書隻是我喜歡，激發我用新的方式去思考，讓我愛不擇手讀至深夜。其結果是，這五本書單包括了從800頁的由一個當地的傳奇作家寫的科幻小說到200頁的關於日本怎麽重獲它的經濟魔力的非小說類書籍。今年夏天，當你有些可以自己支配的空閑時間，我希望你能從中找到至少一本書讓你能超越現狀。

Seveneves，by Neal Stephenson。在朋友向我推薦這本書之前，我已經有十年沒有看過任何科幻小說了。我很感謝她的推薦。開門見山，小說的第一句話，月球炸毀了。當人們知道未來的兩年災難性的流星雨將消滅地球上所有生命時，人類團結一致，為了生存，推出了盡可能多的航天器以便帶所有的人逃離地球。你可能會失去耐心去讀住在西雅圖的斯蒂芬森關於太空飛船的描述，但我喜歡其中的技術細節，顯然作者對宇宙飛船有很深的研究。 Seveneves重新激發了我對科幻的興趣。

How Not to be Wrong，by Jordan Ellenberg。 Ellenberg，數學家和作家，解釋了數學如何在我們的日常生活中甚至在不經意的時候發揮作用的。書中的每一章都以似乎相當簡單課題開頭，比如政治選舉，說話，或馬薩諸塞州彩票，然後以此為起點談論所涉及的數學。在一些地方，數學變得相當複雜，但他始終確保仍然能讓你跟上他的思維。這本書的更大的要點是，正像Ellenberg自己寫道， “做數學就是這樣的，火一樣的激情運算卻要被理性所製約。” – 正因為如此，我們每時每刻，都在做數學。

The Vital Question，by Nick Lane。 Nick是那些原創思想家之一。這些人的想法總使你感到應該讓更多的人知道他們的工作。他試圖通過讓人們充分領略能源在所有的生命中扮演的角色去糾正一個錯誤的科學。他認為，我們可能理解生命是如何開始，如何活的東西變得如此複雜，卻不了解能量在其中是如何發揮作用的。這不僅僅是理論上的關於為什麽線粒體（電廠在我們的細胞）能起到抗癌和營養不良的作用。即使尼克論證的細節被證明是錯誤的，我認為他對能量的研究將對我們來自哪裏的解釋作出重要貢獻。

 

The Power to Compete，Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani。我對日本情有獨鍾，這還要追溯到大約三十年前，當我第一次為微軟前往那裏。當然了，現在所有對全球經濟感興趣的人都會對日本特別關注。為什麽它的企業，在上世紀80年代會在與韓國和中國競爭中黯然失色哪？而且他們能回來嗎？這是Ryoichi Mikitani，2013年去世的經濟學家和他的兒子Hiroshi，互聯網公司樂天的創始人之間的一係列對話的核心。雖然我不完全同意Hiroshi的所有程序，但我覺得他有很多好的想法。抗衡的威力在於明智地展望一個迷人的國家的未來。

 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,  by Noah Yuval Harari。因為梅琳達和我都讀了這本書，所以在吃飯時我們常常圍繞著這本書交談。哈拉裏挑戰自己：隻用了400頁就講述了人類的整個曆史。他還寫到了我們今天的物種，以及如何人工智能，基因工程等技術將改變我們的未來。雖然我發現有些觀點我和他不同，尤其是他關於人類從最初就不應該耕種的說法，但我會推薦Sapiens給所有對我們這個物種曆史和未來感興趣的人。

 

 

5 Books to Read This Summer

By Bill Gates 

| May 17, 2016 

 

Here in Seattle, summer is a gift you earn by gutting out nine months of rain and gloom. The skies are clear, there’s hardly any humidity, and the nights are cool. Best of all, you sometimes get the chance to sit outside reading a great book.

 

This summer, my recommended reading list has a good dose of books with science and math at their core. But there’s no science or math to my selection process. The following five books are simply ones that I loved, made me think in new ways, and kept me up reading long past when I should have gone to sleep. As a result, this is an eclectic list—from an 800-page science fiction novel by a local legend to a 200-page nonfiction book on how Japan can get its economic mojo back. I hope you find at least one book here that inspires you to go off the beaten path when you get some time to yourself this summer.

 

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. I hadn’t read any science fiction for a decade when a friend recommended this novel. I’m glad she did. The plot gets going in the first sentence, when the moon blows up. People figure out that in two years a cataclysmic meteor shower will wipe out all life on Earth, so the world unites on a plan to keep humanity going by launching as many spacecraft as possible into orbit. You might lose patience with all the information you’ll get about space flight—Stephenson, who lives in Seattle, has clearly done his research—but I loved the technical details. Seveneves inspired me to rekindle my sci-fi habit.

 

How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg. Ellenberg, a mathematician and writer, explains how math plays into our daily lives without our even knowing it. Each chapter starts with a subject that seems fairly straightforward—electoral politics, say, or the Massachusetts lottery—and then uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about the math involved. In some places the math gets quite complicated, but he always wraps things up by making sure you’re still with him. The book’s larger point is that, as Ellenberg writes, “to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason”—and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time.

 

The Vital Question, by Nick Lane. Nick is one of those original thinkers who makes you say: More people should know about this guy’s work. He is trying to right a scientific wrong by getting people to fully appreciate the role that energy plays in all living things. He argues that we can only understand how life began, and how living things got so complex, by understanding how energy works. It’s not just theoretical; mitochondria (the power plants in our cells) could play a role in fighting cancer and malnutrition. Even if the details of Nick’s work turn out to be wrong, I suspect his focus on energy will be seen as an important contribution to our understanding of where we come from.

The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani. I have a soft spot for Japan that dates back three decades or so, when I first traveled there for Microsoft. Today, of course, Japan is intensely interesting to anyone who follows global economics. Why were its companies—the juggernauts of the 1980s—eclipsed by competitors in South Korea and China? And can they come back? Those questions are at the heart of this series of dialogues between Ryoichi, an economist who died in 2013, and his son Hiroshi, founder of the Internet company Rakuten. Although I don’t agree with everything in Hiroshi’s program, I think he has a number of good ideas. The Power to Compete is a smart look at the future of a fascinating country.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari. Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species