走进剑桥大学 第17期:轮椅上的天才霍金

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轮椅上的天才霍金

Stephen Hawking¹ was born on 8 January 1942，the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. He has come to be thought of the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein.

斯蒂芬霍金出生于1942年1月8日，这一天正好是伽利略逝世300周年纪念日。人们认为他是自爱因斯坦以来最伟大的物理学家。

Hawking grew up outside London in an intellectual family. His father was a physician and specialist in tropical diseases; his mother was active in the Liberal Party. He was an awkward schoolboy, but knew from early on that he wanted to study science. In 1959 he won a scholarship to Oxford² University, where his intellectual capabilities³ became more noticeable. In 1962 he went to Cambridge University to pursue a PhD in cosmology. There he became intrigued⁴ with black holes and “space time singularities.”

霍金出生于伦敦郊区的一个知识分子家庭，他的父亲是名擅长医治热带病的内科医生，母亲是名活跃的英国自由党分子。上学时霍金就表现得有些怪异，和其他孩子不同。但很早人们就知道他有志于科学研究。1959年霍金获得了牛津大学的奖学金，在那里他的研究能力得到了很大提高。1962年霍金前往剑桥大学攻读宇宙学博士学位。在剑桥大学，他对黑洞理论和时空奇点理论产生了兴趣.

However, Hawking's life was threatened by a terrible disease. He had never been very well coordinated⁵ physically⁶ as a child, and in his third year at Oxford, he noticed that he seemed to be getting clumsier. Shortly after his 21st birthday, he went into hospital for tests. It was a great shock to Hawking to discover that he had Lou Ge- hrig’s disease (a disease that affects muscle control). The realization⁷ that he had an incurable⁸ disease was likely to kill him in the first few years.

但是霍金的生命却因一种严重的疾病而受到威胁。当霍金还小时，他的身体动作就不太协调。在牛津大学的第三年，他就注意到自己看起来更笨拙了。在他21岁生日过后不久，他去医院做了检查。他发现自己患有卢伽雷氏症（一种影响肌肉控制的 疾病），这对霍金来说是一个巨大的打击。在最初的几年里，发现自己患有不治之症这件事差点“杀”了霍金。

The doctors suggested Hawking to go back to Cambridge and carry on with the research he had just started in general relativity and cosmology. Shortly after he came out of hospital, he dreamt that he was going to be executed. He suddenly realized that there were a lot of worthwhile things he could do if he were reprieved⁹. Hawking then began to make progress with his research. And he got engaged to a girl called Jane Wilde, whom he had met just about the time his condition was diagnosed. That engagement changed Hawkins’s life. It gave him something to live for. Jane cared for Hawking until 1991 when the couple separated, reportedly due to the pressures of fame and his increasing disability. Hawking then married his nurse, Elaine Mason in 1995. But they divorced in October 2006.

医生建议霍金回到剑桥大学继续他在广义相对论和宇宙学方面的研究。在他出院后不久，他就梦到自己要被处死。他突然意识到如果“处死”能够被暂缓，还有很多有价值的事情等着他去做。从那时起，霍金的研究开始取得进展。他还和简王尔德订了婚，霍金在病情刚诊断出来时就遇到了这个女孩。订婚改变了霍金的生活，给了他活下去的动力。简一直照顾霍金直到1991年夫妇俩离婚，据报道婚姻破裂是受霍金的名声和残疾加剧所累。1995年，霍金和他的护士伊莱恩梅森结婚，但两人于2006年10月离婚。

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. He received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious¹⁰ in theoretical physics in 1978. And in 1979，he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the same post held by Sir Isaac Newton 300 years earlier.

斯蒂芬霍金一直致力于掌控宇宙的基本定理的研究。1978年，霍金获得了物理学理论研究领域的最高奖爱因斯坦奖。1979年,他受聘于剑桥大学任卢卡斯数学教授,300年前，这个职位是由艾萨克牛顿爵士担任的。

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