异类之不一样的成功启示录 第64期:20世纪最为重要的工作

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　　选择奥本海默，确实是大胆的尝试。当时奥本海默38岁，比格罗夫斯手下的很多人都要年轻；He was a theorist, and this was a job that called for experimenters and engineers.

　　奥本海默是一个理论学家，而这是一项需要实验人员和工程师的工作；His political affiliations¹ were doggy: he had all kinds of friends who were Communists.

　　奥本海默的政治关系足以让人敬而远之：他很多形形色色的朋友都是共产主义者；Perhaps more importantly, he had never had an administrative² experience.

　　更令人惊讶的是，他没有一丁点的管理经验。

　　"He was a very impractical³ fellow," one of Oppenheimer's friends later said.

　　“他是一个不切实际的家伙，”奥本海默的一个朋友后来说，"He walked about with scuffed⁴ shoes and a funny hat, and, more important, he didn't know anything about equipment."“他穿着一双已经磨破的鞋子，戴着一顶怪异的帽子，而且，更重要的是，他对设备一窍不通。”

　　As one Berkeley scientist put it, more succinctly⁵: "he couldn't run a hamburg stand."伯克利的一位科学家说得更是切中要害：“他甚至不知道怎样推动一个汉堡包摊子。”

　　Oh, and by the way, in graduate school, he tried to kill his professor.

　　哦，这里顺便补充一下，在大学时候，他还差点杀了他的指导老师。

　　This was the resume of the man who was trying out for what might be said, without exaggeration, to be one of the most important jobs of the twentieth century.

　　但现在他迎来了一个新起点，他正在努力做一件——毫不夸张地说——一件20世纪最为重要的工作。

　　And what happened? The same thing had happened twenty years earlier at Cambridge: he got the rest of the world to see things his way.

　　结果如何？同样的事情曾经发生在20多年前的剑桥：他让世人见识了他的做事风格。

　　Here are Bird and Sherwin again: "Oppenheimer understood that Groves⁶ guarded the entrance of the Manhattan Project, and he therefore turned on all his charm and brilliance⁷.

　　再看看博德和舍温为他写的传记：“奥本海默知道曼哈顿计划由格罗夫斯把关，因此他开始竭尽所能，充分发挥自己的才华。

　　It was an irresistible⁸ performance."

　　这确实是一件不可抗拒的工作。”

　　Groves was smitten⁹. "‘He’s a genius,' Groves later told a reporter. ‘A real genius.'"格罗夫斯也深有感触，“‘他是一个天才，’格罗夫斯后来对一位记者说，‘一个真正的天才’”。

　　Groves was an engineer by training with a graduate degree from MIT, and Oppenheimer's grate insight was to appeal to that side of Groves.

　　格罗夫斯是一位从麻省理工大学毕业的工程师，奥本海默的远见卓识得到了格罗夫斯的青睐。

　　Bird and Sherwin go on: Oppenheimer was the first scientist Groves has met on his tour (of potential candidates) who grasped that building an atomic bomb required finding practical solutions to a variety of cross-disciplinary problems....

　　博德和舍温继续写道：“奥本海默认为原子弹的设计必须在多个学科中找出一条切实可行的操作方法，他是格罗夫斯发现的第一个（在众多的候选者中）提出这种观点的科学家......

　　Groves found himself nodding in agreement when Oppenheimer pitched the notion of a central laboratory devoted¹⁰ to his purpose,为了达到这个目标，奥本海默提出建立一个中心实验室，（格罗夫斯）发现自己不知不觉就认可了他的观点，where, as he later testified, 'we could come to grips with chemical, metallurgical, engineering and ordnance¹¹ problems that had so far received no consideration.

　　正如他后来证实的那样，‘一开始，我们就必须考虑化学、冶金学、工程学和军火等方面的问题，但很多问题依旧难以预料。’”

 

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