Everyone knows Albert Einstein as a wild-haired, violin-playing genius who revolutionized physics, and many have heard how he arrived at his groundbreaking theories via one ingenious thought experiment, or gedankenexperiment, after another. But did you know that he was also an eccentric who gleefully eschewed socks, dodged German military service and spurned social conventions? Or that he was an enthusiastic but third-rate sailor?
在众人眼中阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦是一位伟大的物理学家，他梳着一头标志性的乱发，喜欢拉小提琴,开创了物理学的新纪元。众所周知，他经过一次次巧妙的假想和试验，最终创立了相对论。可是你了解这位天才的怪脾气吗？他从来不穿袜子、在德国逃避兵役、藐视社会习俗，他还是一个狂热的航海爱好者，不过他的航海技术实在让人不敢恭维。
Ever since solar eclipse observations in 1919 made him front-page news, we haven't been able to get enough of this guy. And why not? Einstein's influence extended beyond the scientific fields he revolutionized. His theories of relativity, which departed from the classical Newtonian view of the cosmos, came to symbolize a broader societal shift away from Enlightenment-influenced concepts of art, literature, morality and politics. More than that, thanks to his strong political and social views, often distilled into playful, philosophical and pithy quotes, he's been a mainstay of dorm-room posters and pop culture for decades. But with the revelations that accompanied the release of his private papers 30 years after his death, do we finally have too much of Einstein? Do they remind us to never meet our heroes, or merely that all geniuses are, finally, human?
1919年，一场日食观测活动让他成为头条新闻,可是我们对这位伟大科学家的了解还不够多。爱因斯坦的影响力不仅在于开创了科学领域的新纪元。他提出相对论，这一理论从经典牛顿宇宙观出发，象征一种更加广泛的社会转变——使艺术、文学、道德和政治等领域的观念更加成熟。他不仅拥有坚定的政治观和社会观，而且常常感悟出一些精辟、富于哲理又不失幽默的至理名言。因此，几十年来，他一直都是最受崇拜和欢迎的偶像。在他去世30年后，随着一些私人信件的公开，他的个人生活逐渐曝光，我们终于能够更好地了解爱因斯坦了吗？这些曝光的个人生活是让我们心中的偶像形象破灭，还是让我们明白天才也不过是个普通人？
10.He Took Up Speaking Late as a Child
10.他很晚才会说话
Einstein did not speak until comparatively late in childhood, and he remained a reluctant talker until the age of 7. This fact, combined with his single-minded devotion to physics, his imposition of routines on his wife, his musical talent and other factors have led some to argue that Einstein had Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that affects language and behavioral development in children.
爱因斯坦在幼年时很晚才会说话，在7岁之前一直沉默寡言。这一事实，以及他对物理学研究的专一，他在生活中强加给妻子的束缚和他的音乐天赋等种种事情综合在一起，让一些人认为爱因斯坦患有阿斯伯格综合症——一种影响儿童语言和行为发育的自闭症。
Other historical talents, including physicists Isaac Newton and Marie Curie and artists like Wassily Kandinsky and J.M.W. Turner, have received similar postmortem armchair diagnoses. Departing from this view, Stanford economist and author Thomas Sowell coined the term "Einstein Syndrome" to describe non-autistic gifted people with delayed speech. How his ideas are viewed by child development experts, or how they differ from the more commonly known phenomenon of asynchronous development, in which gifted children develop faster than average in some areas and more slowly in others, remains unclear. In the end, Einstein, a lifelong visual thinker, might simply have had a rich inner life and no need for speech because, as one famous anecdote claims he said, "up to now everything was in order."
人们经过分析发现，历史上很多天才都有类似的自闭特征，其中包括物理学家艾萨克·牛顿和玛丽·居里，以及瓦西里·康定斯基和约瑟夫·马洛德·威廉·透纳等艺术家。斯坦福大学经济学家兼作家托马斯·索维尔根据此观点创造出一个新词汇——“爱因斯坦综合症”，用来形容那些没有患上孤独症，但是语言发育迟缓的人。一些儿童发育专家认为艾斯伯格综合症与一般的自闭症不同，患有这种病症的儿童在某些方面天赋过人，而在另一些方面却发育迟缓，但是目前为止该理论并未得到证实。爱因斯坦，身为一个视觉思想家，或许他的内心生活十分丰富，但无需向人表达，正如他曾说过的那句话：“目前来看一切都井然有序。”
9.He Did Not Actually Do Poorly in School
9.他的学习成绩其实没那么糟糕
We love to swap ironic facts about famous people, especially in our click-bait-driven Internet culture. So it's no surprise that the notions that Einstein struggled with math and that he failed his college entrance exams have such staying power. In truth, he excelled in physics and math from a young age and studied calculus while only 12 years old. He also knew his way around Greek conjugation and Latin declension. So how did the idea that he failed math gain traction? Possibly because, during one year of Einstein's education, school officials reversed the grading system, turning the numerical equivalent of A's into F's (and confusing unwary future biographers).
我们都喜欢八卦名人轶事，尤其在拼点击率的互联网文化的驱使下，这些名人轶事被更快地传播开。因此，有关爱因斯坦数学很烂,而且没通过大学入学考试这样的传闻会深入人心，也就不足为奇了。事实上，他从小擅长物理和数学，甚至12岁时就学习了微积分。对希腊语和拉丁语也略知一二。那么有关他数学很烂的传闻从何而来呢？原来，在爱因斯坦入学考试那年，学校管理者更改了评分制度，将成绩“A”档改成了“F”档（后来的传记作家没有仔细考证才造成了今天的误会）。
Einstein did fail his first round of entrance exams -- due to extenuating circumstances. When the young man applied to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he was a 15-year-old dropout who lacked the equivalent of a high school diploma. Moreover, the rigid educational system that he grew up in did not provide him the background in French, chemistry and biology that he needed to pass the institute's exams. He scored so highly on his mathematics and physics tests, however, that the university accepted him anyway, on the condition that he complete his secondary education soon after.
爱因斯坦的确没有通过第一轮入学考试——但是情有可原。他向苏黎世联邦理工学院提出入学申请时，只有15岁，因为中途退学而没有拿到高中文凭。此外，他就读的学校，教育体制僵化，没有开设法语、化学和生物学等课程，而这些是入学考试的必考科目。由于他的数学和物理学成绩优异，学校最终还是录取了他，但前提是要他完成高中学业。
8.He Had an Illegitimate Daughter With a Mysterious Fate
8.他有一个私生女，命运成谜
While attending university in Zurich, Einstein fell in love with an older physics student, Mileva Maric, who would eventually become his first wife. By the standards of late 19th-century Europe, theirs was a modern love affair. They soon grew quite close and gave one another nicknames: He called her "Dollie," and she nicknamed him "Johnnie."
在苏黎世上大学期间，爱因斯坦和物理系学姐——米列娃·玛丽克坠入爱河，米列娃·玛丽克最终成为他的第一任妻子。从19世纪后期欧洲的开放程度来看，姐弟恋是一件非常时髦的事。他们的恋情发展迅速，彼此之间还起了昵称：爱因斯坦叫妻子“多莉”，妻子则亲昵地叫他“约翰尼”。
Maric was a remarkable woman, having overcome enormous social resistance to earn a place as the fifth woman accepted to the prestigious university. But for years after graduation, Einstein remained too poor to marry her. Moreover, his parents rejected Maric as a too-old, bookish Eastern Orthodox Serb, and his father did not approve the marriage until just before his death in 1902. Earlier that year, in January, the couple had a daughter named Lieserl (diminutive for Elisabeth). Maric returned to her parent's home near Novi Sad, a Serb cultural center then located in the Kingdom of Hungary but today part of Serbia's rural Vojvodina region. There she gave birth to the child, after which the couple never spoke of their daughter to others, even friends. Lieserl's fate remains a mystery to this day. The two prevalent theories hold that she died of scarlet fever or was given up for adoption.
玛丽克是一位非凡的女性，她冲破社会阻力，成为第五位就读名牌大学的女性。可是毕业多年以后，爱因斯坦仍然穷得娶不起她。这桩婚事还遭到爱因斯坦父母的反对，在他们看来，玛丽克不仅年纪太大，而且还是个信仰东正教的书呆子。他的父亲直到1902年去世之前，才同意他们的婚事。同年一月，他们的女儿来到世上，取名丽瑟尔（伊丽莎白的爱称）。玛丽克回到父母身边，他们住的地方离诺维萨德很近。当时的诺维萨德位于匈牙利帝国，是塞尔维亚的文化中心，而如今的诺维萨德则隶属于塞尔维亚伏伊伏丁那自治省。自从玛丽克在那里生下女儿之后，这对夫妻从未向别人提起过她，连他们的朋友也不知道。直到今天，丽瑟尔的命运仍是一个谜。人们普遍持两种观点：一种观点认为丽瑟尔死于猩红热，另一种观点认为她被遗弃，随后被人收养。
7.He Was a Cad With a Tumultuous Family Life
7.他是个花心男，私生活混乱不堪
Whatever closeness Einstein and Maric shared did not survive long into their marriage, as their correspondence makes clear. Indeed, his own letters paint him as an unkind philanderer who neglected and mistreated her while openly enjoying several flirtations and affairs. One mistress, his cousin Elsa, would eventually become his second wife, although he also considered marrying her daughter, his future stepdaughter. This must have made family reunions both uncomfortable and confusing, especially since Elsa was Einstein's first cousin on his mother's side and his second cousin on his father's side. He cheated on Elsa as well, but she allowed it as long as he kept his affairs quiet.
曾经的亲密无间也没能延长爱因斯坦和玛丽克的婚姻，这一点从他们的信件中很容易看出来。实际上，从爱因斯坦的信中可以看出，他是个无情无义的花花公子。他喜欢到处和异性调情，丝毫不掩饰自己的风流韵事，也不在乎这些事对妻子造成的伤害。他的表姐艾尔莎，也是他的情妇之一，后来成了他的第二任妻子。然而在此之前，他甚至考虑娶她的女儿，也就是自己未来的继女为妻。从他们的亲戚关系来看，这桩婚姻让家庭聚会变得十分尴尬，因为对于爱因斯坦来说，艾尔莎既是他的表姐又是他的堂姐。这段婚姻也没能让爱因斯坦有所收敛，但是只要他不公开这些风流韵事，艾尔莎都默然接受了。
Meanwhile, because he could not afford to support himself and his first wife in the case of a divorce, Einstein struck a deal with Maric: She would grant him a divorce, and he would give her and their two sons the prize money from his presumably imminent Nobel. Finally, after five years living apart, Maric divorced Albert in 1919. Thereafter, he grew estranged from his sons, one of whom was schizophrenic, leaving Maric to care for them and her own crumbling family.
另一方面，爱因斯坦负担不起与第一任妻子的离婚费用，因此与玛丽克达成协议：她同意离婚，如果将来爱因斯坦获得诺贝尔奖，必须把奖金交给她和两个儿子。1919年，玛丽克和爱因斯坦分居五年后，两人正式离婚。从此以后，他与两个儿子渐渐疏远，其中一个患有精神分裂症，玛丽克只好独自照顾他们，支撑起这个破碎的家庭。
6.He Had One Heck of a Year
6.爱因斯坦奇迹年
In 1905, Einstein published four papers that rocked contemporary views of space, time, mass and energy and helped set the stage for modern physics, all while writing a doctoral dissertation and working as a third-class examiner in the Swiss patent office. After graduation, Einstein had applied for numerous academic posts, but school after school had rebuffed him. Their rejections stemmed in part from a letter of recommendation that Einstein had foolishly requested from Heinrich Weber, a professor whose classes he had regularly ditched. As decisions go, it was an object lesson in the difference between intelligence and wisdom. But the clerkship left Einstein enough daydreaming time to conceive his four landmark Annals of Physics journal papers, all published in a single annus mirabilis:
1905年，爱因斯坦发表了四篇论文，颠覆了当时有关空间、时间、质量与能量的一切观点，为现代物理学的发展奠定了基础。同年，他还取得了博士学位，并且晋升为瑞士专利局的三级技术员。毕业之后，爱因斯坦向多所学校申请了学术职位，但均遭到拒绝。他们之所以拒绝爱因斯坦，一部分因为海因里希·韦伯教授为他写的推荐信。上学时，爱因斯坦经常翘这位教授的课。虽然他智力超群，但是找海因里希·韦伯写推荐信实在不是明智之举。爱因斯坦只得到了试用职位，却让他有大把的时间用来构思四篇划时代的论文。四篇论文均在《物理学年鉴》上发表，并于同一年出版，人们称这一年为“爱因斯坦奇迹年”。
"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" explained the photoelectric effect using quantum theory.
《关于光的产生和转化的一个试探性观点》用量子理论解释了光电效应。
"On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat" experimentally proved the existence of atoms.
《基于热分子运动论的静止液体中悬浮粒子的运动研究》从实验上证明原子的存在。
"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" established the mathematical theory of special relativity.
《论动体的电动力学》创立狭义相对论。
"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" explained how relativity theory led to a mass-energy equivalence of E = mc2.
《物体的惯性同它所含的能量有关吗？》解释如何用相对论推导出质能等价方程式：E = mc²
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