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Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。
TEXT AUnder the bombs: 19451945：在炮火攻击下1 Today, when I look back, I'm surprised that I recall the beginning so vividly; it's still clearly fixed in my mind with all its coloring and emotional intensity. It begins with my suddenly noticing 12 distant silver points in the clear brilliant sky filled with an unfamiliar abnormal hum. I'm seven years old, standing in a meadow, and staring at the points barely moving across the sky.如今，当我回首往事，我很惊讶我居然能如此生动地回忆起轰炸开始的情况，那天的色彩和紧张的情绪仍然清晰地印在我的脑海中。
那天，我突然发现在晴朗的天空中出现了12个银色的小点儿，离我很远，发出不正常的嗡嗡声，这种声音我以前从来没听过。
那年我七岁，就这样站在一片草地上，盯着天空中几乎不怎么移动的小点儿。
2 Suddenly, nearby, at the edge of the forest, there's the tremendous roar of bombs exploding. From my standpoint, I see gigantic fountains of earth spraying upward. I want to run toward this extraordinary spectacle; it terrorizes and fascinates me. I have not yet grown accustomed to war and can't relate into a single chain of causes and effects these airplanes, the roar of the bombs, the earth radiating out from the forest, and my seemingly inevitable death. Unable to conceive of the danger, I start running toward the forest, in the direction of the falling bombs. But a hand claws at me and tugs me to the ground. "Stay down," I hear my mother's trembling voice, "Don't move!" And I remember that my mother, pressing me to her, is saying something that I don't yet know exists, whose meaning I don't understand: That way is death.突然，就在附近，森林的边缘，我听到有巨大的炸弹爆炸的声音。
研究生英语阅读教程（基础级）第三次修订版课文参考译文第一课A世界英语：是福是祸？汤姆•麦克阿瑟（1）2000 年，语言学家、威尔士人格兰维尔•普莱斯，在他编辑的《英国与爱尔兰的语言》中发表了如下的观点：因为英语是个杀手。
正是英语，导致坎伯兰语、康沃尔语、诺恩语和马恩语灭亡。
在那些岛屿的部分地区，还有较大规模的群体讲比英语更古老的当地语言。
但是，现在日常生活中，英语无处不在，人人—或者说—几乎人人都懂英语。
英语威胁到那三种遗留的凯尔特语：爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语和威尔士语，……所以必须意识到，从长远来看，这三种语言的未来……十分危险。
（第141 页）在此几年前，1992 年，英国学者罗伯特．菲利普森（他如今在丹麦工作）在牛津大学出版了一本书，名为《语言领域的帝国主义》。
在书中，他指出，主要的英语国家、世界范围内英语教学产业，尤其是英国文化委员会，实施的是语言扩张政策。
他还把这种政策和他所称的“语言歧视”（这个情况类似于“种族歧视”、“性别歧视”）联系在一起。
在菲利普森看来，以“白人”为主的英语世界中，起主导作用的机构和个人，或故意或无意，鼓励或者至少容忍英语大肆扩张，他们当然不反对英语的扩张。
英语的扩张开始于大约三个世纪以前，最初表现形式是经济与殖民扩张。
（2）菲利普森本人为英国文化委员会工作过几年。
和他一样，还有一些母语为英语的学者，也试图强调英语作为世界语言的危险。
在过去几十年里，人们从三个群体的角度，就英语的国际化进行了广泛的讨论。
第一个群体是ENL 国家，英语是母语（这个群体也叫“内部圈”）；第二个群体是ESL 国家，英语是第二语言（“外部圈”）；第三个群体是EFL 国家，英语是外语（“扩展圈”）。
二十世纪八十年代，这些词语开始流行。
从那时起，这第三圈实际上已扩展到全球范围。
（3）从来没有像英语这样?语言，这既有利也有弊。
曾经有许多“世界语言”，例如：阿拉伯语、汉语、希腊语、拉丁语和梵语。
总的来说，我们现在认为这些语言比较好，经常以赞美、感激的语气谈论与它们相关的文化以及它们给世界带来的变化。
Lesson 11 Mind over machineCarl zimmerSome monkey business in a Duke University lab suggests we’ll soon be able to move artificial limbs, control robotic soldiers, and communicate across thousands of miles—using nothing but our thoughts.[1] Something incredible is happening in a lab at Duke University,s Center for Neuroengineering—though ,at first ,it is hard to see just what it is. A robot arm swings from side to side, eerily lifelike, as if it extends its mechanical hand. The hand clamp shuts and squeezes for a few seconds , then relaxes its grip and pulls back to shoot out again in a new direction. OK ,nothing particularly astonishing here—robot arms , after all , do everything from building our cars to sequencing our DNA . But those robot arms are operated by software ; the arm at Duke follows commands of s different sort. To see where those commands are coming from, you have to follow a tangled trail of the lab and down the hall to another, smaller room.[2] Inside this room sits a motionless macaque monkey.[3] The monkey is strapped in a chair ,staring at a computer screen . On the screen a black dot moves from side to side ; when it stops ,a circle widens around it. You would not know just from watching , but that dot represents the movement of the arm in the other room . The circle indicates the squeezing of its robotic grip ; as the force of the grip increase ,the circle widens . In other words , the dot an the circle are responding to the robot arm’s movements . And the arm ? It is being directed by monkey .[4] Did i mention the monkey is motionless?[5] Take another look at those cables : They snake into the back of the computer and then out again ,terminating in a cap on the monkey’s head ,where they receive signals from hundreds of electrodes buried in its brain. The monkey is directing the robot with its thoughts.[6] For decads scientist have pondered ,speculated on ，and pooh-poohed the possibility of a direct interface between a brain and a machine —only in the late 1990s did scientists start learning enough about the brain and signal-processing to offer glimmers of hope that this science-fiction vision could become reality . Since then ,insights into the working of the brain —how it encodes commands for the body , and how it learns to improve those commands over time —have piled up at an astonishing pace ,and the researchers at Duke studying the maceque and the robotic arm are at the leading edge of the technology .“This goes way beyond what’s been done before,”says neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis , co-director of the Center for Neurogengineering. Indeed , the performance of the center’s monkeys suggests that a mind-machine merger could become a reality in humans very soon .[7] Nicolelis and his team are confident that in five years they will be able to build a robot arm that can be controlled by a person with electrode implanted in his or her brain . Ther chief focus is medical —they aim to give people with paralyzed limbs a new tool to make everyday life easier. But the success they and other groups of scientists are achieving has triggered broader excitement in both the public and private sectors . The defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has already doled out $24 million to various brain-machine research efforts across the Unite d States , and Duke group among them . High on DARPA’a wish list : mind -controlled battle robots , and airplanes that can be flown with nothing more than thought . You were hoping for something a bit closer to home ? How about a mental telephone that you could use simply by thinking about talking .[8] The notion of decoding the brain’s commands can seem , on the face of it ,to be pure hubris. How could any computer eavesdrop on all the goings-on that take place in there every moment of ordinary life ?[9] Yet after a century of neurological breakthroughs ,scientists aren’t so intimidated by the brain ;they treat it as just another information processor , albeit the most complex one in the word .“We don’t see the brain as being a mysterious organ ,”says Gr aig Henriquez ,Nicolelis’s fellow co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering . “We see 1s and 0s popping out of the brain, and we’re decoding it .”[10] The source of all those 1s and 0s is ,of course ,the brain’s billons of neurons . When a neuron gets an incoming stimulus at one end —for example , photons strike the retina , which sends that visual information to a nearby neuron —an electric pulse travels the neuron’s length . Depending on the signals it receives ,a neuron can crackle with hundreds of these impulses every second . When each impulse reaches the far end of the neuron , it triggers the cell to dump neurotransmitters that can spark a new impulse in a neighboring neuron . In the way , the signal gets passed around the brain like a baton in a footrace . Ultimately , this rapid-fire code gives rise to electrical impulses that travel along nerves that lead out of the brain and spread through the body ,causing muscles to contract and relax in all sorts of different patterns ,letting us blink, speak ,walk ,or play the sousaphone .[11] in the 1930s ,neuroscientist began to record these impulses with implantable electrodes. Although each neuron is in an insulating sheath ,an impulse still creates a weak electric field outside the cell . Researchers studying rat and monkey brains found that by placing the sensitive tip of an electrode near a neuron they could pick up the sudden changes in the electric field that occurred through the cell .[12] The more scientists studied this neural code , the more they realized that it wasn’t all that different from the on-off digital code of computers . If scientist could decipher the code —to translate one signal as “lift hand ”and another as “lift hand ” and another as “look left ”,they could use the information to operate a machine . “this is not new ,” says John Chapin , a collaborator with the Duke researchers who works at the State University of New York Downstate Health Science Center in Brooklyn . “People have thought about it since the 1960s”[13] But most researchers assumed that each type of movement was governed by a specific handful of the brain’s billions of neurons —the need to monitor the whole brain in order to find those few would make the successful decoding a practical impossibility . “If you wanted to have a robot arm move left ,” Chapin explain , “you would have to find that small set of neurons that would carry the command to move to the left ”. But you don’t know where those cells are in advance .[14] Thus everything that was known at the time suggested that brain-machine interfaces were a fool’s errand .Everything , it turned out ,was wrong .(1,145 words)。
Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。
Door closer, are you?1 The next time you're deciding between rival options, one which is primary and the other which is secondary, ask yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do?2 Xiang Yu was a Chinese imperial general in the third century BC who took his troops across the Zhang River on a raid into enemyterritory. To his troops' astonishment, he ordered their cooking pots crushed and their sailing ships burned.3 He explained that he was imposing on them a necessity for attaining victory over their opponents. What he said was surelymotivating, but it wasn't really appreciated by many of his loyal soldiers as they watched their vessels go up in flames. But the genius of General Xiang Yu's conviction would be validated both on the battlefield and in modern social science research. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a veteran leader who was highly respected for his many conquests and who achieved the summit of success.4 He is featured in Dan Ariely's enlightening new publication, Predictably Irrational, a fascinating investigation of seemingly irrational human behavior, such as the tendency for keeping multiple options open. Most people can't marshal the will for painful choices, not even students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Dr. Ariely teaches behavioral economics. In an experiment that investigated decision-making, hundreds of students couldn't bear to let their options vanish, even though it was clear they wouldprofit from doing so.5 The experiment revolved around a game that eliminated the excuses we usually have for refusing to let go. In the real world, we can always say, "It's good to preserve our options." Want a good example? A teenager is exhausted from soccer, ballet, piano, and Chinese lessons, but her parents won't stop any one of them because they might come in handy some day!6 In the experiment sessions, students played a computer game that provided cash behind three doors appearing on the screen. The rule was the more money you earned, the better player you were, given a total of 100 clicks. Every time the students opened a door by clicking on it, they would use up one click but wouldn't get any money. However, each subsequent click on that door would earn afluctuating sum of money, with one door always revealing more money than theothers. The important part of the rule was each door switch, though having no cash value, would also use up one of the 100 clicks. Therefore, the winning strategy was to quickly check all the doors and keep clicking on the one with the seemingly highest rewards.7 While playing the game, students noticed a modified visual element: Any door left un-clicked for a short while would shrink in size and vanish. Since they already understood the game, they should have ignored the vanishing doors. Nevertheless, they hurried to click on the lesser doors before they vanished, trying to keep them open. As a result, they wasted so many clicks rushing back to the vanishing doors that they lost money in the end. Why were the students so attached to the lesser doors? They would probably protestthat they were clinging to the doors to keep future options open, but, according to Dr. Ariely, that isn't the true factor.8 Instead of the excuse to maintain future options open, underneath it all the students' desire was to avoid the immediate, thoughtemporary, pain of watching options close. "Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a big price to avoid the emotion of loss," Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easily measured in lost cash. In life, the corresponding costs are often less obvious such as wasted time or missed opportunities.9 "Sometimes these doors are closing too slowly for us to see them vanishing," Dr. Ariely writes. "We may work more hours at our jobs without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away."10 So, what can be done to restore balance in our lives? One answer, Dr. Ariely says, is to implement more prohibitions on overbooking. We can work to reduce options on our own, delegating tasks to others and even giving away ideas for others to pursue.He points to marriage as an example, "In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we've closed doors."11 Since conducting the door experiment, Dr. Ariely says he has made a conscious effort to lessen his load. He urges the rest of us to resign from committees, prune holiday card lists, rethink hobbies and remember the lessons of door closers like Xiang Yu.12 In other words, Dr. Ariely is encouraging us to discard those things that seem to have outward merit in favor of those things that actually enrich ourlives. We are naturally prejudiced to believe that more is better, but Dr. Ariely's research provides a dose of reality that strongly suggests otherwise.13 What price do we pay for trying to have more and more in life? What pleasure and satisfaction can be derived from focusing our energy and attention in a more concentrated fashion? Surely, we will have our respective answers.14 Consider these important questions: Will we have more by always increasing options or will we have more with fewer, carefully chosen options? What doors should we close in order to allow the right windows of opportunity and happiness to open?。
二、课文精解SECTION A1.It begins with my suddenly noticing12distant silver points in the clear brilliant sky filled with an unfamiliar abnormal hum.那天，我突然发现在晴朗的天空中出现了12个银色的小点儿，离我很近，发出不正常的嗡嗡声，这种声音我以前从来没听过。
one’s doing sth.中，one是doing的逻辑主语，存在主谓关系（某人的举动），该句相当于“It begins with that I suddenly notice...”例：I don’t like that he smokes here=I don’t like his smoking here.我不喜欢他在这里吸烟。
主语如果是无生命的东西，就不用所有格，直接用主语+动名词。
如:he was afraid of the tent falling down.他担心帐篷掉下来。
the tent(帐篷)没有生命。
2.Suddenly,nearby,at the edge of the forest,there’s the tremendous roar of bombs exploding.突然，就在附近，森林的边缘，我听到有巨大的炸弹爆炸的声音。
（1）at/on the edge of...在……的边缘。
而on the edge of还有“濒于；几乎；某事（尤指坏事）快要发生”的意思。
（2）roar作名词时有“咆哮；吼叫”等义，本句中表示“巨响”。
roar还可作动词，意为“吼叫；咆哮；大声地说；呼啸”。
例：A police car roared past.一辆警车呼啸而过。
3.I have not yet grown accustomed to war and can’t relate into a single chain of causes and effects these airplanes,the roar of the bombs,the earth radiating out from the forest,and my seemingly inevitable death.我还没有习惯战争，也不能把这些飞机、炸弹的轰鸣，森林那边飞溅开来的泥土以及我看似必然的死亡联系成单一的因果关系。
研究生英语阅读教程第三版课文Lesson2Lesson 2Humbled by Nature,Humeble by CultureSusanna Jones[1]The scale of the 11March Japanese earthquake and tsunami is a profound reminder of just how small we human beings are.But it also carries a message of hope about Japan’s long struggle with t he natural world.[2] News reports describe the scenes from northern Japan as being from a horror film. Watching television footage of the events and discussing it with friends, I find the same phrase comes to mind. It is a cliché, as it is to talk of apocalypse and nightmare, but when something is beyond our experience, we reach for the points of reference we have. In Britain, where such vast natural disaster is unknown, perhaps this is the only connection we can make when we see whole communities ripped away by a tsunami, helicopters hovering over raging fires that go on for miles. Warner Brothers has pulled screenings of Clint Eastwood's film Hereafter from cinemas in Japan because of its "inappropriate" tsunami scenes. The horror has become reality and it is hard to comprehend the scale of it.[3] No one could prepare for an earthquake of this magnitude, yet no one was better prepared than the Japanese. The earthquake and tsunami are crucial to understanding Japan's relationship with nature. Throughout history, the Japanese have had to work the land and sea hard to survive and enable communities to thrive.[4] It is unforgiving, mountainous country. Nature brings frequent quakes and typhoons. Lest you should ever forget thesmallness of being human, the iconic Mount Fuji, instantly recognisable yet somehow different on every viewing, is an extinct volcano.[5] This relationship with nature is not all about hardship and fear, as I discovered when I lived in the country for long periods during the Eighties and Nineties. There is celebration, too, tempered with respect. My Japanese teacher used to take out a different set of plates each season, with colours that matched the season's mood: dishes with bands of red and gold in autumn, pink flowers in spring. A mealcontained not only the flavours of a season, but its very atmosphere and the memories that it evoked. In the cities, people wait for and celebrate the cherry blossoms and autumn leaves that spring up from the earth as though to remind us that the concrete and neon are a mere overlay.[6] The Japanese have always lived with the knowledge that natural disaster can occur at any moment and, for the past couple of decades, with the knowledge that an earthquake, "the big one", was due. Small tremors, most of which are harmless, have provided frequent reminders. To be teaching a class, paying a bill at the bank, fast asleep in bed, and then brought to attention because the ground beneath you is shaking, leaves you suspended momentarily. It's a state of uncertainty, humility. Even if you never experience one that pulls the building down around you, the earthquake occupies a part of your imagination, your consciousness.[7] I was living in Japan in 1995 at the time of the Kobe earthquake. More than 6,000 people were killed in the quake and subsequent fires. Just two months later, Aum Shinrikyo, a bizarre religious cult led by Shoko Asahara, left packages containingsarin gas on the Tokyo subway. Twelve people died from the effects of the gas and many more were injured. It surprised me, over the following months that the gas attack seemed to dominate the national media coverage, whereas Kobe, after the initial weeks of horrifying footage, slipped somewhat into the background. The Japanese attitude of being stoical in adversity because shiyou ga nai ("nothing can be done", or "it can't be helped") perhaps goes some way towards explaining this.However, the sarin attack was a new, unexpected kind of terror but it was also something that could be investigated and dissected. and there were people to blame. There were names and photographs. Even though the emergency services in Kobe were criticised for being underprepared and slow to respond to the earthquake, the event itself was inevitable.[8] Kobe was a horror story that people did not want to keep reliving. In the UK we have the luxury of being able to consider, for example, the consequences of global warming through apocalyptic visions of the future in film and theatre, knowing that we'll be all right today and for the near future. In Japan the catastrophe is in the pastand the present and will be in the future. All practical considerations relating to earthquakes---quake-proof buildings, emergency drills-are handled with matter-of-fact efficiency, but the event, when it happens, is often kept at some distance.[9] It will take generations for the north-eastern communities to recover. What will be the effect on Japan as a whole? Rather than immersing ourselves in the language of horror films and the end of the world, when the time is right to try to glimpse this new territory, we might for thought reach for a book by Japan's most popular contemporary novelist. Haruki Murakami's slimcollection of short stories After the Quake, published in English in 2002, was written in response to, but not directly about, the Kobe earthquake. From the painful to the surreal to the gently touching, the anthology presents a series of psychological aftershocks.[10] In "Honey Pie", a small girl has recurring nightmares after watching the disaster footage on television and is soothed by stories from her mother's friend who, in turn, is comforted by his own story. In "Landscape with Flatiron", a man spends his time collecting driftwood for bonfires on the beach. Is this connected with the fires that burned through Kobe? We don't know, but we sense that the earthquake is somewhere underneath it all.[11] Much of the terror is explored through dreams, as though reality is too much to bear or not enough to help. The stories end with hope. It is in Murakami's nature asa writer to be upbeat, but these are plausible glimpses of optimism.[12] There is talk of panic in Tokyo now, but the news I've had from friends there - phone calls, emails, Facebook updates - paints a sombre yet calmer picture. They are worried but not hysterical. At schools around the city, classes continue and students in their final year are having their graduation ceremonies as the academic calendar comes to its end. They are aware of radiation levels from the blasts at the Fukushima nuclear plant and that so far there is no risk to health. They are going about their business, getting on with it.[13] Perhaps not everyone is so calm, why should they be? But we should resist the temptation to imagine panicking hordes buying up all the food and fleeing the capital as the next part of our horror narrative. On Friday 11 March, when the quakeshook Tokyo, a friend was hosting a reading group in her apartment for a group of Japanese women. It was mid-afternoon and, after learning that the trains were not running, she offered bedding for the night to those who had to travel far. Several hours later, nearer midnight, they telephoned to say that they were only ten minutes away from her apartment. There were still no trains, so could they possibly stay the night after all? This is typical, neighbours helping each other, quietly accepting help where it is needed, and not wanting to impose.[14] It may be a long time before we see or understand the long-term effects of these events on Japanese culture. In Japan change tends to happen not dramatically or quickly, but quietly and with small shifts. It seems incongruous that, inthe midst of this great catastrophe, the cherry blossoms will soon be out. And one can hardly begin to imagine how these events will shape the future for the survivors when recovery begins.。
A Christmas Sermon On PeaceMartin Luther King, JR.[1]This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good. And so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and so let us this morning explore the conditions for peace. Let us this morning think anew on the meaning of that Christmas hope: "Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men." And as we explore these conditions, I would like to suggest that modern man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and its strategy.[2]We have experimented with the meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States, but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areas of human conflict, and that means nonviolence on an international scale.[3]Now let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.[4]Yes, as nations and individuals, we are interdependent. I have spoken to you before of our visit to India some years ago. It was a marvelous experience; but I say to you this morning that there were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when one sees with one's own eyes evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How can one avoid being depressed when one sees with ones own eyes thousands of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? More than a million people sleep on the sidewalks of Bombay every night; more than half a million sleep on the sidewalks of Calcutta every night. They have no houses to go into. They have no beds to sleep in. As I beheld these conditions, something within me cried out: "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" And an answer came: "Oh, no!" And I started thinking about the fact that right here in our country we spend millions of dollars every day to store surplus food; and I said to myself: "I know where we can store that food free of charge? in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God's children in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own nation,who go to bed hungry at night."[5]It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can't leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that's handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that's given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that's poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that's poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you're desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that's poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that's given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.[6]Now let me say, secondly, that if we are to have peace in the world, men and nations must embrace the nonviolent affirmation that ends and means must cohere. One of the great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren't important. The important thing is to get to the end, you see.[7]So, if you're seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there? they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.[8]It's one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means andends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.[9]Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say "Thou shalt not kill," we're really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such. Until men see this everywhere, until nations see this everywhere, we will be fighting wars. One day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are our brothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ there is neither male nor female. In Christ there is neither Communist nor capitalist. In Christ, somehow, there is neither bound nor free. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, we won't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't kill anybody.(1,480 words)。
Lesson 1（选词）1.There has been much opposition from social groups, notably from the farming community.社会团体，尤其是农业团体，对此有许多反对意见。
notably（显著地，尤其）2.The predominant view in Britain and other Western countries associates aging with decline,dependency, isolation, and often poverty.predominant（占支配地位的）英国和其他西方国家的主流观点认为，老龄化意味着衰落、依赖、孤立，而且往往是贫穷。
3.But gifts such as these cannot be awarded to everybody, either by judges or by the most benign ofgovernments.但是，这样的礼物不可能由法官或最仁慈的政府颁发给所有人。
benign（有利的；善良的）4.The foreman read the verdict of guilty fourteen times, one for each defendant.陪审团念了十四遍有罪判决，为每位被告都念了一遍。
verdict（判断；裁决）5.They fear it could have a(n) adverse effect on global financial markets.他们担心这会对全球金融市场产生不良影响。
adverse（不利的）6.The UN threatened to invoke economic sanctions if the talks were broken off.如果谈判破裂，联合国威胁要诉诸经济制裁。
invoke（诉诸）7.There are at least four crucial differences between the new regime and the old government.新政权和旧政府之间至少有四个关键的区别。
研究生英语核心教程—综合教材（下）Unit6 课文英汉对照Same Sex Marriage in the United States美国同性婚姻的合法性Matthew Brigham The proposed legalization of same-sex marriage is one of the most significant issues in contemporary American family law. Presently, it is one of the most vigorously advocated reforms discussed in law reviews, one of the most explosive political questions facing lawmakers, and one of the most provocative issues emerging before American courts. If same-sex marriage is legalized, it could be one of the most revolutionary policy decisions in the history of American family law. The potential consequences, positive or negative, for children, parents, same-sex couples, families, social structure, public health, and the status of women are enormous. Given the importance of the issue, the value of comprehensive debate of the reasons for and against legalizing same-sex marriage should be obvious. Marriage is much more than merely a commitment to love one another. Aside from societal and religious conventions, marriage entails legally imposed financial responsibility and legally authorized financial benefits. Marriage provides automatic legal protections for the spouse, including medical visitation, succession of a deceased spouse’s property, as well as pension and other rig hts. When two adults desire to “contract” in the eyes of the law, as well as perhaps promise in the eyes of the Lord and their friends and family, to be responsible for the obligations of marriage as well as to enjoy its benefits, should the law prohibit their request merely because they are of the same gender? I intend to prove that because of Article IV of the United States Constitution, there is no reason why the federal government nor any state government should restrict marriage to a predefined heterosexual relationship.“同性婚姻合法化”是当前美国家庭法律中最重大的议题之一，是美国在法律审查过程中最被人们极力倡导的改革之一，对立法者来说是最具爆炸性的政治问题之一，也是美国法院所面临的最具有争议性的焦点（问题）之一。
研究⽣英语阅读教程第三版课⽂Lesson7A Christmas Sermon On PeaceMartin Luther King, JR.[1]This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good. And so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and so let us this morning explore the conditions for peace. Let us this morning think anew on the meaning of that Christmas hope: "Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men." And as we explore these conditions, I would like to suggest that modern man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and its strategy.[2]We have experimented with the meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States, but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areas of human conflict, and that means nonviolence on an international scale.[3]Now let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.[4]Yes, as nations and individuals, we are interdependent. I have spoken to you before of our visit to India some years ago. It was a marvelous experience; but I say to you this morning that there were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when one sees with one's own eyes evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How can one avoid being depressed when one sees with ones own eyes thousands of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? More than a million people sleep on the sidewalks of Bombay every night; more than half a million sleep on the sidewalks of Calcutta every night. They have no houses to go into. They have no beds to sleep in. As I beheld these conditions, something within me cried out: "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" And an answer came: "Oh, no!" And I started thinking about the fact that right here in our country we spend millions of dollars every day to store surplus food; and I said to myself: "I know where we can store that food free of charge? in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God's children in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own nation,who go to bed hungry at night."[5]It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can't leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that's handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that's given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that's poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that's poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you're desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that's poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that's given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.[6]Now let me say, secondly, that if we are to have peace in the world, men and nations must embrace the nonviolent affirmation that ends and means must cohere. One of the great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren't important. The important thing is to get to the end, you see.[7]So, if you're seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there? they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent theideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.[8]It's one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means andends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.[9]Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say "Thou shalt not kill," we're really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such. Until men see this everywhere, until nations see this everywhere, we will be fighting wars. One day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are our brothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ there is neither male nor female. In Christ there is neither Communist nor capitalist. In Christ, somehow, there is neither bound nor free. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, we won't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't kill anybody.(1,480 words)。
Unit-6新世纪研究生英语阅读B课文-答案(dá àn)-翻译Unit-6新世纪研究生英语阅读B课文(kèwén)-答案-翻译Unit 6The New American DreamersRuth SidelText and language points1. She is the prototype of today’s young woman—confident, outgoing, knowledgeable, involved. She is active in her school, church, or community. She may have a wide circle of friends or simply a few close ones, but she is committed to them and to their friendship. She is sophisticated about the central issues facing young people today—planning for the future, intimacy, sex, drugs, and alcohol—and discusses them seriously, thoughtfully, and forthrightly.She wants to take control of her life and is trying to figure out how to get from where she is to where she wants to go. Above all, she is convinced that if she plans carefully, works hard, and makes the right decisions, she will be a success in her chosen field; have the material goods she desires; in time, marry if she wishes; and, in all probability, have children. She plans, as the expression goes, to “have it all.”prototype // n. someone or something that is one of the first and most typical examples of a group or situation 原型(yuánxíng)；典型(diǎnxíng)；样板(yàngbǎn) Examples:The prototype of this particular computer was developed by an American in 1975.No damage to the prototype aircraft was reported after its first test flight.Baltimore is now cited as the prototype of successful civic entrepreneurship .outgoing / ☺☺✋/ a. liking to meet other people, enjoying their company, and being friendly towards them 爱交际(jiāojì)的；外向(wài xiànɡ)的Examples:We're looking for someone with an outgoing personality.I am an outgoing, lively person who enjoys adventures and meeting new people. knowledgeable: knowing a lot 知识渊博的；有见识的Examples:She’s very knowledgeable about plants.We are looking for people who are knowledgeable about the oil and banking industries.The sales staff are all knowledgeable, helpful, and cheerful.involved: giving a lot of time or attention to someone or something; emotionally committed 关注的；投入的Examples:She was deeply involved with the local hospital.I was so involved in my book I didn’t hear you knoc k.committed / ☜❍✋♦✋♎/ a. willing to work hard and give your time and energy to something; believing strongly in something 尽心尽力的；效忠的；坚定的Examples:We are fully committed to Equal Opportunity policies.The company looks for highly committed people who are willing to study for further professional qualifications in their own time.sophisticated // a. having a lot of experience of life and good judgment about socially important things 老练的; 世故的Examples:Sophisticated readers understand the book’s hidden meaning.She was glamorous (富有(fùyǒu)魅力的) and sophisticated, but seemed a little lonely.intimacy /✋✋✋/ n. the state of having a close personal relationship with someone; the act of sex 亲密关系；亲近(qīnjìn)；性行为Examples:His claims to be on terms of intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated (夸大(kuādà)的).Building houses far apart reduces intimacy among neighbors.Intimacy between teachers and students is not recommended.figure out: to think about a problem or situation until you find the answer or understand what has happened 算出；领会到；断定(duàndìng)Examples:Can you figure out how to do it?If I have a map, I can figure it out.He needs to sit down and figure out how many people are coming.convinced: feeling certain that something is true 确信(quèxìn)的；深信的Examples:Molly agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.I was convinced that we were doing the right thing.Herschel was firmly convinced of the possibility of life on other planets.forthrightly: directly and honestly, used in order to show approval 直率地；直截了当地In the election of 2004, President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for US's future and the US responded by giving him a mandate.If Alito is asked such questions, and refuses to answer forthrightly and completely, the Senate should simply not consent to his appointment.With the humility and generosity of spirit for which he is well known, John Paul speaks forthrightly to all people.1. 她是现今年轻女子的典型——自信外向、知识渊博、做事投入。
A Beautiful Mind Sylvia Nasar [1]John Forbes Nash, Jr. —mathematical genius, inventor of a theory of rational behavior, visionary of the thinking machine —had been sitting with his visitor, also a mathematician, for nearly half an hour. It was late on a weekday afternoon in the spring of 1959, and, though it was only May, uncomfortably warm. Nash was slumped in an armchair in one corner of the hospital lounge, carelessly dressed in a nylon shirt that hung limply over his unbelted trousers. His powerful frame was slack as a rag doll’s, his finely molded features expressionless. He had been staring dully at a spot immediately in front of the left foot of Harvard professor George Mackey, hardly moving except to brush his long dark hair away from his forehead in a fitful, repetitive motion. His visitor sat upright, oppressed by the silence, acutely conscious that the doors to the room were locked. Mackey finally could contain himself no longer. His voice was slightly querulous, but he strained to be gentle. “How could you,” began Mackey, “how could you, a mathematician, a man devoted to reason and logical proof... how could you believe that extraterrestrials are sending you messages? How could you believe that you are being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world? How could you ...?”
[2]Nash looked up at last and fixed Mackey with an unblinking stare as cool and dispassionate as that of any bird or snake. “Because,” Nash said slowly in his soft, reasonable southern drawl, as if talking to himself, “the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”
[3]The young genius from Bluefield, West Virginia—handsome, arrogant, and highly eccentric—burst onto the mathematical scene in 1948. Over the next decade, a decade as notable for its supreme faith in human rationality as for its dark anxieties about mankind's survival, Nash proved himself, in the words of the eminent geometer Mikhail Gromov, “the most remarkable mathematician of the second half of the century.” Games of strategy, economic rivalry, computer architecture, the shape of the universe, the geometry of imaginary spaces, the mystery of prime numbers—all engaged his wide-ranging imagination. His ideas were of the deep and wholly unanticipated kind that pushes scientific thinking in new directions.
[4]Geniuses, the mathematician Paul Halmos wrote, “are of two kinds: the ones who are just like all of us, but very much more so, and the ones who, apparently, have an extra human spark. We can all run, and some of us can run the mile in less than 4 minutes; but there is nothing that most of us can do that compares with the creation of the Great G-minor Fugue.” Nash’s genius was of that mysterious variety more often associated with music and art than with the oldest of all sciences. It wasn’t merely that his mind worked faster, that his memory was more retentive, or that his power of concentration was greater. The flashes of intuition were nonrational. Like other great mathematical intuitionists —Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, Jules Henri Poincare, Srinivasa Ramanujan—Nash saw the vision first, constructing the laborious proofs long afterward. But even after he’d try to explain some astonishing result, the actual route he had taken remained a mystery to others who tried to follow his reasoning. Donald Newman, a mathematician who knew Nash at MIT in the 1950s, used to say about him that “everyone else would climb a peak by looking for a path somewhere on the mountain. Nash would climb another mountain altogether and from that distant peak would shine a searchlight back onto the first peak”.
[5]No one was more obsessed with originality, more disdainful of authority, or more jealous of his independence. As a young man he was surrounded by the high priests of twentieth-century science—Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener—he joined no school, became no one's disciple, got along largely without guides or followers. In almost everything he did—from game theory to geometry—he thumbed his nose at the received wisdom, current fashions, established methods. He almost always worked alone, in his head, usually walking, often whistling Bach. Nash acquired his knowledge of mathematics not mainly from studying what other mathematicians had discovered, but by rediscovering their truths for himself. Eager to astound, he was always on the lookout for the really big problems. When he focused on some new puzzle, he saw dimensions that people who really knew the subject (he never did) initially dismissed as naive or wrongheaded. Even as a student, his indifference to others' skepticism, doubt, and ridicule was awesome.
