第5章 敲石头的人 The Stone-Breakers · 第2讲

1. 讲稿里说 Hutton 的论文当时几乎没人注意，为什么大家连他说的啥意思都没听懂？
2. Friends 鼓励他写 Magnum Opus 时用了 'stumble onto clarity' 这个说法，这到底是什么意思？为什么不用更直接点的词？
3. Hutton 的书里有一半直接引用法文原文，这跟他用英文写作有啥矛盾？对读者有啥影响？
4. 为什么 John Playfair 能成为 Hutton 的 'Boswell'？'at Hutton's elbow' 这个表达暗示了他们什么样的关系？
5. Hutton 的书被称作 'least read important book'，除了写得晦涩难懂，还有什么原因导致它这么不受欢迎？

1. The transcript says Hutton's paper got almost no attention; why couldn't the audience understand what he was talking about at all?
2. His friends encouraged him to write his Magnum Opus by hoping he might 'stumble onto clarity'; what does that phrase really mean, and why not just use a more direct word?
3. Half of Hutton's book consisted of direct quotations in French while the rest was in English; how does this contradiction affect the readers?
4. Why was John Playfair able to act as Hutton's 'Boswell'? What does the expression 'at Hutton's elbow' imply about their relationship?
5. Hutton's book is described as the 'least read important book'; besides being hard to understand, what other reasons contributed to its lack of popularity?

1 00:00:00,880 --> 00:00:02,100 Our whole universe 2 00:00:02,290 --> 00:00:05,730 was in a hot dance step that nearly fourteen million 3 00:00:05,730 --> 00:00:10,170 years ago expansion started wave At the 4 00:00:12,090 --> 00:00:14,490 end of last session I raised a question. 5 00:00:14,750 --> 00:00:19,430 Why did Hutton's paper attract almost no notice at all? 6 00:00:19,750 --> 00:00:22,250 Well,it's not hard to see why. 7 00:00:22,550 --> 00:00:27,410 Here in part is how he presented it to his audience.in 8 00:00:27,410 --> 00:00:32,020 part means partlypresent it to his audience here it 9 00:00:32,020 --> 00:00:35,840 refers to the long paper to present the paper to his 10 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,500 audience means to read the paper to the public to the 11 00:00:39,500 --> 00:00:41,000 audience this 12 00:00:41,350 --> 00:00:45,150 is taken from the long paper now let's see how he wrote 13 00:00:45,150 --> 00:00:48,990 the paper how he read the paper to the audience in 14 00:00:49,150 --> 00:00:52,490 one case the forming cause is in the bodywhich is 15 00:00:52,490 --> 00:00:56,610 separated for after the body has been actuated by heat 16 00:00:56,610 --> 00:01:01,750 它是身体的正确的反应来自于身体的正确的反应来自 17 00:01:01,730 --> 00:01:12,690 于身体的正确的反应来自于身体的正 18 00:01:12,690 --> 00:01:15,690 确 19 00:01:26,610 --> 00:01:34,930 of mineral veins are foundneedless to sayal most no one 20 00:01:34,930 --> 00:01:38,290 in the audience had a faintest idea what he was talking 21 00:01:38,290 --> 00:01:44,070 about the faintest ideas means the slightest idea not 22 00:01:44,070 --> 00:01:47,590 have the faintest idea means to not know anything at 23 00:01:47,590 --> 00:01:50,830 allabout something hear about what he was talking 24 00:01:50,830 --> 00:01:57,150 aboutneedless to say 不用说听众中根本就没有人能够 25 00:01:57,150 --> 00:02:01,820 听明白他在说什么 Enc ouraged by his friends to expand 26 00:02:01,820 --> 00:02:05,420 his theory in the touching hope that he might somehow 27 00:02:05,420 --> 00:02:09,760 stumble onto clarity in a more expansive format Hought 28 00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:13,240 on spent the next ten years preparing his Magnum Op 29 00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:18,420 uswhich was published in two volumes in 1795 The 30 00:02:18,580 --> 00:02:20,620 underlying part is the structure, 31 00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:24,480 the main structure of the sentence Enc ouraged by his 32 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:24,800 friends 33 00:02:25,500 --> 00:02:30,410 这个主语其实也是 Hutton 要是被动 Hutton 是被他的朋 34 00:02:30,410 --> 00:02:34,840 友们鼓励那翻译的时候可以倒过来说朋友们鼓励 35 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:40,740 Hutton 去扩展自己的理论 Hutton 在朋友的鼓励之下就 36 00:02:40,740 --> 00:02:46,380 花了十年的时间去着手撰写自己的 Magnum Op us Of 37 00:02:46,380 --> 00:02:50,360 Magnum means a large bottlecontaining the equivalent 38 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:51,900 of two normal bottles 39 00:02:52,780 --> 00:02:58,640 是个大酒瓶超大酒瓶 Magnum Op us means the greatest 40 00:02:58,640 --> 00:03:04,100 work of someone It means master work 左手去写自己的红 41 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:09,120 篇巨著现在再把细节加上去 In the touching hope that 42 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:15,680 指的是朋友们为什么要去鼓励他扩展自己的理论是因 43 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:20,320 为朋友们希望也许他可能会 Some how stumble onto 44 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:20,680 clarity 45 00:03:21,490 --> 00:03:26,830 In a more expensive format more expensive format a 46 00:03:26,830 --> 00:03:30,670 format means the size of a book 篇幅, 47 00:03:30,750 --> 00:03:35,410 一本书的篇幅 more expensive format means a larger, 48 00:03:35,490 --> 00:03:40,230 greater format 在更大的篇幅里面 stumble onto 49 00:03:40,670 --> 00:03:46,250 我们平常是指不小心走路的时候 stumble onto 原来是 50 00:03:46,250 --> 00:03:50,030 指走路的时候不小心绊到了十块踉跄了一下, 51 00:03:50,110 --> 00:03:50,850 差点摔倒 52 00:04:00,370 --> 00:04:05,090 是不小心碰到什么东西不小心遇到而不是一开始自己 53 00:04:05,090 --> 00:04:11,630 主动去寻求的 clarity 的形容词是 clear 清晰指的是表 54 00:04:11,630 --> 00:04:16,750 达的清晰那这个 clarity 是他的名词这里指的是他写 55 00:04:16,750 --> 00:04:18,530 作的时候表达的清晰 56 00:04:26,490 --> 00:04:34,670 用这个 stumble onto 就说明朋友们对他是否真的能够 57 00:04:34,670 --> 00:04:40,190 做到清晰的写作其实没有多少的信心觉得有可能如果 58 00:04:40,190 --> 00:04:45,410 给他更大的篇幅去解释的话有可能说不定一不小心就 59 00:04:45,410 --> 00:04:49,730 写得清楚写得明白了那现在再来看为什么加上 60 00:04:49,730 --> 00:04:52,930 touching 这么一个词 touching 是感人的 61 00:04:52,990 --> 00:04:59,810 令人感动的朋友们想的这么多可真是用心良苦颇令人 62 00:04:59,810 --> 00:05:00,290 感动 63 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,760 那后来 Hotender 这本书呢是 was published in two 64 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:11,140 volumes 以两卷本的形式出版 volumes 就是书的第一卷 65 00:05:11,220 --> 00:05:14,120 第二卷是两卷本它属于同一本书 66 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:20,570 但是分成两册 Together the two books ran to nearly a 67 00:05:20,570 --> 00:05:25,010 thousand pages and were remarkably worse than even his 68 00:05:25,010 --> 00:05:28,970 most pessimistic friends had feared A pessimistic 69 00:05:28,970 --> 00:05:31,950 person expects that bad things will happen in the 70 00:05:31,950 --> 00:05:34,350 future or that something will have a bad result 71 00:05:34,350 --> 00:05:38,150 Pessimistic 就是非常悲观的他 72 00:05:38,310 --> 00:05:43,510 最悲观的朋友曾经担心过就是他恐怕即便是写一本书 73 00:05:43,510 --> 00:05:48,130 也没有办法把事情解释清楚结果是, 74 00:05:48,270 --> 00:05:50,930 他写的这两本书一千页, 75 00:05:51,090 --> 00:05:55,550 比他最悲观的朋友所担心的还要糟糕。 76 00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:57,840 Apart from anything else, 77 00:05:58,100 --> 00:06:01,280 nearly half the completed work now consisted of 78 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:03,280 quotations from French sources, 79 00:06:03,660 --> 00:06:06,520 still in the original French.别 80 00:06:06,610 --> 00:06:13,230 的就都不说了观看他的著作里面有一半 consist of 81 00:06:13,230 --> 00:06:20,010 means included 包括包含有一半包含从法文的来源里 82 00:06:20,010 --> 00:06:25,790 面直接引用出来的引文 quotations 是引用出来的文字 83 00:06:25,790 --> 00:06:29,170 叫 quotationsquotation marks 就是我们说的引号 84 00:06:29,170 --> 00:06:30,210 still 85 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:35,720 in the original French 而且直接就是法语翻译抄在那 86 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:37,360 儿,连翻译都没有翻译, 87 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,220 要知道这本书是用英文写成的, 88 00:06:40,280 --> 00:06:41,940 里 ……（后略，完整文稿见视频页字幕）