1. 偶然的一点好运也能够保持良久
It was hailed as one of the biggest success stories in the history of space exploration – 20 years of planning ended earlier this year with the Philae lander rendezvousing with Comet 67P over 300 million miles (480 million kilometres) away from Earth.
菲莱探测器被誉为太空摸索史上最大逾越之一，历经20年的谋划期终于在年初发射并胜利在离地球四亿八千万公里的67P彗星上着陆。
The biggest challenge, says Stephan Ulamec, manager of the Philae lander programme, was how to design a probe to land on a body whose makeup they had little knowledge about. “We had no idea of the size, we had no idea of the day-night cycle, which influences the thermal design, we had no idea of the gravity, so how fast would the lander impact, we had no idea how the surface looked,” he says.
据菲莱项目标负责人斯蒂芬先容，在这20年里碰到的最大挑衅是对彗星结构懂得较少，不晓得该如何设计这个探测器。“咱们不知道彗星的日夜轮回情形会影响保热设计，不知道彗星的重力也无法猜测探测器着陆后对转速的影响，甚至不明白彗星表面的样子。”
They needed to create design parameters that could cope with an extremely wide range of possible comet structures – but banked on the comet being a relatively even potato shape with enough flat surfaces for the probe to land on. Even then, not everything went to plan, and two decades of meticulous planning could have failed within minutes at touchdown. Philae's anchoring harpoons didn't fire as planned, and it bounced off the comet before settling onto its icy surface and successfully beaming data back to its relieved creators.
迷信家们需要树立尽可能合乎多种彗星构造的设计参数，然而还是得寄盼望于彗星的名义要够平坦。可即使是花了20年设计、周密打算过的菲莱仍是在着陆的多少分钟里有点小失败：“鱼叉”体系未如规划翻开，无法正确钉入彗星表面。不外荣幸的是，菲莱还是成功地把数据发还了地球。
Lesson six: Genius is indefinable
2. “天才”定义不明
“It’s a funny word: the word ‘genius’,” says Nirenberg. “I just sort of ignore it and just go on with life. You just do what you do independent of whatever label’s attached to you. I don’t know really how else to explain it.”
“蠢才这个词很有趣”，尼伦伯格说，“我经常疏忽这个标签持续走本人的路。只须要抛掉别人在你身上贴的各种标签做自己想做到的事就好了。由于所谓天才真是断定尺度不一、无奈说明的事件。”
3. 观点要用证据来证实
Like his peers, geophysicist Steven Jacobsen from Northwestern University believed that water on Earth originated from comets. But by studying rocks, which allow scientists to peer back in time, he discovered water hidden inside ringwoodite, which lies in the Earth’s mantle, and which suggests that the oceans gradually made its way out of the planet’s interior many centuries ago.
美国西北大学地球物理学家史蒂文·雅各布森曾以为，地球上的水源于彗星。但通过对岩石的研究，他发现地幔的林伍德石里面也藏有水，这一发现表明或者在N个世纪之前，大陆是从地球内部自己渐渐溢出来的。
“I had a pretty hard time convincing others,” he admits. Yet two key pieces of evidence uncovered this year seem to support his point of view. Time will tell whether the new theories are true, and there may be further twists to the tale. “But thinking about the fact that you may be the first person to see something for the first time doesn’t happen very often,” he says. “When it does it’s thrilling.”
“那时候我难压服别的学者信任这个。”史蒂文说。但是今年新发明的两个症结证据仿佛支撑了他的实践。所以，一个新理论的准确与否可能需要时光来缓缓印证，在被众人接收前可能会阅历良多波折。“但是假如你发现你是第一个发现这个法则的人，且时间又证明你是对的之后，你会倍受鼓励的。”史蒂文说。
Lesson three: It really is 99% perspiration
4. 天才的99%确切是汗水
Sheila Nirenberg at Cornell University is trying to develop a new prosthetic device for treating blindness. Key to this was cracking the code that transmits information from the eye to the brain. “Once I realised this, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep – all I wanted to do was work,” says Nirenberg.
康奈尔大学希拉·尼伦伯格正在研讨医治失明的新型假体，其中破解眼睛与大脑的信息交换密码是最要害的。“我意识到这一点之后，就吃不下饭、睡不着觉，只想全身心投入工作。”尼伦伯格说。
“Sometimes I’m exhausted and I get burnt out,” she adds. “But then I get an email from somebody in crisis or somebody who’s getting macular degeneration, and they can’t see their own children’s faces, and it is like, ‘How can I possibly complain?’ It gives me the energy to just go back and keep doing it.”
“每次感到精疲力竭、江郎才尽的时候，我都会收到一些到正处于危险状况立刻要失明的、或是患有黄斑部退化症的病人的邮件，这些人将没措施看清自己孩子的长相、无法看这色彩斑斓的世界。每当这个时候，我就跟自己说‘我怎么可能埋怨呢’，而后就又能源十足的继承工作。”
Lesson four: The answer isn’t always what you expect
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