读书 | Einstein's Dreams

推荐你读一本书《爱因斯坦的梦》Einstein's Dreams，作者阿兰·莱特曼任教于麻省理工学院，是一名小说家，散文家，物理学家。此书出版于1992年.

大概在半年前我发起过一次一起读这本书的号召，不幸的是，和大多数我举办的活动一样都失败了。鉴于有些人在问我这是什么书，我就再重发一次这篇半年前的推送. 这是一本你读完每一篇都脑洞大开有所思考感悟的不像小说的小说，里面的配图都是精心选过的, 希望你也喜欢。

此书电子版pdf下载，请戳阅读原文

本文转自作者康夏的知乎专栏" -- 对，就是那个卖书的康夏，如何处理一千张废纸"中的 爱因斯坦的33个虚构梦境集. 作者也有微信公众号“乌托邦地图集",搜索“utopianatlas".

爱因斯坦的 33 个虚构梦境集

康夏

据说在阅读这件事儿里，人类都喜欢阅读微微高过自己理解范畴一丁点儿的作品。这个标准线极其微妙，不要太低以致于乏味，但也别太高以致于艰涩，恰恰在那之间，刺激你的心你的脑，教你反复阅读也不会厌倦。

如果你也像我这样想，那么在这本书里，你可以读到地球上关于时间最美妙的讨论。

In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops. The young man slumps at his desk. He has come to the office at dawn, after another upheaval. His hair is uncombed and his trousers are too big. In his hand he holds twenty crumpled pages, his new theory of time, which he will mail today to the German journal of physics.

深夜的时候，我用PC机，在一个排版粗糙的盗版PDF里，每次只读一点点，促狭地读完《爱因斯坦的梦》(Einstein's Dreams)，它是那一类表述精准却不放纵于辞藻、知识浩瀚却不刻意炫耀的作品：作个荒谬的比喻，假如一本书，它既是翁贝托艾柯式的，却又是张晓风式的，你能想象它的故事是什么样子吗？

它的文体也难以定义：从未有过这样的文本，它略略超出于小说、略略超于诗歌、略略超于散文、略略超于日记，又似乎兼而有之。

这本书的诞生是一次燃烧式的冒险：麻省理工学院的物理学与人文学教授阿兰·莱特曼(Alan Lightman)在思维与精神极度亢奋里，经历了整整六个月的失眠煎熬，写成了这部薄薄的虚构小说。在这本书里，爱因斯坦在1905年的瑞士伯尔尼市镇，做了33个关于时间的迷人梦境。

Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.

For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know that they will make the same bargain again and again. Politicians do not know that they will shout from the same lectern an infinite number of times in the cycles of time. Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again. Lovers making love the first time undress shyly, show surprise at the supple thigh, the fragile nipple. How would they know that each secret glimpse, each touch, will be repeated again and again and again, exactly as before?

On Marktgasse, it is the same. How could the shopkeepers know that each handmade sweater, each embroidered handkerchief, each chocolate candy, each intricate compass and watch will return to their stalls? At dusk, the shopkeepers go home to their families or drink beer in the taverns, calling happily to friends down the vaulted alleys, caressing each moment as an emerald on temporary consignment. How could they know that nothing is temporary, that all will happen again? No more than an ant crawling round the rim of a crystal chandelier knows that it will return to where it began.

作为一本小说，它大概是一切小说里最适合被朗诵出声的一部。想象在困意袭来之前的十五分钟，索性翻到书的任何一页，就从你第一眼看到的那一句话开始，用你能够使用的最低、最缓慢、最浑浊的嗓音念下去：“设想时间是一个圆圈，弯转过来，首尾相接。世界重复着自己，无休无止，不差毫厘。”

在梁文道的形容里，这本书是“字字珠玑”的，而对于黄集伟来说，这本书则是一颗“遗珠”，自从1997年在《世界文学》杂志上看到《爱因斯坦的梦》的译文选段后，黄集伟就爱上了这本书，逢人便反复推荐。

In this world, time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze. Now and then, some cosmic disturbance will cause a rivulet of time to turn away from the mainstream, to make connection back stream. When this happens, birds, soil, people caught in the branching tributary find themselves suddenly carried to the past.

Persons who have been transported back in time are easy to identify. They wear dark, indistinct clothing and walk on their toes, trying not to make a single sound, trying not to bend a single blade of grass. For they fear that any change they make in the past could have drastic consequences for the future.

阿兰·莱特曼为发现相对论之前的爱因斯坦编造了一个浓烈和浪漫的梦境集。在这33个疯狂和不着边际的梦境里，时间是一个周而复始的圆、是一条任性改道的河道、是有三个维度的真实分叉。时间还可能是一条平行线，一条是机械的时间，一条是身体的时间；时间甚至可能是因果错乱的，有时一先于二，有时二先于一。

A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back. In the coffeehouses. in the government buildings, in boats on Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time. Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.

一位叫远士的朋友为这部书写了一段很动人的评论，“莱特曼教授通过《爱因斯坦的梦》在哲学与存在的意义之间制作了精微的勾连，凭借其富于创造性的科学心灵与天马行空的想象力描绘了一首首美丽的时间诗篇，对人生那与理论无关、与时间纠缠、感伤高贵的本质做了引人入胜的探索。于是，这本篇幅不长的小说不仅是作者心中的，也是我们身边的；不仅描绘了1905年伯尔尼的市镇生活，歌其可歌，笑其可笑，哀其可哀，更映射出了我们过去、现在与未来的某一种、某一段生活。”

狂烈的幻想，被约束进这本书几乎是平淡的口吻里。想起前两年摆在书店显要位置的《生命的清单:关于来世的40种景象》(Forty Tales from the Afterlives)，作者大卫·伊格曼(David Eagleman)同样是理工科教授，同样是令人着迷的天马行空，不知道伊格曼在写作时，有没有想起过这本《爱因斯坦的梦》？

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