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天不生牛顿,万古如长夜?谈谈牛顿的墓志铭

2011-02-11 17:03阅读:6,910
有人说:“他的墓碑上写着:天不生牛顿,万古如长夜, 这是对科学家最高的评价.”

经过博主的查证,这种说法是以讹传讹的结果。博主查验了安葬牛顿的威斯敏斯特教堂墓地的官方网站,确认刻在牛顿墓碑上的墓志铭是一段描述牛顿一生伟大成就的拉丁文,官方的英文翻译如下(原文网址:http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/sir-isaac-newton):

Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25th December, 1642, and died on 20th March 1726
/7.

有关的中文翻译我就不献丑了,估计喜欢牛顿的人差不多都能读懂,或者网上也能找到。

至于那位朋友说的什么“天不生牛顿,万古如长夜”,来自于一位名叫Alexander Pope 的诗人,原文是:Nature and Natures laws lay hid in night.God said, Let Newton be! and all was light。
按英文直译过来就是:大自然与她的定律原本都隐藏在黑夜之中,上帝说:让牛顿去吧。于是,一切变得光明。
传神一点,可以译成“天不生牛顿,万古如长夜”,类似于有关孔子的最高评价——天不生仲尼,万古如长夜。曾有人说,这是杜甫的诗作。但是,证据却没什么说服力!

需要说明的是,这位诗人的崇高致敬未被允许刻在牛顿的墓碑上。从某种意义上,这也可算是牛顿的“墓志铭”。
博主以为,不管是否出自名家之手,这句话孔子是否当得起暂且不论,牛顿应该是绝对配得上的!

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