10月是诺贝尔奖的颁奖月,物理学、化学、以及文学奖都有女性获奖者的身影。

她们的科学或文学成就已经有非常多解读了。今天,双语君带你听一听她们的成长与态度。

高龄诺奖记录(知识武装的大脑究竟多有魅力)(1)

David Haviland, member of the Nobel Committee for Physics and Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran K. Hansson announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics presented on the screen: Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden Oct 6, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

Andrea M. Ghez

物理学

今年诺贝尔物理学奖有三位得主,他们都因为在黑洞领域的研究而获得了该奖。

Three scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe.

三位科学家于周二获得了今年的诺贝尔物理学奖,奖励他们增进了我们对黑洞的理解——黑洞是潜伏在宇宙最黑暗部分的一种吸收一切的怪物。

其中,女科学家Andrea Ghez于1987年从麻省理工学院本科毕业,之后又在1992年从加州理工学院获得了博士学位。她是因为观测银河系中心的黑洞而与研究同事共享了奖项。

她年幼时因为目睹了NASA的阿波罗探月发射计划,再加上基础教育时期碰到了非常有模范作用的老师,激起了她对于数学和科学的热情。

One of them was high school chemistry teacher Judith Keane, who recalled Ghez as an “exceptionally brilliant student.” “I am especially proud that Andrea continues to take such a strong interest in teaching and mentoring her own students, especially the girls.” said Keane, 80.

其中一位是高中化学老师朱迪思·基恩,她回忆起盖兹是一个“非常出色的学生”,“我特别自豪的是,安德烈娅继续对自己的学生,特别是女孩们的教学和指导产生如此强烈的兴趣。”80岁的基恩说。

In a 2006 interview with PBS, Ghez said of Keane: “She was one of the only female science teachers I ever had, and she was incredibly encouraging. I think it was important for me to see, very early on, a woman in this role.”

在2006年接受美国公共广播公司(PBS)采访时,盖兹谈到基恩时说:“她是我见过的唯一一位女性科学教师,难以想象她当时那么鼓励我。我认为在少时能看到一位女性承担鼓励科学的角色对我来说很重要。”

她的公开发言十分有趣。谈到如何解释黑洞给公众听,她也表示挠头。

We have this interesting problem with black holes. What is a black hole? It is a region of space where you have mass that's confined to zero volume, which means that the density is infinitely large, which means we have no way of describing, really, what a black hole is!

黑洞这个问题就很有趣。什么是黑洞?是一个空间区域,其中质量被限制在零体积,这意味着密度是无限大的,同时也意味着我们真的没办法描述黑洞是什么!

聊到科学研究的趣味,她认为就是不断地提出问题然后在探索过程中发现新的问题。迎难而上是她的态度。

The question that I started off with was, I thought, very simple. It was just 'Is there a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way?' But one of the things I love about science is that you always end up with new questions. “Black holes, because they are so hard to understand, is what makes them so appealing,’’ Ghez told The Associated Press. “I really think of science as a big, giant puzzle.”

我开始的问题,我想非常简单,就是“银河系中心有没有一个巨大的黑洞?”但我喜欢科学的一点就是你总是以新问题告终。“因为黑洞很难理解,所以它们才如此吸引人。我真的认为科学是一个巨大的谜题。” 盖兹接受美联社采访时说。

令人惊讶的还有,Ghez是有史以来第四位获得诺贝尔物理学奖的女性。1903年第一次获得该奖的是大名鼎鼎的居里夫人。

Ghez is the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, after Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963, and Donna Strickland in 2018.

我开始的问题,我想非常简单,就是“银河系中心有没有一个巨大的黑洞?”但我喜欢科学的一点就是你总是以新问题告终。“因为黑洞很难理解,所以它们才如此吸引人。我真的认为科学是一个巨大的谜题。” 盖兹接受美联社采访时说。

当然,她也希望自己能够激励年轻一代的科研女孩——科研乐趣无穷,诸事等你完成。

Ghez is the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, after Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963, and Donna Strickland in 2018.

盖兹表示:“我希望我能激励其他年轻女性进入这个领域。这是一个有很多乐趣的领域。如果你对科学充满热情,你可以做很多事情。”

高龄诺奖记录(知识武装的大脑究竟多有魅力)(2)

Pictures of Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna, winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, are displayed on a screen during the news conference announcing the laureates, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, October 7, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier

化学

今年的诺贝尔化学奖得主是两位女性Jennifer Doudna和Emmanuelle Charpentier,她们因为在基因编辑领域的技术突破而获奖。

Biochemist Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry, sharing it with colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier for the co-development of CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing breakthrough that has revolutionized biomedicine. Charpentier, 51, and Doudna, 56, are just the sixth and seventh women to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

生物化学家詹妮弗·杜德纳与同事埃马纽埃尔·卡彭蒂耶一起获得了2020年诺贝尔化学奖,她们共同开发了CRISPR-Cas9,这是一项基因组编辑方面的突破性进展,它使得生物医学发生了革命性的变化。51岁的卡彭蒂耶和56岁的杜德纳分别是第六和第七位获得诺贝尔化学奖的女性。

Doudna出生于华盛顿特区,却在夏威夷长大,高中的时候就展露了对化学的浓厚兴趣。本科学校不算大名鼎鼎,但优秀的她获得了哈佛大学医学院的进修机会并于1989年获得了博士学位。毕业后先是在耶鲁大学任教,2002年就去到了现在的大学——加州大学伯克利分校。

Doudna lives in Berkeley with her husband, Jamie Cate, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, and their son, Andrew.

杜德纳和她的丈夫Jamie Cate(加州大学伯克利分校的分子和细胞生物学教授)以及他们的儿子安德鲁住在伯克利。

有趣的是,诺奖宣布结果的时候,Doudna正在睡觉,凌晨被电话吵醒的她甚至以为是别人获了奖。

UC Berkeley校园新闻团队于诺奖结果宣布后的两小时之后抵达了Doudna的住处,在他们的镜头中,早上5:15分Doudna接听了友人的电话,对方恭喜了她,以下是他们的对话:

BOB: Jennifer

鲍:詹妮弗

DOUDNA: Bob, Good morning.

杜:鲍勃,早上好。

BOB: Good morning, congratulations!

鲍:早上好,恭喜!

DOUDNA: Thank you so much!

杜:谢谢你!

BOB: When did you find out about this thing?

鲍:你什么时候知道结果的?

DOUDNA: Well, uh, about 2:53. I think it was the moment because I was literally sound asleep, and the phone rang. I saw it was a reporter who I know, you know, I picked it up and she said “Hi, this is Heidi, calling from Nature, I wanted to get some comments on the Nobel.” And I thought she was calling to ask me to comment on somebody else wining the Nobel. So I, and I was, you know, just really dead asleep. And I said oh Heidi, gosh, I haven’t even had time to look at anything yet and she said oh my gosh you don’t know. And I said “know what?” And she said “you won the Nobel Prize!”

杜:呃,应该是2:53.我觉得是这个时间,因为我真的睡得很熟,然后电话就响了。我看到是我认识的一个记者,然后我就接了电话,她说“你好,我是《自然》杂志的海蒂,我想请你对诺奖的颁发发表下看法。”我以为她是打电话来叫我评论下别的候选人获奖的事情。所以我,你懂的,我实在睡太熟了。我说“噢海蒂啊,天呐,我还没找着时间看点东西做些功课呢。”然后她说“天呐你居然不知道?”我说“知道什么?”然后她说“你得诺贝尔奖啦!”

BOB: What did you think about this? What’s the significance? This is the first Nobel Prize given only to women.

鲍:你觉得这件事,这个重要性,这是诺贝尔化学奖第一次颁发给全部是女性的获奖者,你怎么看?

DOUDNA: Is that true?

杜:真的吗?

BOB: yes.

鲍:是啊。

DOUDNA: Ever?

杜:有史以来?

BOB: Ever.

鲍:有史以来。

DOUDNA: Ever? (giggle) My feeling is that I think among women and girls that … you know, sometimes there’s a sense that no matter what they do, that their work will not be recognized the way it would be if they were a man. And um, and I just, I hope that this prize and this recognition changes that at least a little bit.

杜:从未有过?(笑)我觉得女人也好女孩儿也罢,你懂的,有时候就是觉得不管她们怎么努力,她们的成果都不会像男性那样获得认可。我希望这个奖和这份认可能够改变这个现状,哪怕改变一点点。

Doudna说自己在求学路上曾是那种别人眼中的异类(outcast),遭受排挤。

I was kind of a nerdy, geeky type. And I loved math. People teased me about it. I felt pretty much like an outcast. [And I think] one of the problems in the biotech world is the lack of women in leadership roles, and I'd like to see that change by walking the walk.

我曾经是那种很书呆子,很极客的那种人。我又很喜欢数学。然后有人就取笑我。我觉得自己老是遭受排挤。[我认为]生物技术领域的众多问题之一就是领导层缺乏女性,而且我乐于身体力行让改变发生。

Doudna在接受《国家地理》杂志采访时被问到:

What advice would you give to young women today?

有什么建议给到今天的年轻女性?

她回答说:

First: walk into a room like you own the place. A man would do that without com-punction. The other thing I tell them is to choose your life partner wisely. Having a part¬ner in life who is supportive of you—of deci¬sions about children, about careers, about lifestyle—goes a long way in enabling women to achieve their full potential.

第一:走进房间时要觉得你是房间的主角,一个男的可以毫无内疚的做到这一点。另外我还想告诉她们,选择伴侣时要带脑子。有一个支持你的伴侣——无论是支持你的生育决定、事业选择、还是生活方式等等——都会非常大程度地帮助到女性开发自己的潜能。

与Doudna分享奖项的Charpentier在接受采访时也传递了类似的鼓励信息:

Charpentier told the news conference by phone that she hopes the prize encourages girls to pursue science. “I wish that this will provide a positive message … to show them in principle woman in science can also be awarded prizes but more importantly, women in science can also have an impact for the research they’re performing,” she said.

卡彭蒂耶在电话发布会上说,她希望这个奖项能鼓励女孩们追求科学。她说:“我希望这将提供一个积极的信息……向她们表明,理论上,科学界的女性也可以获得奖项,但更重要的是,科学界的女性也可以对她们正在进行的研究产生影响”。

另外,文学奖的获奖者也是一名女性——美国诗人Louise Glück.

The poet Louise Glück has become the first American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature in 27 years. Glück, cited for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”, is the 16th woman to win the Nobel.

诗人露易丝·格丽克成为27年来首位获得诺贝尔文学奖的美国女性。她也是第16位获得诺贝尔文学奖的女性,诺奖委员会称她以“朴实无华的诗意之声,让个体的存在普世化”。

今年无疑是女性获奖者的大年。

但,埋藏在科学探索披荆斩棘之下的源源动力,一定是自然的魅力本身。

正如今年因基因编辑技术而获奖的诺贝尔化学奖得主Doudna所说的那句:

The idea that you would affect evolution is a very profound thing.

一想到你可能会影响[生物]演化进程就感到十分意义重大。

巨人在前,等你跃肩。

高龄诺奖记录(知识武装的大脑究竟多有魅力)(3)

Note

lurk [lɜːrk] v 埋伏,潜伏

volume [ˈvɒljuːm] n 体积;容积;容量

genome [ˈdʒiːnoʊm] n 基因组;染色体组

outcast [ˈaʊtkæst] n 被抛弃者;被排斥者

编辑:李雪晴 左卓

参考来源:TIME; University of Chicago; Brainy Quote; Berkeley News; National Geographic; France 24; Associated Press; NBC News; The Guardian

来源:中国日报双语新闻微信公众号

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