(Credit: raptisrarebooks.com)
斯蒂芬·威廉·霍金（Stephen William Hawking，1942—2018），英國著名物理學家，劍橋大學數(shù)學及理論物理學系教授，主要研究領(lǐng)域是宇宙論和黑洞，證明了廣義相對論的奇性定理和黑洞面積定理，提出了黑洞蒸發(fā)理論和無邊界的霍金宇宙模型。1963年，霍金就被確診患上肌肉萎縮性側(cè)索硬化癥（盧伽雷氏癥），全身癱瘓，不能言語，手部只有三根手指可以活動。代表作包括《時間簡史》《果殼中的宇宙》《大設(shè)計》等。卡爾·愛德華·薩根（Carl Edward Sagan，1934—1996），美國天文學家、天體物理學家、宇宙學家，行星學會創(chuàng)立者，同時也是非常成功的天文學、天體物理學等自然科學方面的科普作家。許明賢，1947年出生于上海，1968年畢業(yè)于清華大學無線電系，之后任教于中國科技大學；吳忠超，1946年出生于福州，1968年畢業(yè)于中國科技大學無線電系并留校任教，1984年在霍金教授指導(dǎo)下獲得劍橋大學博士學位。
（朗讀：北京外國語大學 蘇樂舟）
Introduction to 'A Brief History of Time'We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend. Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is; where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward and effects precede causes; or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. There are even children, and I have met some of them, who want to know what a black hole looks like; what is the smallest piece of matter; why we remember the past and not the future; how it is, if there was chaos early, that there is, apparently, order today; and why there is a universe.我們在幾乎對世界毫無了解的情形下進行日常生活。我們對于使生命得以實現(xiàn)的陽光的產(chǎn)生機制，對于將我們束縛在地球上、否則我們就會以渦旋的軌道被拋到太空去的重力， 對于我們由之構(gòu)成并依賴其穩(wěn)定性的原子思考得很少。除了小孩（他們知道太少，會不知輕重地問重要的問題），我們中很少人會用大量時間驚訝自然界為何這個樣子；宇宙從何而來或它是否總在這兒；時間會不會有朝一日倒流，并因此導(dǎo)致果先于因；或者人類認識是否有極限。甚至我曾遇到一些小孩，他們想要知道：黑洞是什么樣的；物質(zhì)的最小部分是什么；為何我們記住過去而不是將來；如果早先是紊亂的，則今天顯然是有序的，這究竟是怎么回事；為何存在一個宇宙。In our society it is still customary for parents and teachers to answer most of these questions with a shrug, or with an appeal to vaguely recalled religious precepts. Some are uncomfortable with issues like these, because they so vividly expose the limitations of human understanding.在我們社會里，父母和老師仍然依慣例用聳肩膀或借助模糊回想起的宗教格言來回答這些問題中的大部分。有些人則對這一類問題感到不舒服，因為它們?nèi)绱松鷦拥乇┞读巳祟惱斫獾木窒扌浴?/span>But much of philosophy and science has been driven by such inquiries. All increasing number of adults are willing to ask questions of this sort, and occasionally they get some astonishing answers. Equidistant from the atoms and the stars, we are expanding our exploratory horizons to embrace both the very small and the very large.但是，哲學和科學大部分即是由這種好奇心所驅(qū)動的。越來越多的成年人愿意問這類問題，并且他們偶爾會得到一些令人驚奇的答案。我們這些離開原子和恒星同樣遠的人類，正在擴大自己探索的視野去擁抱這非常小和非常大的對象。(Credit: Timetoast)
In the spring of 1974, about two years before the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars, I was at a meeting in England sponsored by the Royal Society of London to explore the question of how to search for extraterrestrial life. During a coffee break I noticed that a much larger meeting was being held in an adjacent hall, which out of curiosity I entered. I soon realized that I was witnessing an ancient rite, the investiture of new fellows into the Royal Society, one of the most ancient scholarly organizations on the planet. In the front row a young man in a wheelchair was, very slowly, signing his name in a book that bore on its earliest pages the signature of Isaac Newton. When at last he finished, there was a stirring ovation. Stephen Hawking was a legend even then.1974年春，大約在“海盜”飛船登陸火星之前兩年，我參加了在英國由倫敦皇家學會主辦的關(guān)于探索如何尋找天外生命的會議。會議中間休息時，我注意到隔壁大廳里正舉行一個大得多的會議，出于好奇心我進去了。我很快意識到自己在見證一個古老的儀式，吸收新會員加入皇家學會——這個本行星上最古老的學術(shù)組織的授職式。前排，一位坐在輪椅中的年輕人正非常緩慢地將他的名字簽在一本書上，而這本書的最前頁是伊薩克·牛頓的簽名。當他最后簽好時，大廳里響起了一陣響亮的掌聲。斯蒂芬·霍金，甚至在那時就是一位傳說中的人物。Hawking is now the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post once held by Newton and later by P. A.M. Dirac, two celebrated explorers of the very large and the small. He is their worthy successor. This, Hawking's first book for the nonspecialist, holds rewards of many kinds for the lay audience. As interesting as the book's wide-ranging contents is the glimpse it provides into the workings of its author's mind. In this book are lucid revelations on the frontiers of physics, astronomy, cosmology, and courage.現(xiàn)在霍金是劍橋大學的盧卡遜數(shù)學教授，這個職務(wù)曾為牛頓、后來又為狄拉克——這兩位非常大和非常小的世界的有名的探索者——擔任過。他是他們的毫不遜色的繼承人。這本霍金首次為非專業(yè)人士寫的書，會給外行讀者多種酬勞。和這本書廣泛的內(nèi)容一樣有趣的是對作者智力工作的瀏覽。物理、天文、宇宙學和勇氣的前沿被清晰地呈現(xiàn)在本書之中。This is also a book about God ... or perhaps about the absence of God. The word God fills these pages. Hawking embarks on a quest to answer Einstein's famous question about whether God had any choice in creating the universe. Hawking is attempting, as he explicitly states, to understand the mind of God. And this makes all the more unexpected the conclusion of the effort, at least so far: a universe with no edge in space, no beginning or end in time, and nothing for a Creator to do.這也是一本關(guān)于上帝……或許是關(guān)于上帝不存在的書。書中處處充滿了“上帝”這個字眼。霍金著手回答愛因斯坦著名的關(guān)于上帝在創(chuàng)生宇宙時有無選擇性的問題。正如霍金明白聲稱的，他在試圖去理解上帝的精神。這使得迄今所有努力的結(jié)論更加出人意料：一個空間上無邊無際、時間上無始無終且造物主無所事事的宇宙。對外經(jīng)濟貿(mào)易大學英語學院實習生(Credit: abebooks.com)
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