纪念相对论发表100周年
在科学美国人上看到了如下奇文。我只能懂一部分。希望有物理、英语都牛的人给出正解。
Scientific American July 2004
By Steve Mirsky
Einstein’s Parrot
-------------A Great Brain and a Bird Spend Time Together
In late April the Associated Press reported discovery of a diary written by a woman, Johanna
Fantove, who was a close friend of Albert Einstein, “ The 62-page diary, written in German, was
discovered in February in Fantova’s files at Priceton University’s Firestone Library, where she had
Worked as a curator,” the AP story noted. One fascinating revelation of the daisy is that Einstein
received a parrot as a 75th-birthday gift. According to the AP, “After deciding the bird was
depressed, Einstein tried to alter its mood by telling bad jokes.”
Parrots can live for a century. In early May I may (or may not ) have encountered a parrot that
may ( or may not ) have been the bird entertained by Einstein. Speaking in German—accented
English, the parrot recited a monologue, what follows is a transcript of that monologue:
“ How do I order beer in a bar? I say Ein stein for Einstein.”
Hey, Parrot, what’s the difference between a wild boar and Niels Bohr? When I say that God
doesn’t play dice, a wild boar doesn’t tell me to stop telling God what to do. I hate that.
So what do you say to the man who developed the exclusion principle? You say, ‘ Pauli, want a
cracker?’ Wolfgang Pauli, get it? Hello, is this thing on? Testing, one, two.
Hey, Parrot, I had a dream where I made love to Rita Hayworth for an hour. Well, for her it was an
hour, For me, 35 seconds. That’s relativity.
Okey, Newton is standing on the shoulder’s of a giant, and he says, ‘Giant, how do I get down off
you?’ and the giant says, ‘You don’t get down off me, you get down off a duck.” I love that one.
Parrot, tell me what is a Lorentz contraction? That’s when Mrs. Lorentz knows the baby is coming.
It’s a timed dilation, not a time dilation, get it ?”
Let’s see, two guys walk into an h-bar. An H-BAR, if you knew any physics you’d be on the floor,
I swear.
Uh, if Ruby Keeler married, uh, John Wheeler, became a doctor and got a job in Vegas, she’d be
Ruby Keeler Wheeler the healer dealer.
So what would people say if Paul Dirac feel on Jane Russell? They’d say, ‘ Look at Dirac on Jane
Russell.’ Oh, they’d say it ,trust me.
Okey, there are these twins, see, They’re 20 years old. And one of them goes zipping around the
universe really fast while other one stays on Earth. The twin who was zipping around comes back,
and he’s maybe a year older, and he goes to find his brother. And the brother is now 95 years old.
And the young twin comes up to him. The old twin looks at the young twin, and tears come to his
eyes. And the young twin says, ‘ Why are you crying?’ And the old twin says, ‘ I’m so happy.’ And
the young twin says, ‘ To see me?’ And the old twin, he says, ‘ Yes. The $100 you owned me when
you left, it’s now $100,000.’ From the compounding interest.
Oh, these are the jokes, Parrot. What, you don’t like living in a cage? You know, you’re a good
listener for a parrot. Oh, boy, it looks like you just did a Brownian movement.
Good thing I lined the cage with my cosmological constant proposal. That proposal was my
second biggest mistake. My biggest mistake was my proposal to my first wife.
Ba-dum-bum, Parrot, if you had a plastic deer on your lawn covered in Christmas lights, turning
them on would give you the faux doe electric effect.
Whaddya call it when Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi pull up an anchor? A chain retraction!
Not so good ? You should hear me play the violin. So Schrodinger and Heisenberg are driving
down the road, and Heisenberg says, ‘ Hey, I think you just ran over a cat.’ And Schrodinger, he
says, ‘Is it dead?’ And Heisenberg, says, heh heh, get this: “ I can’t be certain.”
Okey, so the smartest man in the world is talking to a parrot, Hey, Parrot, that’s not a joke, that’s
my life.” | 
楼主: 特深沉
发表于 2005-3-17 19:07
