發明了發明家這個職業的愛迪生
Plenty of lives are admirable or eventful, but only a very few are so influential that it’s difficult to wrap your head around just how much they meant to the world. Thomas A. Edison lived such a life, and it receives a thorough two-hour examination in Tuesday’s “American Experience” on PBS.
很多人的一生令人欽佩或充滿變故，但只有極少數人的影響力如此重大，連深刻理解他們對世界的意義都不是一件容易的事。托馬斯·A·愛迪生(Thomas A. Edison)的人生就是這樣的，PBS頻道週二（本文發表於2015年1月27日。）播出的《美國體驗》(American Experience)欄目將用兩個小時來詳細回顧愛迪生的一生。
A well-chosen collection of historians and other experts take us through Edison’s life, from his birth in Ohio in 1847 to his death in New Jersey in 1931. They sometimes struggle to convey just how earthshaking it was to go from lamplight to electric light, from a world where the human voice was ephemeral to one where it could be captured and preserved, but who wouldn’t?
一些精心挑選的史學家和專家帶我們回顧愛迪生的一生，從他1847年在俄亥俄州出生到1931年在新澤西州去世。愛迪生把我們從煤油燈的世界帶到了電燈的世界，把我們從人的聲音轉瞬即逝的世界帶到了聲音可以被記錄和保存的世界，這些專家們有時竭力想讓我們明白這樣的變化有多麼翻天覆地，但誰不會這樣做呢？They are particularly good at conveying that what made Edison special wasn’t so much his inventions as knowing what to do with them. As several note, he didn’t merely invent things, he invented the profession of inventor. And, especially with the light bulb, he tackled not just the technological problem, but also the infrastructure needed to illuminate homes.
這些專家們有一點格外出色，他們讓我們明白，愛迪生的獨特之處不在於他的發明，而更多的在於他知道如何應用它們。就像幾位史學家指出的那樣，他不只是發明了東西，他還發明瞭發明家這個職業。而且，以電燈泡爲例，他不只是解決了技術問題，而且發明了家庭照明所需的基礎設施。
“You had to be able to not just marshal the science, but then put the people and the money, the capital and the organizations together,” the historian Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at the Harvard Business School, says. “And the politics. I can’t think of another figure who could operate on all those different levels.”
“能夠引領科學還不夠，你還必須把人力、金錢、資本和組織結合起來，”史學家、哈佛商學院教授南希·F·克恩(Nancy F. Koehn)說，“還有政治。我想不出還有哪個人物能運作所有這些不同層面。”Edison’s story, though, was also one of celebrity and its hazards. He became world famous, and practically no one reaches those heights without problems. A falling out with a friend, unflattering efforts to discredit other inventors and entrepreneurs and more are duly noted.
不過，愛迪生的故事也是關於名聲及其危險的故事。他舉世聞名，實際上所有達到這種高度的人幾乎都會出現問題。節目中也適當提及他與一個朋友的爭執以及他抹黑其他發明家和企業家等不光彩行爲。But he ended his life widely revered. Would we still be reading by kerosene lamp had Edison not lived? No; someone else would have made that breakthrough and the others credited to him. The impressive part is that the same guy had a hand in so many transformative changes.
但是他的一生終究受到廣泛崇敬。如果沒有愛迪生，我們是否還在煤油燈下讀書？不會的。其他人會取得這個突破，他名下的其他成就也會有別人發明出來。令人欽佩的是，他一個人參與了這麼多翻天覆地的變革。
