山东师范大学翻译讲义

山东师范大学外国语学院

英汉翻译English-Chinese Translation

贾磊

2011

2. Q&A: China's Scientist Premier

In a rare one-on-one interview, Premier Wen Jiabao spoke with Science about China's efforts to ground its economic and social development in sound science

BEIJING—2008 has been a roller-coaster ride for China and for Premier Wen Jiabao. Recent highs were the spectacular Olympics and the successful space walk late last month during the Shenzhou-7 mission, a key step toward China’s aspirations of building a space station and sending astronauts to the moon. Lows included the Tibet riot, a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, and the tainted-milk scandal.

In 2003, early in his first term as head of China’s government, Wen promoted measures to address the spread of AIDS and the emergence of SARS. His leadership qualities were tested again after the 12 May Wenchuan earthquake. Within hours, Wen was on the scene, rally ing rescuers and comforting victims.

Wen led the earthquake response with technical authority few politicians anywhere could match. The Tianjin nati ve studied geological survey ing as an undergraduate and geological structure as a graduate student at Beijing Institute of Geology from 1960 to 1968, then spent the next 14 years with Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau in western China. In the 1980s, Wen rose through the ranks of the Communist Party and became vice premier of the State Council, China’s Cabinet, in 1998 and premier in 2003. Wen began a second 5-year term as premier last March.

In a 2-hour conversation with Science Editor-in-Chief Bruce Alberts at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in the heart of Beijing on 30 September, Wen, 66, spoke candidly and forcefully, without notes, on everything from the role of social and economic development being “the wellspring” of science and technology to cultivating scientific ethics and reducing China’s reliance on fossil fuels.

3. From How to Mellify a Corpse

During a meditative stroll around his home turf, the region of T urkey that the Greeks of old called Asia Minor, a keen-ey ed thinker named Thales stumbled across naturally occurring magnets called lodestones. Experimenting, he discovered their ability to attract iron; back in 600 b.c., this amounted to headline news. Giving the world its earliest sound bite, he exclaimed, "Lodestone made the iron move—it has a soul!" With that statement, he rejected the prevailing belief about inexplicable events: that the gods must have done it. That took courage.

Thales spent his life inquiring into the animating principles of the universe, the deeper nature of matter. Like other Greek seekers, he embraced learning from more ancient cultures, studying geometry and astronomy with the Egyptian sages. With his newly won knowledge he was able to accurately predict a solar eclipse, forcing armies to cancel a perfectly good battle slated for that day. This insightful eccentric has been called the first Greek scientist.

In the same era, his class act was echoed by Pythagoras, who sought answers to the universe in numbers and in music. A Greek born on the island of Samos, Pythagoras chose to establish his community of three hundred like-minded geeks, male and female, in southern Italy. It would grow to include thousands of adherents, including his wife and daughters, and thrive for centuries.