Lesson four: The answer isn’t always what you expect

　　4.结果并不总是和预想的一样

　　Sylvia Earle has spent decades trying to see the ocean with new eyes. Her “dream machine” is a submarine that could take scientists all the way to the bottom of the deepest ocean floor. What sort of material could best withstand the types of pressure you would encounter thousands of miles below the ocean surface? “It could be steel, it could be titanium, it could be some sort of ceramic, or some kind of aluminium system,” says Earle. “But glass is the ultimate material.” By her estimates, a glass sphere about four-to-six inches (10-15cm) thick should be able safely explore the ocean depths she dreams of exploring.

　　西尔维亚·厄尔花了几十年的时间试图让人们用新的方式亲近海底，她的“梦想号”潜艇可以让科学家潜入到最深的海底。那种材料才能够承受住深海的巨大压力呢?厄尔说：“我想过用钢、钛、陶瓷等，但最终发现其实玻璃才是终极王者。”根据她的预计，一块10-15厘米厚的玻璃板就能让她进入梦寐以求的那片深海世界。

　　Glass is the oldest material known to man and one of the least understood, says Tony Lawson, Earle’s engineering director at Deep Ocean and Exploration Research Marine. “It has a higgledy-piggledy molecular structure a bit like a liquid, rather than the ordered lattices often found in other solids. As a result, when glass is evenly squeezed from all sides – as it would be under the ocean – the molecules cram closer together and form a tighter structure.

　　厄尔的项目技术总监称，虽然玻璃是人类已知的最古老材料，但是我们对它的了解却甚少。“玻璃的分子结构有点像是液体，排列方式没有一般固体的有规律。因此，当玻璃被海洋里的压力从四面八方压迫时，它的分子会被压在一起，形成更紧密的结构。”

　　Lesson five: A little luck goes a long way

　　5.偶尔的一点好运也可以维持很久

　　It was hailed as one of the biggest success stories in the history of space exploration – 20 years of planning ended earlier this year with the Philae lander rendezvousing with Comet 67P over 300 million miles (480 million kilometres) away from Earth.

　　菲莱探测器被誉为太空探索史上最大跨越之一，历经20年的策划期终于在年初发射并成功在离地球四亿八千万公里的67P彗星上着陆。

　　The biggest challenge, says Stephan Ulamec, manager of the Philae lander programme, was how to design a probe to land on a body whose makeup they had little knowledge about. “We h

　　据菲莱项目的负责人斯蒂芬介绍，在这20年里遇到的最大挑战是对彗星构造了解较少，不知道该如何设计这个探测器。“我们不知道彗星的昼夜循环情况会影响保热设计，不知道彗星的重力也无法预测探测器着陆后对转速的影响，甚至不清楚彗星表面的样子。”

　　They needed to create design parameters that could cope with an extremely wide range of possible comet structures – but banked on the comet being a relatively even potato shape with enough flat surfaces for the probe to land on. Even then, not everything went to plan, and two decades of meticulous planning could have failed within minutes at touchdown. Philae's anchoring harpoons didn't fire as planned, and it bounced off the comet before settling onto its icy surface and successfully beaming data back to its relieved creators.

　　科学家们需要建立尽可能符合多种彗星结构的设计参数，但是还是得寄希望于彗星的表面要够平坦。可即便是花了20年设计、缜密计划过的菲莱还是在着陆的几分钟里有点小失败：“鱼叉”系统未如计划打开，无法准确钉入彗星表面。不过幸运的是，菲莱还是成功地把数据发回了地球。

　　Lesson six: Genius is indefinable

　　6.“天才”定义不明

　　“It’s a funny word: the word ‘genius’,” says Nirenberg. “I just sort of ignore it and just go on with life. You just do what you do independent of whatever label’s attached to you. I don’t know really how else to explain it.”

　　“天才这个词很有趣”，尼伦伯格说，“我常常忽略这个标签继续走自己的路。只需要抛掉别人在你身上贴的各种标签做自己想做到的事就好了。因为所谓天才真是判断标准不一、无法解释的事情。”