Stephen Hawking, the ‘Superhuman’ Pop Culture Star

霍金——超人般的流行文化明星

By Fiachra Gibbons & Laurence Thomann

文/菲亚克拉·吉本斯、劳伦斯·托曼

Very few people may have read and understood “A Brief History of Time”, but the physicist Stephen Hawking carved himself out a place in pop culture equalled only by Albert Einstein.

可能很少有人通读过并看懂了《时间简史》，但其作者物理学家斯蒂芬·霍金却为自己在流行文化领域开拓了一方天地，史上唯有阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦可与其媲美。

While the brilliant mind behind the theory of relativity was instantly recognisable by Einstein’s unruly “mad scientist” hair, Hawking’s wheelchair and his synthesised voice made him every bit as iconic.

爱因斯坦凌乱的“疯狂科学家”发型，让其蕴含在相对论背后的智慧瞬间具有辨识性；而霍金的轮椅及其合成语音，让他同样极具标志性。

Both knew how to play to the gallery[1], and that the key to scientific evangelism was not to take yourself too seriously – in public.

两位“科学布道者”都深谙如何吸引公众视线，他们的秘诀是：别太把自己当回事——尤其在公共场合。

[1] play to the gallery 哗众取宠；卖弄噱头。

Einstein famously stuck out his tongue out for a picture in 1951 and Hawking never passed up a chance to show his rapier wit.

爱因斯坦1951年拍的那张吐舌照片就十分出名，而霍金更是抓住每个机会展示他敏捷的才思。

Within months of his 1988 best-seller – dubbed “the greatest unread book in history” – entering the Guinness Book of Records, the British cosmologist had became a star of the television chat show circuit and a pop cultural fixture.

他于1988年出版的《时间简史》成了畅销之作，被称为“史上最伟大的天书”。在该书被收入《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》几个月后，这位英国宇宙学家已成为电视脱口秀明星和流行文化的熟面孔。

He appeared as himself in everything from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” – playing poker with a hologram of Einstein – to “The Simpsons” where he conceded that Homer[2]’s “theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing”.

他总是本色出演，不仅在《星际迷航：下一代》中与爱因斯坦的全息影像打桥牌，还在《辛普森一家》中承认霍默·辛普森的“甜甜圈形宇宙的理论挺有意思”。

[2] 与下文中斯金纳校长同为动画片《辛普森一家》人物。

In fact, he appeared five times in the cartoon series as “the world’s smartest man”, and became such a running gag[3] that he had his own Simpsons figurine.

事实上，他曾在这部动画系列片中五次出场，饰演自己——“世界上最聪明的人”，他还凭借不断显露的幽默风趣获得了自己在该片所饰形象的专属小雕像。

[3] running gag 连续重复的插科打诨。

In his 1999 debut, “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”, he even started a brawl by punching Principal Skinner.

1999年，他在《辛普森一家》之“他们拯救了丽莎的大脑”一集中首次亮相，甚至在剧中因拳击斯金纳校长而引发一场群殴。

He was usually called on to deliver pearls of gnomic self-deprecating wisdom such as: “Sometimes even the smartest of us can be the most childish. But not me, never…”

他还经常被要求展现精辟的自嘲式智慧，比如：“有时候最聪明的人也可能是最幼稚的，但我不是，绝不是……”

 

‘Imprisoned mind’ roaming cosmos

“被禁锢的大脑”遨游宇宙

The scientist was a regular too on another US show, “The Big Bang Theory”.

这位科学家还成了另一美剧《生活大爆炸》的常客。

Artists even found his TV adverts inspiring.

艺术家也受到他的电视广告的启发。

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour sampled his voice from a 1994 British telephone ad for his song, “Keep Talking”, after Hawking declared: “Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

霍金曾称：“人类最伟大的成就在交谈中逐渐成形，而最大的失败则源自交谈的缺失。事情不必非得如此。”之后，摇滚乐团平克·弗洛伊德的戴维·吉尔摩从1994年英国的一个电话广告中采集了霍金的声音，用在自己的歌曲《保持交谈》里。

Hawking’s colleague at Cambridge University, the Astronomer Royal Professor Lord Martin Rees, said the key to his appeal was that his brilliant brain had been imprisoned in a wheelchair and that he had been robbed of his own voice.

皇家天文学教授马丁·里斯勋爵是霍金在剑桥大学的同事。他认为，霍金之所以吸引大众，关键在于霍金非凡的大脑被禁锢在轮椅上，同时还被剥夺了自己的声音。

“The concept of an imprisoned mind roaming the cosmos plainly grabbed people’s imagination” and made him a cult figure, Lord Rees said in an appreciation[4] of his friend.

里斯勋爵在评价友人霍金时曾说，“一个被禁锢的大脑却能在宇宙遨游，这显然调动了人们的想象力”，并使他成为偶像人物。

[4] 此处是可数名词，意为（对艺术家、表演者或其作品的）评论、评价。

“If he had achieved equal distinction in (say) genetics rather than cosmology, his triumph of intellect against adversity probably wouldn’t have achieved the same resonance with a worldwide public,” he added.

他补充表示：“假如说，他在遗传学而非宇宙学取得同等的成就，那他凭借智慧对抗逆境取得的胜利可能不会在世界范围引起像现在这么大的共鸣。”

 

Postmodern superhero

后现代超级英雄

But for French science writer and YouTube star Bruce Benamran, Hawking was a kind of postmodern superhero.

但对法国科普作家、视频网站 YouTube 明星布鲁斯·贝纳赫来说，霍金是后现代超级英雄。

“He was clearly handicapped by his illness but at the same time he was kind of superhuman.”

“显然，他是备受病痛困扰的残障人士，但同时，他也是一位超级英雄。”

“He seemed to live in a kind of energy that was almost superhuman even as he was imprisoned in his wheelchair and obliged to talk through an artificial interface, which made him even more recognisable,” he added.

贝纳赫还说：“霍金似乎是以某种超能维持生命，虽然他被禁锢在轮椅上，被迫通过拟声器发声，这些都更能让人们一眼认出他。”

Despite the black hole of a body wracked by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Hawking was able to fill the Albert Hall in London and other huge venues across the world and hold audiences spellbound with his ideas.

尽管躯体因肌肉萎缩性侧索硬化症而像黑洞一样萎缩，霍金却能用思想让伦敦皇家阿尔伯特音乐厅及世界各地的大礼堂座无虚席，让观众入迷。

Hawking’s personal life also became public property through the success of “The Theory of Everything”.

电影《万物理论》的成功让霍金的个人生活也暴露在公众面前。

Based on the book by his first wife, Jane, Lord Rees said the film “conveyed with sensitivity how the need for support (first from a succession of students, but later requiring a team of nurses), strained his marriage to breaking point, especially when augmented by the pres-sure of his growing celebrity.”

这部电影改编自霍金第一任妻子简的回忆录。里斯勋爵说，该片“细微刻画了在寻求救治帮助的过程中（先是一连串学生，后是一群护士），他的婚姻如何被推向崩裂的边缘，尤其在霍金与日俱增的名气带来的压力下，裂痕一再加大。”

Hawking later married one of those nurses, Elaine Mason, whose former husband had designed Hawking’s speech synthesiser, although the relationship did not last either.

后来，霍金与其中一名护士伊莱恩·梅森再婚，而梅森的前夫正是霍金语音合成器的设计者，不过他们两人的婚姻也并不长久。

In later life, he wrote a series of much-praised books for children with his daughter, Lucy.

晚年，霍金和女儿露西撰写了一系列广受赞誉的儿童读物。

While more than 10 million copies of “A Brief History of Time” were sold, Lord Rees said “probably more readers got to the end” of his other books which explained his ideas, such as “Our Universe in a Nutshell” and “The Grand Design”.

虽然《时间简史》售出1000余万册，但里斯勋爵认为，“可能更多读者能从头读到尾的”还是他其他几本解释其思想的著作，比如《果壳中的宇宙》和《大设计》。

Benamran, however, said his gift for explaining the most complex concepts was the key to his stardom.

贝纳赫则认为，霍金成为流行文化明星的关键在于，他拥有阐明最复杂概念的天赋。

“He was someone who could explain simply and clearly the most difficult subjects without loading them with scientific baggage,” he said.

他说：“霍金可以将最难的课题简单明了地展示给世人，不会让它们背上科学的包袱。”

（译者单位：南京师范大学）