演講MP3+雙語(yǔ)文稿:你在哪個(gè)年齡段最有可能成功？

聽(tīng)力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語(yǔ)文稿，供各位英語(yǔ)愛(ài)好者學(xué)習(xí)使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語(yǔ)文稿:你在哪個(gè)年齡段最有可能成功？，希望你會(huì)喜歡！

【演講人】Albert-László Barabás

【演講主題】成功，真的和年齡沒(méi)多大關(guān)系

 

 

翻譯者psjmz mz 校對(duì)者YolandaZhang

 

 

Today, actually, is a very special day forme,because it is my birthday.

今天對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)很特別，因?yàn)槭俏业纳铡?/p>

00:08（Applause） （鼓掌）

00:12And so, thanks to all of you for joiningthe party.

謝謝大家參與這個(gè)聚會(huì)。

00:16（Laughter） （笑聲）

00:17

But every time you throw a party, there'ssomeone there to spoil it. Right?

可是，每次你舉辦聚會(huì)的時(shí)候， 總是有人搗蛋，對(duì)吧？

00:22（Laughter） （笑聲）

00:23

And I'm a physicist,and this time Ibrought another physicist along to do so.His name is Albert Einstein --also Albert -- and he's the one who saidthat the person who has not made hisgreat contributions to scienceby the age of 30will never doso.

我是個(gè)物理學(xué)家，這次我?guī)?lái)了另一個(gè)物理學(xué)家。他的名字是阿爾伯特·愛(ài)因斯坦—— 也叫阿爾伯特——他是那個(gè)說(shuō)過(guò)如果一個(gè)人到30歲時(shí)對(duì)科學(xué)都沒(méi)啥大貢獻(xiàn)，也就永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)有貢獻(xiàn)了。

00:41

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

00:42

Now, you don't need to checkthat I'm beyond 30.

你不需要查維基百科去了解我是不是超過(guò)30歲。

00:46

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

00:47

So, effectively, what he is telling me, andus,is that when it comes to my science,I'm deadwood.Well,luckily, I had my share of luck within my career.Around age 28, I becamevery interested in networks,and a few years later, we managed to publisha few key papersthat reported the discovery of scale-freenetworksand really gave birth to a new discipline that we call networkscience today.And if you really care about it, you can get a PhD now in networksciencein Budapest, in Boston,and you can study it all over theworld.

實(shí)際上他是想告訴我們，當(dāng)涉及到我在科學(xué)領(lǐng)域的作為時(shí)，我是朽木難雕了。幸運(yùn)的是，我的事業(yè)運(yùn)還算不錯(cuò)。在28歲時(shí)，我對(duì)網(wǎng)絡(luò)產(chǎn)生了興趣，幾年后，我成功發(fā)表了幾篇關(guān)于發(fā)現(xiàn)無(wú)標(biāo)度網(wǎng)絡(luò)的核心論文，并催生了一門(mén)我們今天稱為 網(wǎng)絡(luò)科學(xué)的新學(xué)科。如果你對(duì)這個(gè)學(xué)科也很感興趣，可以在布達(dá)佩斯，在波士頓讀取網(wǎng)絡(luò)科學(xué)的博士學(xué)位，也可以在全球各地學(xué)習(xí)這門(mén)課程。

01:27

A few years later,when I moved toHarvard first as a sabbatical,I became interested in another type ofnetwork:that time, the networks within ourselves,how the genes andthe proteins and the metabolites link to each otherand how they connectto disease.And that interest led to a major explosion withinmedicine,including the Network Medicine Division at Harvard,thathas more than 300 researchers who are using this perspectiveto treatpatients and develop new cures.

幾年后，當(dāng)我第一次在哈佛進(jìn)行學(xué)術(shù)休假時(shí)，我對(duì)另一種形態(tài)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)產(chǎn)生了興趣：在我們自身的網(wǎng)絡(luò)中，基因、蛋白質(zhì)和代謝物如何相互聯(lián)系以及它們與疾病的關(guān)系。這個(gè)興趣引發(fā)了 醫(yī)學(xué)領(lǐng)域的一陣轟動(dòng)，包括哈佛大學(xué)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)醫(yī)學(xué)部，有300多名研究人員 基于這個(gè)想法來(lái)治療病人，開(kāi)發(fā)新的治療方法。

02:01

And a few years ago,I thought that Iwould take this idea of networksand the expertise we had innetworksin a different area,that is, to understandsuccess.And why did we do that?Well, we thought that, to somedegree,our success is determined by the networks we're part of--that our networks can push us forward, they can pull us back.AndI was curious if we could use the knowledge and big data andexpertisewhere we develop the networksto really quantify how thesethings happen.

幾年以前，我覺(jué)得我應(yīng)該把網(wǎng)絡(luò)的概念和關(guān)于網(wǎng)絡(luò)的專業(yè)知識(shí)應(yīng)用于一個(gè)新的領(lǐng)域，用來(lái)理解成功。我們?yōu)槭裁匆@么做？我們認(rèn)為，在某種程度上，我們的成功取決于我們所處的網(wǎng)絡(luò)——我們的網(wǎng)絡(luò)可以推動(dòng)我們前進(jìn)， 也能拖我們后腿。我好奇我們能否使用在網(wǎng)絡(luò)中獲得的這些知識(shí)，結(jié)合大數(shù)據(jù)和專長(zhǎng)來(lái)量化事情是如何發(fā)生的。

02:32

This is a result from that.What yousee here is a network of galleries in museumsthat connect to eachother.And through this map that we mapped out last year,we are ableto predict very accurately the success of an artistif you give me thefirst five exhibits that he or she had in their career.

這是一個(gè)結(jié)果。你在這里看到的是博物館里相互連接的畫(huà)廊網(wǎng)絡(luò)。通過(guò)這張我們?nèi)ツ昀L制的圖，如果給我他或她在他們的 職業(yè)生涯舉辦的前五個(gè)展覽，我們就能夠非常準(zhǔn)確地預(yù)測(cè)一個(gè)藝術(shù)家是否成功。

02:53

Well, as we thought about success,werealized that success is not only about networks;there are so many otherdimensions to that.And one of the things we need for success,obviously,is performance.So let's define what's the differencebetween performance and success.Well, performance is what you do:howfast you run, what kind of paintings you paint,what kind of papers youpublish.However, in our working definition,success is about whatthe community notices from what you did,from your performance:Howdoes it acknowledge it, and how does it reward you for it?In otherterms,your performance is about you, but your success is about all ofus.And this was a very important shift for us,because the moment wedefined success as being a collective measurethat the community providesto us,it became measurable,because if it's in the community, thereare multiple data points about that.So we go to school, we exercise, wepractice,because we believe that performance leads to success.Butthe way we actually started to explore,we realized that performance andsuccess are very, very different animalswhen it comes to the mathematicsof the problem.And let me illustrate that.

當(dāng)我們思考成功時(shí)，我們意識(shí)到成功不僅跟網(wǎng)絡(luò)有關(guān)；還有很多其他的維度。其中一個(gè)成功的必要因素，很明顯就是業(yè)績(jī)。讓我們定義一下業(yè)績(jī)和成功的差別。業(yè)績(jī)是你做的事情：你跑得有多快，你畫(huà)的是什么畫(huà)，你發(fā)表的是什么論文。然而，在我們的工作定義中，成功是社群從你的業(yè)績(jī)中注意到你做的哪些事情，如何承認(rèn)你的成就，如何獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)你？換句話說(shuō)，你的業(yè)績(jī)跟你有關(guān)， 但你的成功跟大家都有關(guān)。這對(duì)我們來(lái)說(shuō)是個(gè)非常重要的轉(zhuǎn)變，因?yàn)槲覀儼殉晒Χx為社群給予我們的集體評(píng)價(jià)。這樣一來(lái)成功就變得可衡量，因?yàn)樵谝粋€(gè)社群中， 關(guān)于成功包含著很多數(shù)據(jù)點(diǎn)。我們上學(xué)，我們練習(xí)，我們實(shí)踐，因?yàn)槲覀兿嘈艠I(yè)績(jī)會(huì)讓我們成功。但當(dāng)我們開(kāi)始探索，我們開(kāi)始意識(shí)到 以數(shù)學(xué)的方式看待這個(gè)問(wèn)題時(shí)，業(yè)績(jī)和成功是非常， 非常不同的概念，讓我來(lái)解釋一下。

04:12

So what you see here is the fastest man onearth, Usain Bolt.And of course, he wins most of the competitions that heenters.And we know he's the fastest on earth because we have achronometerto measure his speed.Well, what is interesting about himis that when he wins,he doesn't do so by really significantly outrunninghis competition.He's running at most a percent faster than the one wholoses the race.And not only does he run only one percent faster than thesecond one,but he doesn't run 10 times faster than I do --and I'mnot a good runner, trust me on that.

你在這里看到的是世界上 最快的人，尤塞恩·博爾特。當(dāng)然，他贏得了大多數(shù)參與的比賽。我們知道是他是世界上最快的人，因?yàn)槲覀冇芯艿挠?jì)時(shí)器去測(cè)量他的速度。有趣之處在于當(dāng)他獲勝時(shí)，他并沒(méi)有明顯地超過(guò)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手。他跑得比輸?shù)舯荣惖娜?最多快百分之一。他不僅只比第二名快百分之一，他的速度也不超過(guò)我的10倍——并且我還不是個(gè)擅長(zhǎng)跑步的人， 這點(diǎn)請(qǐng)相信我。

04:50

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

04:51

And every time we are able to measureperformance,we notice something very interesting;that is,performance is bounded.What it means is that there are no huge variationsin human performance.It varies only in a narrow range,and we doneed the chronometer to measure the differences.This is not to say thatwe cannot see the good from the best ones,but the best ones are very hardto distinguish.And the problem with that is that most of us work inareaswhere we do not have a chronometer to gauge our performance.

每次我們能夠評(píng)估業(yè)績(jī)時(shí)，我們都會(huì)注意到一些有趣的事情：業(yè)績(jī)是有界限的。這意味著人類的業(yè)績(jī) 并沒(méi)有巨大的差異。它變化的范圍非常小，我們確實(shí)需要精密的計(jì)時(shí)器 來(lái)測(cè)量這個(gè)差異。不是說(shuō)我們不能從 最好的人身上看到好的一面，但最好的人非常難以識(shí)別。并且問(wèn)題在于我們很多人的工作領(lǐng)域并沒(méi)有精密的計(jì)時(shí)器來(lái)衡量我們的業(yè)績(jī)。

05:23

Alright, performance is bounded,thereare no huge differences between us when it comes to our performance.Howabout success?Well, let's switch to a different topic, likebooks.One measure of success for writers is how many people read yourwork.And so when my previous book came out in 2009,I was in Europetalking with my editor,and I was interested: Who is thecompetition?And I had some fabulous ones.That week –

好了，業(yè)績(jī)是有界限的，當(dāng)涉及我們的業(yè)績(jī)時(shí)， 我們之間并沒(méi)有顯著的差異。那么成功呢？讓我們轉(zhuǎn)到另一個(gè)話題，比如書(shū)籍。評(píng)估作家成功的一個(gè)方法是 有多少人閱讀了你的作品。當(dāng)我早先那本書(shū)在2009年出版時(shí)，我在歐洲和編輯談話，我感興趣的是：誰(shuí)是我的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手？我有一些炙手可熱的對(duì)手。那周——

05:52

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

05:53

Dan Brown came out with "The LostSymbol,"and "The Last Song" also came out,NicholasSparks.And when you just look at the list,you realize, you know,performance-wise, there's hardly any differencebetween these books ormine.Right?So maybe if Nicholas Sparks's team works a littleharder,he could easily be number one,because it's almost byaccident who ended up at the top.So I said, let's look at the numbers --I'm a data person, right?So let's see what were the sales for NicholasSparks.And it turns out that that opening weekend,Nicholas Sparkssold more than a hundred thousand copies,which is an amazingnumber.You can actually get to the top of the "New York Times"best-seller listby selling 10,000 copies a week,so he tenfold overcamewhat he needed to be number one.Yet he wasn't numberone.Why?Because there was Dan Brown, who sold 1.2 million copiesthat weekend.

丹·布朗出版了《失落的秘符》，并且尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯的《最后一首歌》也問(wèn)世了。當(dāng)你看這個(gè)書(shū)單時(shí)，你意識(shí)到，就業(yè)績(jī)而言，這些書(shū)和我的之間并無(wú)多大差別。是吧？如果尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 的團(tuán)隊(duì)再努力一點(diǎn)，他就可以輕松進(jìn)入榜首，因?yàn)樽罱K誰(shuí)在暢銷榜頂端 幾乎是隨機(jī)的。所以我說(shuō)，讓我們看看數(shù)字吧—— 我就是干這行的，對(duì)吧？讓我們看看尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 的作品銷量。結(jié)果在新書(shū)發(fā)售的那個(gè)周末，尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 賣出了10萬(wàn)多本書(shū)，這是個(gè)驚人的數(shù)字。你可以看看紐約時(shí)報(bào) 每周銷量在1萬(wàn)冊(cè)以上的暢銷書(shū)榜單，所以他只憑借新書(shū)銷量的 十分之一就能輕松登上榜首。然而他不是第一名。為什么？因?yàn)橛械?middot;布朗，他在 那個(gè)周末賣出了120萬(wàn)冊(cè)。

06:51

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

06:53

And the reason I like this number isbecause it shows that, really,when it comes to success, it'sunbounded,that the best doesn't only get slightly more than the secondbestbut gets orders of magnitude more,because success is acollective measure.We give it to them, rather than we earn it through ourperformance.

我喜歡這個(gè)數(shù)字的原因 是因?yàn)樗嬲@示了，當(dāng)涉及到成功時(shí)，它是沒(méi)有界限的，最好的不止比第二名好一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)，而超越了好幾個(gè)數(shù)量級(jí)，因?yàn)槌晒κ羌w的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。我們給予他們成功，而不是通過(guò)我們的業(yè)績(jī)獲得它。

07:17

So one of things we realized is thatperformance, what we do, is bounded,but success, which is collective, isunbounded,which makes you wonder:How do you get these hugedifferences in successwhen you have such tiny differences inperformance?And recently, I published a book that I devoted to that veryquestion.And they didn't give me enough time to go over all ofthat,so I'm going to go back to the question of,alright, you havesuccess; when should that appear?

我們意識(shí)到業(yè)績(jī)是有界限的，但成功，屬于集體衡量的，是無(wú)界的，這一定讓你心生疑惑：當(dāng)人們的業(yè)績(jī)表現(xiàn)差異很小的時(shí)候，為何成功的差異如此之大？最近，我出版了一本 關(guān)于這個(gè)問(wèn)題的書(shū)。我沒(méi)有太多時(shí)間詳細(xì)介紹這本書(shū)，所以我打算回到這個(gè)問(wèn)題，成功通常會(huì)在什么時(shí)候出現(xiàn)呢？

07:44

So let's go back to the party spoiler andask ourselves:Why did Einstein make this ridiculous statement,thatonly before 30 you could actually be creative?Well, because he lookedaround himself and he saw all these fabulous physiciststhat createdquantum mechanics and modern physics,and they were all in their 20s andearly 30s when they did so.And it's not only him.It's not onlyobservational bias,because there's actually a whole field of geniusresearchthat has documented the fact that,if we look at the peoplewe admire from the pastand then look at what age they made their biggestcontribution,whether that's music, whether that's science,whetherthat's engineering,most of them tend to do so in their 20s, 30s, early40s at most.But there's a problem with this genius research.Well,first of all, it created the impression to usthat creativity equalsyouth,which is painful, right?

那么讓我們回到派對(duì)搗亂者 的話題，問(wèn)問(wèn)我們自己：為什么愛(ài)因斯坦要發(fā)表這樣荒謬的言論，人的創(chuàng)造力止步于30歲？因?yàn)樗l(fā)現(xiàn)周圍 所有這些創(chuàng)造量子力學(xué)和現(xiàn)代物理學(xué)的偉大物理學(xué)家，他們的偉大成就都是誕生在 20多歲和30歲出頭。并不是只有他這樣想。這不僅是觀察偏差，因?yàn)槭聦?shí)上有一整個(gè) 領(lǐng)域的天才研究都證明了這一點(diǎn)，如果回顧一下我們崇拜的先人，然后再看他們做出 最大貢獻(xiàn)的年紀(jì)，不管在音樂(lè)，在科學(xué)，還是在工程領(lǐng)域，大部分人都是在他們20歲，30歲， 最多40歲出頭時(shí)做出了這些成績(jī)。但這個(gè)天才研究有個(gè)問(wèn)題。首先，它為大眾制造了一種印象，即創(chuàng)造力等于年輕，真讓人傷心，不是嗎？

08:45

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

08:47

And it also has an observationalbias,because it only looks at geniuses and doesn't look at ordinaryscientistsand doesn't look at all of us and ask,is it really truethat creativity vanishes as we age?So that's exactly what we tried todo,and this is important for that to actually have references.

并且它也存在觀察偏差，因?yàn)樗挥^察了天才， 并沒(méi)研究普通科學(xué)家，并沒(méi)有看著我們這些人問(wèn)，隨著年齡的增長(zhǎng)， 創(chuàng)造力真的會(huì)消失嗎？所以這正是我們嘗試做的，并且有參照對(duì)象很重要。

09:08

So let's look at an ordinary scientist likemyself,and let's look at my career.So what you see here is all thepapers that I've publishedfrom my very first paper, in 1989; I was stillin Romania when I did so,till kind of this year.And vertically, yousee the impact of the paper,that is, how many citations,how manyother papers have been written that cited that work.And when you look atthat,you see that my career has roughly three different stages.Ihad the first 10 years where I had to work a lotand I don't achievemuch.No one seems to care about what I do, right?There's hardly anyimpact.

那么讓我們看看像我 這樣平凡科學(xué)家的職業(yè)生涯。這里是我發(fā)表的全部論文，從1989年發(fā)表的最早一篇論文； 當(dāng)時(shí)我還在羅馬尼亞，直到今年這個(gè)時(shí)候。縱坐標(biāo)，你可以看到論文的影響，也就是被引用的次數(shù)，有多少其他人發(fā)表的論文 引用了我的工作。當(dāng)你看這個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，可以看到我的職業(yè)生涯有三個(gè)階段。我第一個(gè)10年，工作很多，但卻并沒(méi)有多少成就。似乎沒(méi)人關(guān)注我做的事情，對(duì)吧？沒(méi)有一點(diǎn)影響力。

09:43

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

09:44

That time, I was doing materialscience,and then I kind of discovered for myself networksand thenstarted publishing in networks.And that led from one high-impact paper tothe other one.And it really felt good. That was that stage of mycareer.

當(dāng)時(shí)，我在做材料科學(xué)，然后我自己發(fā)現(xiàn)了網(wǎng)絡(luò)，然后開(kāi)始發(fā)表網(wǎng)絡(luò)的文章，從那以后，高影響力的文章 我發(fā)表了一篇又一篇。那時(shí)感覺(jué)真是很好，那是 我職業(yè)生涯的高光時(shí)刻。

09:59

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

10:00

So the question is, what happens rightnow?And we don't know, because there hasn't been enough time passedyetto actually figure out how much impact those papers will get;ittakes time to acquire.Well, when you look at the data,it seems tobe that Einstein, the genius research, is right,and I'm at that stage ofmy career.

那么問(wèn)題是，現(xiàn)在發(fā)生了什么？我們不知道，現(xiàn)在就去 計(jì)算出這些論文會(huì)產(chǎn)生怎樣的影響還為時(shí)尚早，需要時(shí)間來(lái)獲取這些信息。當(dāng)你看這個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，會(huì)覺(jué)得愛(ài)因斯坦和 天才研究的結(jié)論是對(duì)的，我在我職業(yè)生涯的高光階段。

10:18

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

10:21

So we said, OK, let's figure out how doesthis really happen,first in science.And in order not to have theselection bias,to look only at geniuses,we ended up reconstructingthe career of every single scientistfrom 1900 till todayand findingfor all scientists what was their personal best,whether they got theNobel Prize or they never did,or no one knows what they did, even theirpersonal best.And that's what you see in this slide.Each line is acareer,and when you have a light blue dot on the top of thatcareer,it says that was their personal best.And the questionis,when did they actually make their biggest discovery?To quantifythat,we look at what's the probability that you make your biggest discovery,let'ssay, one, two, three or 10 years into your career?We're not looking atreal age.We're looking at what we call "academicage."Your academic age starts when you publish your firstpapers.I know some of you are still babies.

那么讓我們看看 這究竟是如何發(fā)生的，首先看看科學(xué)領(lǐng)域。為了不產(chǎn)生選擇偏差，只看天才，我們最終重建了1900年至今每一位科學(xué)家的職業(yè)生涯，并找到了所有科學(xué)家 的個(gè)人最高成就，不管他獲得了諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)還是沒(méi)有，或是沒(méi)人問(wèn)津，即便是他最好的成就。這就是你們?cè)谶@張幻燈片上看到的。每條線是個(gè)職業(yè)生涯，在職業(yè)生涯的頂端 有一個(gè)淺藍(lán)色的點(diǎn)，代表著他們個(gè)人的最好成就。問(wèn)題是，他們最重大的發(fā)現(xiàn) 發(fā)生在什么時(shí)候？要量化這點(diǎn)，我們看的是你獲得 最大發(fā)現(xiàn)的概率是多少，比如你職業(yè)生涯的 的第1，2，3或者10年。我們真正要看的并不是年紀(jì)。我們看的是所謂的“學(xué)術(shù)年齡。”你的學(xué)術(shù)年齡始于 你發(fā)表第一篇論文的時(shí)候。我知道你們有些人還是嬰兒。

11:19

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

11:20

So let's look at theprobabilitythat you publish your highest-impact paper.And what yousee is, indeed, the genius research is right.Most scientists tend topublish their highest-impact paperin the first 10, 15 years in theircareer,and it tanks after that.It tanks so fast that I'm about --I'm exactly 30 years into my career,and the chance that I will publish apaper that would have a higher impactthan anything that I didbeforeis less than one percent.I am in that stage of my career,according to this data.But there's a problem with that.We're notdoing controls properly.So the control would be,what would ascientist look like who makes random contribution to science?Or what isthe productivity of the scientist?When do they write papers?So wemeasured the productivity,and amazingly, the productivity,yourlikelihood of writing a paper in year one, 10 or 20 in your career,isindistinguishable from the likelihood of having the impactin that part ofyour career.

那么讓我們來(lái)看看你發(fā)表最高影響力論文的概率。你看到的是，的確， 天才研究的結(jié)論是正確的。很多科學(xué)家發(fā)表的影響力最高的論文傾向于發(fā)表在他們職業(yè)生涯的 前10到15年，在那之后就會(huì)直線下降。它下降得如此之快——我如今 正處在我職業(yè)的第30個(gè)年頭，我發(fā)表一篇比過(guò)往有 更高影響力的論文的概率不到1%。根據(jù)這個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)，我正處在 職業(yè)生涯的這個(gè)階段。但這里有個(gè)問(wèn)題。我們的對(duì)照數(shù)據(jù)有問(wèn)題。對(duì)照數(shù)據(jù)就是，對(duì)科學(xué)做出隨機(jī)貢獻(xiàn)的 科學(xué)家會(huì)是什么樣子？或者科學(xué)家的生產(chǎn)力怎樣？他們什么時(shí)候?qū)懙恼撐模克晕覀冊(cè)u(píng)估了生產(chǎn)力，令人驚訝的是，生產(chǎn)力，你在職業(yè)生涯的第1年、第10年 或第20年寫(xiě)論文的概率，與論文產(chǎn)生影響的概率幾乎無(wú)法區(qū)分。

12:25

And to make a long storyshort,after lots of statistical tests, there's only one explanation forthat,that really, the way we scientists workis that every singlepaper we write, every project we do,has exactly the same chance of beingour personal best.That is, discovery is like a lottery ticket.Andthe more lottery tickets we buy,the higher our chances.And ithappens to be sothat most scientists buy most of their lotteryticketsin the first 10, 15 years of their career,and after that,their productivity decreases.They're not buying any more lotterytickets.So it looks as if they would not be creative.In reality,they stopped trying.So when we actually put the data together, theconclusion is very simple:success can come at any time.It could beyour very first or very last paper of your career.It's totally random inthe space of the projects.It is the productivity that changes.

長(zhǎng)話短說(shuō)，在很多的數(shù)據(jù)檢驗(yàn)后， 只有一個(gè)解釋，真相是，我們科學(xué)家的工作，我們寫(xiě)的每篇論文，做的每個(gè)項(xiàng)目都有同樣的概率成為 我們個(gè)人的最佳成果。那就是，發(fā)現(xiàn)就像中彩票。我們買(mǎi)了越多的彩票，我們中獎(jiǎng)的幾率就越高。碰巧的是，很多科學(xué)家在他們 職業(yè)生涯的頭10年，15年買(mǎi)了大部分的彩票，在那之后，他們的生產(chǎn)力就下降了。他們不再買(mǎi)更多的彩票。所以看起來(lái)他們沒(méi)有創(chuàng)造力了?，F(xiàn)實(shí)中，他們停止了嘗試。所以當(dāng)我們把數(shù)據(jù)放在一起時(shí)， 結(jié)論非常簡(jiǎn)單：成功可能隨時(shí)會(huì)來(lái)。它可能是你職業(yè)生涯中 最早或最后的論文。它在項(xiàng)目的空間中完全是隨機(jī)的。改變的是你的生產(chǎn)力。

13:26

Let me illustrate that.Here isFrank Wilczek, who got the Nobel Prize in Physicsfor the very first paperhe ever wrote in his career as a graduate student.

讓我解釋一下。這是獲得諾貝爾物理學(xué)獎(jiǎng) 的弗蘭克·威爾切克，他得獎(jiǎng)要?dú)w功于研究生時(shí) 寫(xiě)的第一篇論文。

13:34

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

13:35

More interesting is John Fenn,who,at age 70, was forcefully retired by Yale University.They shut his labdown,and at that moment, he moved to Virginia CommonwealthUniversity,opened another lab,and it is there, at age 72, that hepublished a paperfor which, 15 years later, he got the Nobel Prize forChemistry.

更有趣的是約翰·芬，他在70歲時(shí)，被耶魯大學(xué)強(qiáng)制退休，他們關(guān)閉了他的實(shí)驗(yàn)室，那時(shí)，他搬到了弗吉尼亞聯(lián)邦大學(xué)，開(kāi)了另一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)室，就在那里，在年紀(jì)72歲時(shí)， 他發(fā)表了一篇論文，這篇論文在15年后 獲得了諾貝爾化學(xué)獎(jiǎng)。