《在虛無與無限之間：科學詩人萊特曼對宇宙與生命的沉思》
九月了，代表新譯作要出版惹
Dropping another new translation project of mine in these couple days: Probable Impossibilities by Alan Lightman.
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無比感謝編輯李尚遠的青睞，上一本書一翻完馬上就問我要不要接這一本（然後我就去斯米蘭的船上與世隔絕想了一週）（翻完剛好再去柬埔寨晃個幾天）
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作者以哲學的角度切入科學的探討，涉及天文學、宇宙學、物理學、歷史學、地緣政治學、化學、哲學，甚至文學，古代的博學家大概就是這樣吧。讓我想起小時候有好長一段時間很害怕想到「宇宙」的概念，光是這個想法本身感覺就龐大到把我壓得喘不過氣，身體彷彿知道自己有多麼地渺小，國中時甚至偷偷討厭讀地科第一章的關於宇宙。大概是幼兒園大班的時候，舅舅說有小行星在三十年後要撞地球，於是我每天睡覺前就會在心中默念無數遍不要成真直到睡著。國一的時候也盛傳著彗星撞地球、瑪雅預言之類的，我就這樣在童軍園地的樹屋跟 Pei-Wen Chiang 說我想到就鼻酸（？如果只是一個人死了，還有人記著他，他就還算存在，但如果全人類的記憶都被抹除了，那甚至究竟是否存在過，都不再會有人知曉。
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而任何形式的生命存在於宇宙中大概就是如此特別吧，寄蜉蝣於天地、渺滄海之一粟。這件事本身在我看來就已經是個奇蹟。（附圖想表示的大概就是這個意象哈哈）
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“Miracles come from the world of imagination, of dreams, of desire; science from the world of practicality, of logic, of orderly control. I’ve always been fascinated by our ability to live simultaneously in both of these apparently opposing worlds. Evidently, each reflects something deep and essential inside of us.”
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How we as individuals came into existence from this whole lot of random atoms, and then how we arrived at the same random time and space from different corners of the world. If that’s not a miracle, what is?
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不管宇宙究竟是以大爆炸的那一刻為基準、於時間洪流中呈現前後鏡像對稱，還是像Everything Everywhere All at Once形容的那種多重宇宙之存在，我肯定幾百年前就說過愛你（which, okay, on the cosmic scale, may be an understatement）（硬要寫歌詞哈哈哈）
那這樣一來，山無稜、天地合，乃敢與君絕，好像也沒那麼偉大了？
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And since I started to translate this book, those words like quantum cosmology in TBBT suddenly all began to make sense to me. I could also give some really cool ideas of chemistry or physics metaphors to my students who were writing university admission essays (God knows how chemistry was my biggest enemy in high school lol). Also “miraculously,” an article just popped up on Merriam Webster out of nowhere, talking about Occam’s razor, an expression that I’d never heard of until I had to translate it in this book.
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胡亂抽象地寫了一堆，最後想說的大概是，讓我們好好把握在虛無與無限之間、每一個似乎可以掌握住的時刻吧。
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打書之心得感想，以上。
Configuring life events to a project after another.
- Tonlé Sap, Cambodia, Jul 2023
- How those zeros killed me when I translated
- Angkor Wat, Seam Reap, Cambodia, Jul 2023
- Laem Charoen, Rayong, Thailand, Jun 2023
Tammy Yu-Ting Chiang 