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Jenner would go down in history as the person who invented and administered a medical cure for one of the deadliest viruses in world history. [qh]
詹纳发明了世界史上一种最致命病毒的药物疗法，并将这种疗法在患者身上得以运用，詹纳也因此将名垂青史。[qh]
Then he invented something else: a new word, from the Latin for “cow,” that would be carried down through the centuries alongside his scientific breakthrough. [qh]
之后，他又发明了别的东西:一个新词语，该词源自拉丁语的“牛”。这个新词随着他的科学突破流传了几个世纪。[qh]
He called his wondrous invention a vaccine.[qh]
他将他的奇妙发明称为疫苗(vaccine来自拉丁语vacca(牛))。[qh]
Let’s pause the story here. [qh]
让我们将故事暂停到这里。[qh]
Jenner’s eureka moment is world-famous: cherished by scientists, rhapsodized by historians, and even captured in oil paintings that hang in European museums.[qh]
詹纳的灵光乍现举世闻名: 科学家珍视这个时刻，历史学家热情称颂这个时刻，就连欧洲博物馆里悬挂的油画也捕捉到了这个时刻。[qh]
For many, progress is essentially a timeline of the breakthroughs made by extraordinary individuals like Jenner. [qh]
对众多人来讲，进步本质上是詹纳这样的杰出人物取得突破的大事年表。[qh]
Our mythology of science and technology treats the moment of discovery or invention as a sacred scene. [qh]
我们的科技神话把发现或发明的瞬间视为神圣的场景。[qh]
In school, students memorize the dates of major inventions, along with the names of the people who made them—Edison, light bulb, 1879; Wright brothers, airplane, 1903.[qh]
学校里的学生要记住重大发明的日期以及这些发明者的姓名——爱迪生，电灯泡，1879年; 莱特兄弟，飞机，1903年。[qh]
The great discoverers—Franklin, Bell, Curie, Tesla—get best-selling biographies, and millions of people know their names.[qh]
伟大的发现者——富兰克林、贝尔、居里夫人、特斯拉——这些人的传记都很畅销，他们的名字家喻户晓。[qh]
This is the eureka theory of history. [qh]
这就是历史的顿悟学说。[qh]
And for years, it is the story I’ve read and told.[qh]
多年来，我一直在阅读和讲述这个故事。[qh]
Inventors and their creations are the stars of my favorite books about scientific history, including The Discoverers, by Daniel Boorstin, and They Made America, by Harold Evans. [qh]
发明家及其他们的发明是我最喜欢的科学史书籍中的明星读物，包括丹尼尔·布尔斯汀的《发现者》和哈罗德·埃文斯的《他们创造了美国》。[qh]
I’ve written long features for this magazine holding up invention as the great lost art of American technology and the fulcrum of human progress.[qh]
我曾为这本杂志写过长篇特写，认为发明是美国科技中消逝的伟大艺术，认为发明是人类进步的支点。[qh]
But in the past few years, I’ve come to think that this approach to history is wrong.[qh]
但在过去的几年里，我开始认为这种研究历史的方法有误。[qh]
Inventions do matter greatly to progress, of course. [qh]
当然，发明对进步确实很重要。[qh]
But too often, when we isolate these famous eureka moments, we leave out the most important chapters of the story—the ones that follow the initial lightning bolt of discovery. [qh]
但是，当我们将这些著名的顿悟时刻分开看时，我们往往忽略了故事中最重要的章节——那些最初发现闪电球的后续章节。[qh]
Consider the actual scale of Edward Jenner’s accomplishment the day he pricked James Phipps in 1796. [qh]
想想爱德华·詹纳1796年割伤詹姆斯·菲普斯(为他接种水痘)那天的实际成就吧。[qh]
Exactly one person had been vaccinated in a world of roughly 1 billion people, leaving 99.9999999 percent of the human population unaffected. [qh]
在世界上的10亿人口中，只有一人接种了疫苗，99.9999999%的人口都没有受到影响。[qh]
When a good idea is born, or when the first prototype of an invention is created, we should celebrate its potential to change the world. [qh]
当一个好主意诞生时，或者当一项发明的首个原型被创造出来时，我们应该庆祝其改变世界的潜力。[qh]
But progress is as much about implementation as it is about invention. [qh]
但是，进步既关乎发明，也关乎实施。[qh]
The way individuals and institutions take an idea from one to 1 billion is the story of how the world really changes.[qh]
个人和机构如何将一个想法从一个人传给10亿人，这才是世界如何真正发生改变的故事。[qh]
