諾獎得主Wilczek：愛因斯坦的論文，放在今天能發表嗎_風聞
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撰文 | Frank Wilczek
翻譯 | 胡風、梁丁當
編輯 | 王茹茹
來源：蔻享學術
中文版
在過去的一個世紀裏，科學期刊與機構變得更加專業化，留給個人風格的空間日益狹窄。
阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦1915年的傑作《廣義相對論基礎》 (The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity)，讀起來是一種享受。正如我跟學生們説的，作為相對論的問世之作，這篇論文仍然是對該理論最好的介紹。但如果放在今天，它可能無法在科學期刊上發表。
為什麼會這樣？畢竟，它毫無疑問是能通過所有關於正確性和重要性的檢驗的。雖然江湖傳説這篇論文的首批讀者們覺得它艱澀難懂，但事實是很多理論物理的文章都比它更加難讀。
正如物理學家理查德 · 費曼 (Richard Feynman) 所寫 ：“報紙説有段時間全世界只有12個人能夠理解相對論。我不相信有過這樣的事。或許確實有過只有一個人懂相對論的時候——因為在這篇論文之前，只有愛因斯坦理解這個問題。但當人們讀了這篇論文，有很多人，絕對超過12個，或多或少都對相對論有了一定理解。”
不，問題在於這篇文章的風格。愛因斯坦的論文不符合現代的專業科學交流規範。它從一個關於空間和時間的輕鬆的哲學討論開始，然後是關於已有的數學理論（張量微積分）的闡述。這兩章就佔了文章一半的篇幅，放在今天，這些內容會被認為是與論文核心不相關的部分。更糟的是，文章沒有對前人科學研究進行任何引用，也沒有任何圖。這些缺失對如今的科學論文來説是致命的。這樣的文章甚至都不會被編輯送審。
類似的專業化過程也改變了科學領域的其他方面。經費申請，以及去大型天文台或國家實驗室進行研究申請，變得更加的結構化，充滿繁文縟節。又比如，在開展任何涉及人體實驗的工作或者把儀器送上太空之前，都需要完成成堆的文書工作。類似的現象也出現在被譽為高中生諾貝爾獎的再生元科學天才獎（ Regeneron Science Talent Search，此前曾先後由西屋公司和英特爾公司贊助）中。在該獎78年的歷史中，最初幾十年的獲獎項目通常都是那種靈氣四溢卻仍顯天真稚嫩的工作，這也符合人們對那些極具天分的新人的預期。而如今的獲獎項目則通常是在知名實驗室的實習過程中經過精心打造完成的。
這些專業化趨勢幾乎是現代科學爆炸性發展的必然結果。標準化和系統化讓人們更加容易管理如井噴一般的論文、各類申請和人員。但與此同時，它們也帶來了嚴重的負面效應，即大量無用功都耗費在了突破官僚形式的層層桎梏上，也抬高了新人的准入門檻。
幸運的是，我們也有一些不太正式的、低門檻的機構，比如開放的在線論文庫arXiv，在那裏，科學論文可以在同行評議之前張貼出來。這使得作者在寫作的時候不用特別講究形式，內容也可以更加廣泛。
當然，如果在今天，愛因斯坦也一定會找到辦法發表他的研究成果。他會刪去論文中哲學討論的部分，附上引文，把解釋性的部分放進“補充材料”中，或者再加一些漂亮的圖。精修過後的論文，科學核心當然不會變，但不再給人有同樣的閲讀享受。
英文版
PHOTO: ALAMY
Some physicists have waited a whole lifetime forreality to meet their expectations.
Albert Einstein’s 1915 masterpiece “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” is a joy to read. The first articulation of the theory, it is still the best introduction to the subject, and I recommend it as such to students. But it probably wouldn’t be publishable in a scientific journal today.Why not? After all, it would pass with flying colors the tests of correctness and significance. And while popular mythology holds that the paper was incomprehensible to its first readers, in fact many papers in theoretical physics are much more difficult.As the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than 12.”No, the problem is its style. Einstein’s paper doesn’t fit the mold for modern, professional scientific communication. It starts with a leisurely philosophical discussion of space and time and then continues with an exposition of known mathematics (tensor calculus). Those two sections, which would be considered extraneous today, take up half the paper. Worse, there are zero citations of previous scientists’ work, nor are there any graphics. Those features would doom a paper today. It might not even get past the first editors to be sent out to referees.A similar process of professionalization has transformed other parts of the scientific landscape. Grant applications are more rigidly structured and elaborate, as are requests for research time at major observatories or national laboratories. And anything involving work with human subjects, or putting instruments in space, involves heaps of paperwork. We see it also in the Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly sponsored by Westinghouse and then Intel), the Nobel Prize of high school science competitions. In the early decades of its 78-year history, the winning projects were usually the sort of clever but naive, amateurish efforts one might expect of talented beginners working on their own. Today, polished work coming out of internships at established laboratories is the norm.These professionalizing tendencies are an all-but-inevitable consequence of the explosive growth of modern science. Standardization and system make it easier to manage the fire hose gush of papers, applications and people. But there are serious downsides. A lot of unproductive effort goes into jumping through bureaucratic hoops, and outsiders face entry barriers at every turn.It is good that we have some less formal, lower-stakes institutions such as arXiv—an open-access online archive where scientific papers can be posted before they are peerreviewed, allowing authors to be less formal and more expansive.Of course, Einstein would have found his way to publishing his results. He’d prune the philosophy, festoon the paper with citations, put the expository bits into “Supplementary Materials” and maybe add some snazzy graphics. Its scientific core wouldn’t have changed, but the paper might not be the same pleasure to read.
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