"Quantum theory is very worthy of regard," he observed politely, but he really didnt like it. "God doesnt play dice," he said. Or at least that is how it is nearly always rendered. The actual quote was: "It seems hard to sneak a look at Gods cards. But that He plays dice and uses ‘telepathic methods. . . is something that I cannot believe for a single moment."
“量子理论很值得重视。”他彬彬有礼地认为,但心里并不喜欢,“上帝不玩骰子。”他说。(注:至少这话的意思是很接近的。原话应该是:“似乎很难偷看上帝手里的牌。但说上帝玩骰子,使用‘传心的方法……这种事我压根儿不相信”)
Einstein couldnt bear the notion that God could create a universe in which some things were forever unknowable. Moreover, the idea of action at a distance—that one particle could instantaneously influence another trillions of miles away—was a stark violation of the special theory of relativity. This expressly decreed that nothing could outrace the speed of light and yet here were physicists insisting that, somehow, at the subatomic level, information could. (No one, incidentally, has ever explained how the particles achieve this feat. Scientists have dealt with this problem, according to the physicist Yakir Aharanov, "by not thinking about it.")
爱因斯坦无法忍受这样的看法:上帝创造了一个宇宙,而里面的有些事情却永远无法知道。而且,关于超距作用的见解──即一个粒子可以在几万亿公里以外立即影响另一个粒子──完全违反了狭义相对论。什么也超不过光速,而物理学家们却在这里坚持认为,在亚原子的层面上,信息是可以以某种方法办到的。(顺便说一句,迄今谁也解释不清楚粒子是如何办到这件事的。据物理学家雅基尔·阿哈拉诺夫说,科学家们对待这个问题的办法是“不予考虑”。)
Above all, there was the problem that quantum physics introduced a level of untidiness that hadnt previously existed. Suddenly you needed two sets of laws to explain the behavior of the universe—quantum theory for the world of the very small and relativity for the larger universe beyond. The gravity of relativity theory was brilliant at explaining why planets orbited suns or why galaxies tended to cluster, but turned out to have no influence at all at the particle level.
最大的问题是,量子物理学在一定程度上打乱了物理学,这种情况以前是不存在的。突然之间,你需要有两套规律来解释宇宙的表现──用来解释小世界的量子理论和用来解释外面大宇宙的相对论。相对论的引力出色地解释了行星为什么绕太阳转动,星系为什么容易聚集在一起,而在粒子的层面上又证明不起作用。