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He is the 21st Century Howard Hughes, John D. Rockefeller and Steve Jobs - all rolled into one dynamic package. His hunger for global change mirrors the sense of adventure of the great explorers of the past. His ideas, considered crazy by everyone around him, have opened up new frontiers as he continues to improve the world with the aid of technological advancement. His goal to make the earth a better place to live on has expanded to encompass the entire universe - including the possibility of supporting human life on Mars. In this episode of Biographics, we get up close and personal with the man who was the model for Marvel's Iron Man movie franchise character Tony Start ... Of course, the man we are talking about is Elon Musk.
他是21世纪的霍华德·休斯、约翰·洛克菲勒和史蒂夫·乔布斯的结合，一个充满活力的人。他对全球变化的渴望反映了过去伟大探险家的冒险精神。周围所有人都认为他的想法是很疯狂的，而随着他在技术进步的帮助下不断改善世界，这些想法开辟了新的领域。他的目标是使地球成为一个更好的生存之地，这个目标已经扩展到了整个宇宙——包括在火星上支持人类生命。在这一集的传记中，我们将介绍漫威电影《钢铁侠》中的角色托尼·斯塔特的原型……当然，我们说的正是埃隆·马斯克。
Early Life
早年生活
Elon Musk was born on June 28th, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His Canadian born mother was a dietitian, with his father being a mechanical and electrical engineer. The boy had a natural leaning towards technology, buying his first computer - a Commodore VIC 20 - with money he had saved when he was just ten years old. By the age of twelve, he had created his own video game, Blaster, which he sold for $500. As a pre-teen, he had already taught himself computer programming.
1971年6月28日，埃隆·马斯克出生于南非比勒陀利亚。他的母亲在加拿大出生，是一名营养师，父亲是一名机电工程师。这个男孩天生就喜欢技术，他在十岁时就用自己攒下的钱买了他的第一台电脑——康懋达VIC20计算机。在12岁的时候，他已经自己制作了电子游戏Blaster，并以500美元的价格卖出。十几岁时，他就已经自学了计算机编程。
Musk's life came to a crossroads in his late teens when he was faced with compulsory military service in South Africa. While he had no problem with the thought of serving his country in uniform, he was repulsed by the idea of being a part of a system that suppressed the country's indigenous black people. His desire was to get to America, the land of opportunity, especially in regard to his growing fascination with all things related to computer technology. To do so, however, he figured that he would have to use Canada as a stepping stone. His mother was still a Canadian citizen and, so steps were taken for Elon to acquire Canadian citizenship for himself.
马斯克十几岁的时候面临了一个选择，那就是南非的义务兵役制。虽然他对穿军装为国家效力的想法没有异议，但他不想参与到压制该国土著黑人的体系。他的愿望是去美国，一个充满机遇的国度，尤其是他对计算机技术的所有相关事物日益着迷。然而，要做到这一点，他必须把加拿大作为一个跳板。他的母亲仍然是加拿大公民，因此，埃隆获得了加拿大国籍。
Move to North America
移居北美
After graduating from the Pretoria Boy's High School, he emigrated to Canada in June 1989, aged just seventeen. He had hardly any money and no real connections, turning up on the doorsteps of distant relatives of his mother and being put to work on their farms. As well as tending vegetables and shoveling grain, he got a job at a lumber mill, cleaning out boilers. Then he managed to secure a job as an intern clerk at a local bank. In 1990, he moved to Kingston, Ontario where he began a science degree at the Queen's University. Two years later, he was able to achieve his goal of living in the United States, transferring his studies to the University of Pennsylvania. Within two more years he graduated with double degrees, in science and business.
从比勒陀利亚男子高中毕业后，1989年6月，他移民加拿大，这时他才17岁。他几乎没有钱，也没有真正的人脉，经常出现在他母亲远亲的家门口，在他们的农场里干活。除了打理蔬菜和铲粮食，他还在一家伐木场找到了一份清理锅炉的工作。后来他设法在当地一家银行找到了一份实习的工作。1990年，他搬到了安大略省的金斯顿，他在那里的女王大学获得了科学学位。2年后，他搬到美国生活，继而在宾夕法尼亚大学就读。2年多以后，他获得了科学和商学的双学位，成功毕业。
It was around this time that Musk came across a copy of the Douglas Adams book, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The book, which revolves around a supercomputer which is built to figure out the ultimate answer to the question of "life, the universe and everything." After 7.5 million years of computing, it spits out the answer - the number 42. Along with that answer, the computer, which can talk, adds some sage advice, telling the inquirer ... "The problem with you, to be quite honest with you, is that you never really know what the question is." For Musk, reading that was a lightbulb moment. He later recalled ... "It highlighted an important point, which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer." By the time he emerged from university, Musk wasn't entirely sure what the questions were. But he knew that they were tied up in three key areas: the internet, clean energy and outer space.
就在这个时候，马斯克偶然发现了道格拉斯·亚当斯的《银河系漫游指南》。这本书围绕着一台超级计算机展开，这台超级计算机是用来找出“生命、宇宙和一切事物”问题的最终答案的。 经过750万年的计算，它给出了答案——数字42。除了这个答案，这台能说话的电脑还给出了一些明智的建议，告诉问询者……“老实说，你的问题是你从来不知道问题是什么。”对于马斯克来说，读书是一个获得灵感的时刻。他后来回忆道……“它突出了一个重要的问题，那就是很多时候问题比答案更难。”当马斯克从大学毕业时，他还不完全确定问题是什么。但他知道，这与三个关键的领域有关：互联网、清洁能源和外太空。
In 1995, Musk enrolled himself in a Ph.D. program for energy physics at Stanford University. Yet, after an attendance of just two days, he decided to drop out in order to launch his first business. His love for physics never wavered, but he saw greater opportunities in the burgeoning internet revolution - a way to make society better - and himself richer.
1995年，马斯克来到斯坦福大学攻读能源物理学博士学位。但他在刚上了2天课之后，就决定退学去做第一笔生意。他对物理的热爱从未动摇过，但他在迅速发展的互联网革命中看到了更大的机遇——一种让社会变得更好的方式，也是让他自己变得更加富有的方式。
