发明了发明家这个职业的爱迪生

Plenty of lives are admirable or eventful, but only a very few are so influential that it’s difficult to wrap your head around just how much they meant to the world. Thomas A. Edison lived such a life, and it receives a thorough two-hour examination in Tuesday’s “American Experience” on PBS.

很多人的一生令人钦佩或充满变故，但只有极少数人的影响力如此重大，连深刻理解他们对世界的意义都不是一件容易的事。托马斯·A·爱迪生(Thomas A. Edison)的人生就是这样的，PBS频道周二（本文发表于2015年1月27日。）播出的《美国体验》(American Experience)栏目将用两个小时来详细回顾爱迪生的一生。

A well-chosen collection of historians and other experts take us through Edison’s life, from his birth in Ohio in 1847 to his death in New Jersey in 1931. They sometimes struggle to convey just how earthshaking it was to go from lamplight to electric light, from a world where the human voice was ephemeral to one where it could be captured and preserved, but who wouldn’t?

一些精心挑选的史学家和专家带我们回顾爱迪生的一生，从他1847年在俄亥俄州出生到1931年在新泽西州去世。爱迪生把我们从煤油灯的世界带到了电灯的世界，把我们从人的声音转瞬即逝的世界带到了声音可以被记录和保存的世界，这些专家们有时竭力想让我们明白这样的变化有多么翻天覆地，但谁不会这样做呢？

They are particularly good at conveying that what made Edison special wasn’t so much his inventions as knowing what to do with them. As several note, he didn’t merely invent things, he invented the profession of inventor. And, especially with the light bulb, he tackled not just the technological problem, but also the infrastructure needed to illuminate homes.

这些专家们有一点格外出色，他们让我们明白，爱迪生的独特之处不在于他的发明，而更多的在于他知道如何应用它们。就像几位史学家指出的那样，他不只是发明了东西，他还发明了发明家这个职业。而且，以电灯泡为例，他不只是解决了技术问题，而且发明了家庭照明所需的基础设施。

“You had to be able to not just marshal the science, but then put the people and the money, the capital and the organizations together,” the historian Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at the Harvard Business School, says. “And the politics. I can’t think of another figure who could operate on all those different levels.”

“能够引领科学还不够，你还必须把人力、金钱、资本和组织结合起来，”史学家、哈佛商学院教授南希·F·克恩(Nancy F. Koehn)说，“还有政治。我想不出还有哪个人物能运作所有这些不同层面。”

Edison’s story, though, was also one of celebrity and its hazards. He became world famous, and practically no one reaches those heights without problems. A falling out with a friend, unflattering efforts to discredit other inventors and entrepreneurs and more are duly noted.

不过，爱迪生的故事也是关于名声及其危险的故事。他举世闻名，实际上所有达到这种高度的人几乎都会出现问题。节目中也适当提及他与一个朋友的争执以及他抹黑其他发明家和企业家等不光彩行为。

But he ended his life widely revered. Would we still be reading by kerosene lamp had Edison not lived? No; someone else would have made that breakthrough and the others credited to him. The impressive part is that the same guy had a hand in so many transformative changes.

但是他的一生终究受到广泛崇敬。如果没有爱迪生，我们是否还在煤油灯下读书？不会的。其他人会取得这个突破，他名下的其他成就也会有别人发明出来。令人钦佩的是，他一个人参与了这么多翻天覆地的变革。