Norman Borlaug saved a billion people from starving to death. Not a million. A billion - 1,000,000,000. This is a man who should be the poster child for humanitarianism, and yet, I’ve only rarely heard his name spoken. Maybe it’s different in other countries. I can only hope it is.
诺曼·博洛格拯救了十亿挣扎在饥饿死亡线的人。不是一百万人，是十亿人（1,000,000,000）！这样伟大的人应该成为人道主义的象征，然而我很少听人提起他的名字。可能其他国家有所不同，我希望是这样。
By the 1940’s, it was beginning to appear that the world was beginning to hit the Malthusian limit. Malthus had been an economist right when the field was getting off the ground (18th century to early 19th century) and he had noticed that food production increases linearly while population grows geometrically. In other words, at some point, we’d eventually hit carrying capacity and everyone would be pretty well forced to live on a subsistence diet.
20世纪40年代，有迹象表明世界人口数量将要达到马尔萨斯极限。马尔萨斯是古典经济学繁荣时期（18世纪到19世纪初）的一名经济学家，他发现食物供应呈线性增长，而人口数量呈几何级数增长。也就是说，在某一时刻，人口数量最终会达到自然资源所能承受的极限，人人都被迫处于仅仅能维持生计的状态。
Borlaug started out in Mexico in 1944. Mexico at the time was a net importer of wheat, and had suffered an outbreak of stem rust from 1939-1941. To put it simply, the country was having difficulty feeding itself. Borlaug led the efforts to create hybrid species of wheat that would resist stem rust and yield more grain per stalk.
博洛格的农业生涯起步于1944年的墨西哥，当时的墨西哥是小麦净进口国，遭受了1939至1941年间大规模的小麦秆锈病侵袭。简而言之，墨西哥连自给自足都难以为继。博洛格带头培育出了抗病、高产的杂交小麦品种。
Now, if you stick a heavy weight on the end of a freestanding pole, you have to deal with a phenomenon called “column buckling.” It’s not enough to just increase the yield of a wheat stalk - increasing it too much means that the stalk won’t support the weight and the crop will rot in the fields. Borlaug suggested that it would be a good idea to hybridize the high-yield wheat with “dwarf wheat.” A shorter stalk can support a heavier load, and the result was successful. Within twenty years of his arrival in Mexico, Borlaug’s wheat hybrids had sextupled the wheat output of the country. Mexico was now a net exporter of wheat.
如果你在一根独立柱的末端附上重物，就会出现“管柱屈曲”的现象。仅仅让小麦增产还不够——增产太多意味着麦秆会支撑不住麦穗的重量造成倒伏。博洛格建议把高产小麦和“矮秆小麦”杂交，麦秆越矮，承重越多。实验相当成功，博洛格到墨西哥的二十年内，他用杂交小麦把全国小麦产量提高到原来的六倍，墨西哥现在成为了小麦净出口国。
Borlaug didn’t stop there.
博洛格没有就此停下脚步。
In the mid-1960’s, the Indian subcontinent was in a terrible position. India and Pakistan (back then, that included Bangladesh) were at war and were also in the grips of a famine. The US was shipping 20% of its own wheat output to the subcontinent and the results were only barely holding off what would have been, quite possibly, the greatest humanitarian disaster yet seen. The 1968 book The Population Bomb was in no small part inspired by this state of affairs.
20世纪60年代中期，南亚次大陆局势动荡。印度和巴基斯坦（在当时还包括孟加拉国）战火不断，饥民成灾。美国海运了20%的自产小麦救急，暂时延缓了可能成为有史以来最严重的人道主义灾难的爆发。1968《人口炸弹》一书的出版与这一事件有很大程度的关系。
In 1965, Borlaug managed to ship 450 tons of his hybrid wheat seeds to the subcontinent and he set to work adapting it to the local climate and soil. The crop yields resulting from Borlaug’s hybrids ended up setting records in South Asia. Within five years of Borlaug setting up his operation, the Indian subcontinent’s wheat production had doubled - largely without needing to start up new farms. It had previously been estimated that an area the size of California would need to be turned to farmland for India to feed itself, and that area is, to this day, in virgin condition.
1965年，博洛格想办法往南亚次大陆运送了450吨杂交小麦种子，并着手研究如何让这些种子适应当地的气候土壤条件，小麦产量最终刷新了南亚地区的纪录。博洛格开始实验的五年内，南亚次大陆的小麦产量翻了一番——基本不用新建农场。此前估计，印度要想自给自足，农场的面积需有加州那么大，而直到现在这片土地还未开垦。
Borlaug would later work in Africa from the 1980’s until his death. His organization, the Sasakawa Africa Association, would double production of sorghum and maize (the former a native staple, the latter obviously not) in Africa within a two year period from 1983 to 1985.
博洛格20世纪80年代开始在非洲工作，直到离开人世。他协同创立的笹川非洲协会在短短两年内（1983-1985）就使高粱和玉米的产量翻倍（高粱是非洲本土作物而玉米显然不是）。
Norman Borlaug saved a billion people from starving. He did so without resorting to deforestation and creating a later environmental crisis. Next time you enjoy a bowl of breakfast cereal, you might want to think of him - and thank him.
诺曼·博洛格没有借助砍伐森林，埋下环境隐患的方式就让十亿人免于饥饿。下次你吃早餐麦片的时候，别忘了想起他，感谢他。
Undoubtedly, this man has to stand at the top.
毋庸置疑，阿兰·麦席森·图灵应该排在第一位。
Go and ask anybody today, Who is Turing? 90% of people won’t know this man. Yet his impact is found in almost every hands on this planet.
随便找个人问问“图灵是谁”，90%都不知道，但是他的确影响了我们生活的方方面面。
On 10 September 2009, the then prime minister Gordon Brown made a public apology to the British mathematician Alan Turing, on behalf of the government. “We’re sorry,” he said. “You deserved so much better.”
2009年9月10日，时任英国首相的戈登·布朗以政府名义向英国数学家阿兰·图灵公开致歉。“对不起，”他说，“你应得的还要更多。”
“There is often a seed from which everything comes up. Alan Turing basically came up with everything the computer do today” - Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-founder.
“有因才有果，现代计算机的功能基本都源于阿兰·图灵的构想。”——斯蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克，苹果公司联合创始人。
Every(emphasis added) computing device you used is the sprouted idea of this man. He deserve the fame Albert Einstein, Galileo, Hawking get. Unfortunately, luck is not always with you. We owe him a huge debt and a long overdue.
我们使用的每一个（特别强调）电脑设备都是图灵的创意，他应该同阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦、伽利略、霍金齐名。可惜好运不常伴，我们欠他太多。
I present to you one of the most intelligent, most original, the most diverse, most sophisticated and tragic hero in the history of mankind.
请让我介绍这位人类历史上天赋异禀但命途多舛的悲剧英雄。
To just point out his major accomplishments :-
在此仅指出他的主要贡献:-
He designed the programming of the world’s first commercial computer - Whilst at the University of Manchester, Alan Turing designed the programming system of the Ferranti Mark 1, the world’s first commercially available electronic digital computer.
他设计出了世界上第一台商用计算机的程序。阿兰·图灵在曼彻斯特大学任职期间，设计出了费伦蒂马克一号的编程系统，这是世界上第一台可大批量生产的电子数码计算机。
He is the father of ArtificiaI Intelligence - Turing is generally regarded as the pioneer of Artificial Intelligence. He believed that computers would be able to learn and devised the Turing Test, which would text whether a computer was really intelligent. No computer has passed the test, as yet.
他是人工智能之父。图灵被公认为人工智能先驱，他相信电脑也具备认知能力并设计出了”图灵测试“，这个测试可以判断电脑是否拥有智能。目前为止还没有电脑通过图灵测试（译者注：2014年6月8日，一台计算机成功让人类相信它是一个13岁的男孩，成为有史以来首台通过图灵测试的计算机）。
Alan was awarded an OBE for his wartime services - He was awarded the OBE in 1945 for services to the country in wartime, despite the fact that most of what he did would not be made public for another 30 years.
阿兰·图灵因战时服务被授予“不列颠帝国勋章”。图灵因二战时期对英国做出的杰出贡献于1945年授勋，不过他的密码破译工作三十年后才被公之于众。
He was the inventor of the Turing Machine - In 1935, Turing invented a device which is now referred to as the Turing Machine. To this day, all stored-programme digital computers are modelled on this invention.
他是图灵机的发明者。1935年，图灵发明了现在被称为“图灵机”的机器。直到现在，图灵机还是所有存储程序计算机的原型。
He was integral to the building of The Bombe. - Although Polish scientists had previously invented a device known as a ‘Bomba’, Turing took their early versions and developed it into an electro-mechanical machine which greatly helped in the breaking of the Enigma code used by the German forces.
没有他，就没有 “图灵甜点（Bombe）”。波兰的科学家们此前发明出了“Bomba”密码破译机，图灵把他们早期的版本改进成了一种电子机械设备，极大促进了对德军恩尼格玛（Enigma）的破译。
His work enabled the Enigma to be decoded - By early 1942, the team at Bletchley Park were decoding up to 39,000 Enigma messages a month. Eventually this number rose to 84,000 or about two messages decoded every minute.
他使破译恩尼格玛成为可能。1942年初，布莱切利园的密码破译组一个月能破译39，000条恩尼格玛情报，最终这个数字提高到84，000，也就是大约每分钟破译两条。
Alan Turing’s war work is believed to have shortened the war - Many people, including Winston Churchill, claimed that Turing’s work shortened the Second World War by at least two years.
阿兰·图灵的情报工作扭转了战局。包含温斯顿·丘吉尔在内的多人声称，图灵的破译工作至少让二战提前两年结束。
Alan was a member of the team which decoded the ‘Fish’ cipher - The ‘Fish’ cipher which was used towards the end of the war by the German High Command to transmit messages between Hitler and senior officers in the field.
图灵是成功 破译“鱼”密码的成员之一。二战后期，德国最高指挥部用代号为“鱼（Fish）”的密码传送希特勒和其他高级军官的情报。
Turing was gay, and in 1952 while working at Manchester University, where he had a relationship with a technician called Arnold Murray, he was arrested and charged with gross indecency. He escaped prison only by agreeing to chemical castration through a year’s doses of oestrogen – which curator David Rooney said had a devastating effect on him, mentally and physically. In 1954, he was found dead in his bed, a half eaten apple on the table beside him, according to legend laced with the cyanide which killed him.
图灵是同性恋，1952年他在曼彻斯特大学任职时，因与工人阿诺德·莫瑞的同性关系被捕，面临“严重猥亵罪”的指控。图灵被判接受为期一年的雌激素注射治疗（化学阉割）才免于牢狱之灾，据馆长大卫·鲁尼称，这次治疗使图灵身心遭受重创。1954年，图灵被发现死于家中的床上，旁边的桌子上放着一个吃了一半的苹果，据传言是氰化物中毒致死。
Turing died at the age of 42. Alone, tired and an unnecessary death. He truly was a tragic hero.
图灵42岁就英年早逝。孤独、疲惫、死因不明，他确实是一位悲剧英雄。
Here is a movie made on this man’s life.Codebreaker
BBC制作过一部图灵的传记记录片《密码破译者》（Codebreaker）。
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