2023考研英語閱讀制表大師喬治
George Daniels
制表大師喬治丹尼爾斯
George Daniels, master watchmaker, died onOctober 21st, aged 85
近250年來最偉大的制表師喬治丹尼爾斯于10月21日去世，享年85歲。
A SCHOOLBOY once asked George Daniels whathe had at the end of the chain that led to hispocket. A silly question, really. But it was worthasking, because what Mr Daniels pulled out,carefully, was what he called his Space Traveller s Watch. It gave mean solar time, meansidereal time, equation of time, and could chart the phases of the moon. Mr Daniels liked tosay it would be useful for trips to Mars. He had surmised almost the same when, at five orsix, he had first prised open with a fairly blunt breadknife the back of an old watch he hadfound at home, and seen the centre of the universe inside.
一名男學(xué)生曾經(jīng)問喬治丹尼爾斯，他那根伸進(jìn)衣袋的鏈子末端有什么。多么愚蠢的問題。但是值得一答。因?yàn)榈つ釥査剐⌒囊硪韽目诖锬贸鰜淼谋肀凰Q為宇宙旅行者之表。表盤上不僅能顯示平太陽時(shí)，還能顯示平恒星時(shí)、時(shí)差，記錄月相。丹尼爾斯說，去火星旅行的時(shí)候這款表就能大顯身手。其實(shí)在五六歲的時(shí)候他就想到這一點(diǎn)了。那是他第一次用鈍了的面包刀剖開家里的一塊舊表，看見了宇宙的核心。
He had never imagined then that he would make the universe by hand. But he did.Every component of his Space Traveller s Watchas of the 36 other watches he made, eachunique, over his 42 working yearswas produced from scratch. He made the screws, thesprings and the levers, the pallets and gears, the hands and the plain, often numberlessdials. He also made the tools that made them, except for the lathes and turning engines. Noone else had ever learned the dozens of necessary skills. But after years of teaching himselfhorology from clocks bought for a bob or two at jumble sales, or comrades broken watchesin the army, or the wonderful Breguet and old English timepieces he went on to restore forcollectors, he had begun to think, why not?
那時(shí)候丹尼爾斯還從未想象過自己能夠?qū)⒄麄€(gè)宇宙納入一塊表中。但是他確實(shí)做到了。在42年的制表生涯中，他一共制作了37塊表，每一塊都獨(dú)一無二。其中之一便是宇宙旅行者之表。表的每一部分都是由他親手制作，沒有使用任何外來的零件螺釘、彈簧、杠桿、托盤和齒輪、指針以及簡(jiǎn)潔但是有無數(shù)刻度的鐘面。連用來制作這些零件的工具都是他自己做的用來發(fā)動(dòng)引擎的車床除外。在丹尼爾斯之前，沒有人學(xué)過如許多基本的制表技術(shù)。他自學(xué)鐘表制作多年，這些鐘表有的是花一兩個(gè)先令從舊貨攤上買來的，有的是軍隊(duì)軍官用壞了的，還有的是他為收藏者修復(fù)的精致無比的寶璣表和古老的英國座鐘。多年后，他自問：為什么我不能自己制表呢?
Hour after hour, for it wasn t the sort of work you could just do a little of and leave again,he would cut and shape, file and polish, temper and hammer. The work flowed from thetools almost unconsciously. He learned from a craftsman in Clerkenwell how to make cases,usually of gold with a silver back and bezels. His first watch was sold to a collector friend,Sam Clutton, in 1970 for ￡1,900; when sold in 2002, it fetched more than ￡200,000.
他就這樣開始了制表生涯。他會(huì)連續(xù)幾個(gè)小時(shí)地工作，切割塑造出基本形狀，用矬子將表打磨光滑，用小錘調(diào)整精確度。這些工作不允許匠人只敲打一會(huì)兒就去做的別的事情。匠人幾乎是無意識(shí)地被工具操控著。丹尼爾斯向一名匠人學(xué)習(xí)怎樣制作表盒，通常是那種銀質(zhì)的背部和帶有銀質(zhì)表座的金質(zhì)表盒。他的第一塊表于 1970年以1900英鎊的價(jià)格賣給了一個(gè)名叫Sam Clutton的收藏家朋友。而這塊表在2002年賣出的時(shí)候，售價(jià)超過了20萬英鎊。
Tick, tock
滴答，滴答
A hard, poor childhood in north London had given him a nose for a deal and a sharp senseof the value of everything. But his pieces were private experiments, not commissions. Hewanted to build watches that kept better time than any in the 500 years before. The generalpublic was happy, from the late 1960s, with quartz models that lost, on average, two or threeseconds a month. But Mr Daniels was determined to show that a mechanical watch couldbeat them. In the mid-1970s he made a double-escapement watch for Mr Clutton which,over 32 days, lost less than a second. His happiness at beating quartz came close to hisboyhood joy when a wall-clock he had mended magnificently exploded, springs and glasseverywhere, as the family ate their bread and jam at the supper table.
丹尼爾斯在倫敦北部度過了他貧窮艱苦的童年，這一段生活經(jīng)歷培養(yǎng)了他善于發(fā)現(xiàn)商機(jī)的天才和對(duì)一切事物價(jià)值的敏銳直覺。但是他制作的鐘表都是個(gè)人的試驗(yàn)品，而非受委托制作的商品。他還想制作出五百年來報(bào)時(shí)最準(zhǔn)確的表。從20世紀(jì)60年代以來，人們就使用石英表，并對(duì)其每個(gè)月平均誤差兩到三秒的性能十分滿意。但是他下定決心要制作出前無古人的機(jī)械表。20世紀(jì)70年代中期，他為Sam Clutton制作了一塊雙擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)的表。32天里表的誤差沒有超過一秒。這次他的表打敗了石英表所帶來的喜悅不亞于孩提時(shí)代他修過的家里的壁鐘突然爆炸，彈簧和玻璃蹦得到處都是帶給孩子的驚喜，而那時(shí)全家人正圍著餐桌吃果醬面包呢。
Now he had to improve on the lever escapement, which had been invented in 1754 bythe English horologist Thomas Mudge and used in most watches since. It worked by friction,as the teeth of the gears slid over the pallet; but this arrangement needed lubrication, andas the oil degraded the watch lost time. Mr Daniels became obsessed with the tick, tock ofclocks , and how to get animpulse on both the tick and the tock that would not be affected by humidity,temperature, oil sludge or agitation. His solution, invented in 1976, was the co-axialescapement, an arrangement in which two wheels, placed one above the other, transmittedto the pallet a radial impulse that needed no lubrication and so would never stop.
接著他要完善的是叉瓦式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)。叉瓦式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)1754年由英國制表師Thomas Mudge發(fā)明，從那以后就廣泛運(yùn)用于大部分表中。它的表面指針由齒輪在托盤上滑動(dòng)產(chǎn)生的摩擦帶動(dòng)。但是這一工作原理要求內(nèi)部零件保持潤滑，否則隨著潤滑度的磨損，報(bào)時(shí)會(huì)逐漸喪失準(zhǔn)確性。隨著研究的深入，丹尼爾斯越來越對(duì)鐘表發(fā)出的滴答聲著迷，這聲音和銀鈴般的報(bào)時(shí)鐘聲，在他的每一處宅邸里蕩漾。他還癡迷于解決如何使表獲得傳動(dòng)又不受濕度、溫度、潤滑度和震動(dòng)影響的問題。該問題的解決方案于1976年誕生，這便是同軸式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)。這一裝置由疊置于托盤上的兩個(gè)齒輪組成，兩個(gè)齒輪會(huì)向托盤傳遞放射狀的傳動(dòng)力而不需要任何的潤滑，因此永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)停止。
That achievement earned him many honours for services to horology, but it was onlythe beginning of a long slog to get his idea accepted. The world of clocks and watches was aclosed one. He knew it himself, because his boyhood watch studies from library books were aprivate realm only he could understand, and the 18th-century English mastersMudge,Arnold, Earnshawthe only real friends he had. Watchmakers kept the secrets they learnedin their lonely working hours. Even later, when he had put himself in the millionaires bracket and had to move to the Isle of Man for tax reasons, his friends were in the motoringclubs where he shared his other passion, for vintage Bentleys and racing cars. He had nowatchmaker friends at all.
這一成就作為他對(duì)鐘表業(yè)的杰出貢獻(xiàn)，為他贏得了諸多榮譽(yù)。但這只是他為普及自己的技術(shù)使用而踏上的荊棘之路的起點(diǎn)。鐘表業(yè)界是一個(gè)封閉的世界。他通過自己的經(jīng)歷得出這一點(diǎn)，因?yàn)樗陼r(shí)從圖書館的書籍上獲得的鐘表知識(shí)構(gòu)成了一個(gè)只有他自己才能涉足的私人領(lǐng)域，而18世紀(jì)英國的制表大師Mudge,Arnold和Earnshaw是他僅有的真正的朋友。制表師們都各自保留著他們?cè)诠陋?dú)工作時(shí)知悉的鐘表的秘密。即使后來，丹尼爾斯進(jìn)入百萬富翁的行列，為了避重稅不得不搬到馬恩島，他的朋友也僅限于摩托俱樂部?jī)?nèi)，這里有他能找到對(duì)老式賓利車和賽車的共同愛好者。他的朋友里沒有一個(gè)是制表師。
So it was no surprise to him, though keenly disappointing, that the Swiss watchmakingindustry was neither eager to look at the co-axial escapement, nor able to understand it. Hedid the rounds of the factories for more than 20 years. After four years with Patek Philippe,he could not persuade them to make it. Omega began to produce it in limited editions in2006, after seven years of development that Mr Daniels dismissed as unnecessary. Large-scale production would have been too expensive. But Mr Daniels also suspected sheerdislike of outsiders.
所以，瑞士的鐘表制作業(yè)對(duì)他的同軸式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)既不感興趣也不能理解，這也是他意料之中的事，盡管他還是為此十分失望。他花了二十多年時(shí)間尋找鐘表制造商來采用他的技術(shù)，為了說服百達(dá)翡麗他就花了整整四年，但是仍然失敗了。歐米茄在對(duì)同軸式擒縱技術(shù)進(jìn)行七年的發(fā)展后開始利用該技術(shù)生產(chǎn)限量版手表，而這七年在丹尼爾斯眼里毫無必要。歐米茄稱限量是因?yàn)榇笠?guī)模生產(chǎn)成本過高，但是丹尼爾斯懷疑他們僅僅是不歡迎圈外人。
While restoring the timepieces made by his idol Breguet in the 19th century, he had madetwo clocks in the same style, just to prove he could beat the master. They were so fine thatthe company insisted on putting the Breguet secret signatures on them. Mr Daniels wentalong with it. He had a secret cipher of his own, though, a dove with an olive branch. Itmeant peace to his rivals, French or Swiss; but if the most ingenious invention inwatchmaking for 250 years was too tricky for them, why, he would just pick it up, snap it shutand put it back in his pocket.
在修復(fù)他的偶像Breguet制作于19世紀(jì)的座鐘的同時(shí)，他還制作了兩臺(tái)同樣風(fēng)格的座鐘，僅僅為了證明他可以戰(zhàn)勝這位制表大師。這兩臺(tái)座鐘高貴典雅精美絕倫，寶璣表公司甚至堅(jiān)持要將Breguet的秘密簽名刻在上面。丹尼爾斯同意了。他自己也有一個(gè)秘密簽名，是一只銜著橄欖枝的鴿子，意味著與競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手法國和瑞士之間的和睦相處。但是如果250年來鐘表制造業(yè)中最具天才的發(fā)明對(duì)于這兩個(gè)國家太過神秘晦澀，那么，丹尼爾斯何不收起他的表，啪地一聲合上表蓋，放回衣袋呢。
George Daniels
制表大師喬治丹尼爾斯
George Daniels, master watchmaker, died onOctober 21st, aged 85
近250年來最偉大的制表師喬治丹尼爾斯于10月21日去世，享年85歲。
A SCHOOLBOY once asked George Daniels whathe had at the end of the chain that led to hispocket. A silly question, really. But it was worthasking, because what Mr Daniels pulled out,carefully, was what he called his Space Traveller s Watch. It gave mean solar time, meansidereal time, equation of time, and could chart the phases of the moon. Mr Daniels liked tosay it would be useful for trips to Mars. He had surmised almost the same when, at five orsix, he had first prised open with a fairly blunt breadknife the back of an old watch he hadfound at home, and seen the centre of the universe inside.
一名男學(xué)生曾經(jīng)問喬治丹尼爾斯，他那根伸進(jìn)衣袋的鏈子末端有什么。多么愚蠢的問題。但是值得一答。因?yàn)榈つ釥査剐⌒囊硪韽目诖锬贸鰜淼谋肀凰Q為宇宙旅行者之表。表盤上不僅能顯示平太陽時(shí)，還能顯示平恒星時(shí)、時(shí)差，記錄月相。丹尼爾斯說，去火星旅行的時(shí)候這款表就能大顯身手。其實(shí)在五六歲的時(shí)候他就想到這一點(diǎn)了。那是他第一次用鈍了的面包刀剖開家里的一塊舊表，看見了宇宙的核心。
He had never imagined then that he would make the universe by hand. But he did.Every component of his Space Traveller s Watchas of the 36 other watches he made, eachunique, over his 42 working yearswas produced from scratch. He made the screws, thesprings and the levers, the pallets and gears, the hands and the plain, often numberlessdials. He also made the tools that made them, except for the lathes and turning engines. Noone else had ever learned the dozens of necessary skills. But after years of teaching himselfhorology from clocks bought for a bob or two at jumble sales, or comrades broken watchesin the army, or the wonderful Breguet and old English timepieces he went on to restore forcollectors, he had begun to think, why not?
那時(shí)候丹尼爾斯還從未想象過自己能夠?qū)⒄麄€(gè)宇宙納入一塊表中。但是他確實(shí)做到了。在42年的制表生涯中，他一共制作了37塊表，每一塊都獨(dú)一無二。其中之一便是宇宙旅行者之表。表的每一部分都是由他親手制作，沒有使用任何外來的零件螺釘、彈簧、杠桿、托盤和齒輪、指針以及簡(jiǎn)潔但是有無數(shù)刻度的鐘面。連用來制作這些零件的工具都是他自己做的用來發(fā)動(dòng)引擎的車床除外。在丹尼爾斯之前，沒有人學(xué)過如許多基本的制表技術(shù)。他自學(xué)鐘表制作多年，這些鐘表有的是花一兩個(gè)先令從舊貨攤上買來的，有的是軍隊(duì)軍官用壞了的，還有的是他為收藏者修復(fù)的精致無比的寶璣表和古老的英國座鐘。多年后，他自問：為什么我不能自己制表呢?
Hour after hour, for it wasn t the sort of work you could just do a little of and leave again,he would cut and shape, file and polish, temper and hammer. The work flowed from thetools almost unconsciously. He learned from a craftsman in Clerkenwell how to make cases,usually of gold with a silver back and bezels. His first watch was sold to a collector friend,Sam Clutton, in 1970 for ￡1,900; when sold in 2002, it fetched more than ￡200,000.
他就這樣開始了制表生涯。他會(huì)連續(xù)幾個(gè)小時(shí)地工作，切割塑造出基本形狀，用矬子將表打磨光滑，用小錘調(diào)整精確度。這些工作不允許匠人只敲打一會(huì)兒就去做的別的事情。匠人幾乎是無意識(shí)地被工具操控著。丹尼爾斯向一名匠人學(xué)習(xí)怎樣制作表盒，通常是那種銀質(zhì)的背部和帶有銀質(zhì)表座的金質(zhì)表盒。他的第一塊表于 1970年以1900英鎊的價(jià)格賣給了一個(gè)名叫Sam Clutton的收藏家朋友。而這塊表在2002年賣出的時(shí)候，售價(jià)超過了20萬英鎊。
Tick, tock
滴答，滴答
A hard, poor childhood in north London had given him a nose for a deal and a sharp senseof the value of everything. But his pieces were private experiments, not commissions. Hewanted to build watches that kept better time than any in the 500 years before. The generalpublic was happy, from the late 1960s, with quartz models that lost, on average, two or threeseconds a month. But Mr Daniels was determined to show that a mechanical watch couldbeat them. In the mid-1970s he made a double-escapement watch for Mr Clutton which,over 32 days, lost less than a second. His happiness at beating quartz came close to hisboyhood joy when a wall-clock he had mended magnificently exploded, springs and glasseverywhere, as the family ate their bread and jam at the supper table.
丹尼爾斯在倫敦北部度過了他貧窮艱苦的童年，這一段生活經(jīng)歷培養(yǎng)了他善于發(fā)現(xiàn)商機(jī)的天才和對(duì)一切事物價(jià)值的敏銳直覺。但是他制作的鐘表都是個(gè)人的試驗(yàn)品，而非受委托制作的商品。他還想制作出五百年來報(bào)時(shí)最準(zhǔn)確的表。從20世紀(jì)60年代以來，人們就使用石英表，并對(duì)其每個(gè)月平均誤差兩到三秒的性能十分滿意。但是他下定決心要制作出前無古人的機(jī)械表。20世紀(jì)70年代中期，他為Sam Clutton制作了一塊雙擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)的表。32天里表的誤差沒有超過一秒。這次他的表打敗了石英表所帶來的喜悅不亞于孩提時(shí)代他修過的家里的壁鐘突然爆炸，彈簧和玻璃蹦得到處都是帶給孩子的驚喜，而那時(shí)全家人正圍著餐桌吃果醬面包呢。
Now he had to improve on the lever escapement, which had been invented in 1754 bythe English horologist Thomas Mudge and used in most watches since. It worked by friction,as the teeth of the gears slid over the pallet; but this arrangement needed lubrication, andas the oil degraded the watch lost time. Mr Daniels became obsessed with the tick, tock ofclocks , and how to get animpulse on both the tick and the tock that would not be affected by humidity,temperature, oil sludge or agitation. His solution, invented in 1976, was the co-axialescapement, an arrangement in which two wheels, placed one above the other, transmittedto the pallet a radial impulse that needed no lubrication and so would never stop.
接著他要完善的是叉瓦式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)。叉瓦式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)1754年由英國制表師Thomas Mudge發(fā)明，從那以后就廣泛運(yùn)用于大部分表中。它的表面指針由齒輪在托盤上滑動(dòng)產(chǎn)生的摩擦帶動(dòng)。但是這一工作原理要求內(nèi)部零件保持潤滑，否則隨著潤滑度的磨損，報(bào)時(shí)會(huì)逐漸喪失準(zhǔn)確性。隨著研究的深入，丹尼爾斯越來越對(duì)鐘表發(fā)出的滴答聲著迷，這聲音和銀鈴般的報(bào)時(shí)鐘聲，在他的每一處宅邸里蕩漾。他還癡迷于解決如何使表獲得傳動(dòng)又不受濕度、溫度、潤滑度和震動(dòng)影響的問題。該問題的解決方案于1976年誕生，這便是同軸式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)。這一裝置由疊置于托盤上的兩個(gè)齒輪組成，兩個(gè)齒輪會(huì)向托盤傳遞放射狀的傳動(dòng)力而不需要任何的潤滑，因此永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)停止。
That achievement earned him many honours for services to horology, but it was onlythe beginning of a long slog to get his idea accepted. The world of clocks and watches was aclosed one. He knew it himself, because his boyhood watch studies from library books were aprivate realm only he could understand, and the 18th-century English mastersMudge,Arnold, Earnshawthe only real friends he had. Watchmakers kept the secrets they learnedin their lonely working hours. Even later, when he had put himself in the millionaires bracket and had to move to the Isle of Man for tax reasons, his friends were in the motoringclubs where he shared his other passion, for vintage Bentleys and racing cars. He had nowatchmaker friends at all.
這一成就作為他對(duì)鐘表業(yè)的杰出貢獻(xiàn)，為他贏得了諸多榮譽(yù)。但這只是他為普及自己的技術(shù)使用而踏上的荊棘之路的起點(diǎn)。鐘表業(yè)界是一個(gè)封閉的世界。他通過自己的經(jīng)歷得出這一點(diǎn)，因?yàn)樗陼r(shí)從圖書館的書籍上獲得的鐘表知識(shí)構(gòu)成了一個(gè)只有他自己才能涉足的私人領(lǐng)域，而18世紀(jì)英國的制表大師Mudge,Arnold和Earnshaw是他僅有的真正的朋友。制表師們都各自保留著他們?cè)诠陋?dú)工作時(shí)知悉的鐘表的秘密。即使后來，丹尼爾斯進(jìn)入百萬富翁的行列，為了避重稅不得不搬到馬恩島，他的朋友也僅限于摩托俱樂部?jī)?nèi)，這里有他能找到對(duì)老式賓利車和賽車的共同愛好者。他的朋友里沒有一個(gè)是制表師。
So it was no surprise to him, though keenly disappointing, that the Swiss watchmakingindustry was neither eager to look at the co-axial escapement, nor able to understand it. Hedid the rounds of the factories for more than 20 years. After four years with Patek Philippe,he could not persuade them to make it. Omega began to produce it in limited editions in2006, after seven years of development that Mr Daniels dismissed as unnecessary. Large-scale production would have been too expensive. But Mr Daniels also suspected sheerdislike of outsiders.
所以，瑞士的鐘表制作業(yè)對(duì)他的同軸式擒縱機(jī)構(gòu)既不感興趣也不能理解，這也是他意料之中的事，盡管他還是為此十分失望。他花了二十多年時(shí)間尋找鐘表制造商來采用他的技術(shù)，為了說服百達(dá)翡麗他就花了整整四年，但是仍然失敗了。歐米茄在對(duì)同軸式擒縱技術(shù)進(jìn)行七年的發(fā)展后開始利用該技術(shù)生產(chǎn)限量版手表，而這七年在丹尼爾斯眼里毫無必要。歐米茄稱限量是因?yàn)榇笠?guī)模生產(chǎn)成本過高，但是丹尼爾斯懷疑他們僅僅是不歡迎圈外人。
While restoring the timepieces made by his idol Breguet in the 19th century, he had madetwo clocks in the same style, just to prove he could beat the master. They were so fine thatthe company insisted on putting the Breguet secret signatures on them. Mr Daniels wentalong with it. He had a secret cipher of his own, though, a dove with an olive branch. Itmeant peace to his rivals, French or Swiss; but if the most ingenious invention inwatchmaking for 250 years was too tricky for them, why, he would just pick it up, snap it shutand put it back in his pocket.
在修復(fù)他的偶像Breguet制作于19世紀(jì)的座鐘的同時(shí)，他還制作了兩臺(tái)同樣風(fēng)格的座鐘，僅僅為了證明他可以戰(zhàn)勝這位制表大師。這兩臺(tái)座鐘高貴典雅精美絕倫，寶璣表公司甚至堅(jiān)持要將Breguet的秘密簽名刻在上面。丹尼爾斯同意了。他自己也有一個(gè)秘密簽名，是一只銜著橄欖枝的鴿子，意味著與競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手法國和瑞士之間的和睦相處。但是如果250年來鐘表制造業(yè)中最具天才的發(fā)明對(duì)于這兩個(gè)國家太過神秘晦澀，那么，丹尼爾斯何不收起他的表，啪地一聲合上表蓋，放回衣袋呢。
