Joseph Keller used to jog around the Stanford campus, and he was struck by all the women jogging there as well.
约瑟夫·凯勒以前常绕着斯坦福大学校区慢跑，而他对许多同样在慢跑的女性感到很震惊。
Why did their ponytails swing from side to side like that?
为什么她们的马尾辫会那样左右扫来扫去呢？
Being a mathematician, he set out to understand why.
作为一名数学家，他开始探究原因。
Professor Keller was curious about many things: why teapots dribble or how earthworms wriggle.
凯勒教授对许多东西都很好奇：为什么茶壶上会沾水，还有蚯蚓是如何蠕动的。
Until a few months ago, I hadn't heard of Joseph Keller.
在几个月前，我还从未听说过约瑟夫·凯勒。
I read about him in the New York Times, in the obituaries.
我在《纽约时报》上读到了他，出现在讣告中。
The Times had half a page of editorial dedicated to him, which you can imagine is premium space for a newspaper of their stature.
《纽约时报》专门用了半幅版面来讲述他，这也算是这种影响力的报刊里级别最高的版面了。
I read the obituaries almost every day.
我几乎每天都会看讣告。
My wife understandably thinks I'm rather morbid to begin my day with scrambled eggs and a "Let's see who died today."
可以理解的是，我妻子觉得我相当有病，我的每一天从一盘炒鸡蛋开始，再加一句：“看看今天谁死了。”
But if you think about it, the front page of the newspaper is usually bad news, and cues man's failures.
不过仔细想想，报纸的头版通常刊登的都是负面新闻，暗示着人类的失败。
An instance where bad news cues accomplishment is at the end of the paper, in the obituaries.
如果你想在负面新闻中找到一些好的成就，就得去末版的讣告里找了。
In my day job, I run a company that focuses on future insights that marketers can derive from past data -- a kind of rearview-mirror analysis.
在日常工作时，我经营一家公司，致力于提供对未来的预测，是从过去的企业数据中分析得出的，算是一种后知后觉的分析。
And we began to think: What if we held a rearview mirror to obituaries from the New York Times?
然后我们开始思考：要是我们用后知后觉方式来分析《纽约时报》上的讣告呢？
Were there lessons on how you could get your obituary featured -- even if you aren't around to enjoy it?
你未来的讣告会怎么写，它能教会你什么？虽然你本人已经没法活着拜读了。
Would this go better with scrambled eggs?
这样的讣告是不是和炒鸡蛋更配呢？
And so, we looked at the data. 2,000 editorial, non-paid obituaries over a 20-month period between 2015 and 2016.
于是，我们研究了数据。2000份由报社编辑的无偿的讣告，来自2015和2016年里的20个月。
What did these 2,000 deaths -- rather, lives -- teach us?
这2000例死亡，或是说2000条生命，能教给我们什么呢？
Well, first we looked at words. This here is an obituary headline. This one is of the amazing Lee Kuan Yew.
首先我们研究了用语。这是一个讣告的标题。为了了不起的李光耀先生而写。
If you remove the beginning and the end, you're left with a beautifully worded descriptor that tries to,
如果去掉开头结尾，你会看到一段文字优美、描述准确的叙述辞，
in just a few words, capture an achievement or a lifetime. Just looking at these is fascinating.
它尝试用寥寥数语精确描述个人成就或是一生经历。仅仅是读这些就已经很令人着迷了。
Here are a few famous ones, people who died in the last two years. Try and guess who they are.
这有一些人物描述，是关于最近两年去世的名人。试着猜猜他们是谁。
That's Prince. Oh, yes. Zaha Hadid.
这是美国歌手“王子”。没错。扎哈·哈迪德。
So we took these descriptors and did what's called natural language processing,
然后我们对这些叙述辞做了一种叫做自然语言处理的操作，
where you feed these into a program, it throws out the superfluous words -- "the," "and,"
其实就是把文字放进一个程序里，它会筛去多余的字词，例如“这”、“和”，
the kind of words you can mime easily in "Charades," -- and leaves you with the most significant words.
这种很容易能比划明白的字，只把最重要的词语留下。

And we did it not just for these four, but for all 2,000 descriptors.
我们不止对上述4个标题做了处理，而是整整2000份叙述辞。
And this is what it looks like. Film, theatre, music, dance and of course, art, are huge. Over 40 percent.
呈现的结果如下。电影，戏剧，音乐，舞蹈...当然，还有艺术占比很大。超过四成了。
You have to wonder why in so many societies we insist that our kids pursue engineering or medicine or business or law to be construed as successful.
你肯定很好奇，为何在许多社会中，我们会坚持让我们的孩子从事工程、医药、商业、法律等工作，并认定它们代表着成功。
And while we're talking profession, let's look at age -- the average age at which they achieved things.
既然我们谈到了职业，让我们再看看年龄。他们获得成就的平均年龄。
That number is 37. What that means is, you've got to wait 37 years
这个数字是37岁。这说明你必须要等上37年，
before your first significant achievement that you're remembered for -- on average
才能首次获得足以让你留名的成就，这是平均值。
44 years later, when you die at the age of 81 -- on average.
44年后，在你81岁去世时才会留名，这也是平均值。
Talk about having to be patient.
这说明我们要有耐心。
Of course, it varies by profession. If you're a sports star, you'll probably hit your stride in your 20s.
当然这也因职业而异。如果你是运动明星，你多半会在20多岁时进入巅峰。
And if you're in your 40s like me, you can join the fun world of politics.
如果你像我一样是个40来岁的人，你大概还能在政界搞出点名堂。
Politicians do their first and sometimes only commendable act in their mid-40s.
政客在45岁左右才做出人生首件，也许是唯一值得称道的事迹。
If you're wondering what "others" are, here are some examples.
也许你会好奇“其他”是什么，这里有些例子。
Isn't it fascinating, the things people do and the things they're remembered for?
这些不是很有趣吗？人们所做的事情，为人所铭记的事情？
Our curiosity was in overdrive, and we desired to analyze more than just a descriptor.
我们的好奇心彻底控制不住了，我们不满足于仅仅分析叙述辞。
So, we ingested the entire first paragraph of all 2,000 obituaries, but we did this separately for two groups of people:
所以我们又分析了2000份讣告的第一段，但我们把讣告分为两组来分析：
people that are famous and people that are not famous.
一组是名人，一组是不出名的人。
Famous people -- Prince, Ali, Zaha Hadid -- people who are not famous are people like Jocelyn Cooper, Reverend Curry or Lorna Kelly.
名人，例如“王子”、阿里、扎哈·哈迪德，不出名的人，例如乔斯琳·库伯，加里牧师，罗娜·凯利等等。
I'm willing to bet you haven't heard of most of their names.
我敢说大多数名字你都没有听过。
Amazing people, fantastic achievements, but they're not famous.
他们是杰出的人，有着杰出的成就，但并不出名。
So what if we analyze these two groups separately -- the famous and the non-famous? What might that tell us?
所以，如果我们分别分析这两组，出不出名有什么区别？它会告诉我们什么呢？
Take a look. Two things leap out at me. First: "John."
请看吧。两样东西吸引了我的注意。第一：“约翰”。
Anyone here named John should thank your parents -- and remind your kids to cut out your obituary when you're gone. And second: "help."
所有名叫“约翰”的人要好好感谢父母。还要提醒你的孩子，在你死后把你的讣告剪下来。第二： “帮助”。
We uncovered, many lessons from lives well-led, and what those people immortalized in print could teach us.
我们从这些杰出的生命中，从这些被文字记录的人身上学到了好多东西。
The exercise was a fascinating testament to the kaleidoscope that is life,
这种过程是对生命万花筒的极好检验，
and even more fascinating was the fact that the overwhelming majority of obituaries featured people famous and non-famous,
而更加迷人的是，在绝大多数的讣告中，无论主角是否出名，
who did seemingly extraordinary things. They made a positive dent in the fabric of life. They helped.
他们都做了看似不平凡的事，他们在生命长河中留下了闪光的点滴。他们伸出了援手。
So ask yourselves as you go back to your daily lives: How am I using my talents to help society?
所以在日常生活中请扪心自问：我该如何用我的才能帮助这个社会？
Because the most powerful lesson here is, if more people lived their lives trying to be famous in death,
因为这其中最重要的道理就是：如果有更多的人在活着时多想想如何留下身后名，
the world would be a much better place. Thank you.
这个世界将会更加美好。谢谢。