(单词翻译:单击)
Jenner would go down in history as the person who invented and administered a medical cure for one of the deadliest viruses in world history.
詹纳发明了世界史上一种最致命病毒的药物疗法，并将这种疗法在患者身上得以运用，詹纳也因此将名垂青史。
Then he invented something else: a new word, from the Latin for “cow,” that would be carried down through the centuries alongside his scientific breakthrough.
之后，他又发明了别的东西:一个新词语，该词源自拉丁语的“牛”。这个新词随着他的科学突破流传了几个世纪。
He called his wondrous invention a vaccine.
他将他的奇妙发明称为疫苗(vaccine来自拉丁语vacca(牛))。
Let’s pause the story here.
让我们将故事暂停到这里。
Jenner’s eureka moment is world-famous: cherished by scientists, rhapsodized by historians, and even captured in oil paintings that hang in European museums.
詹纳的灵光乍现举世闻名: 科学家珍视这个时刻，历史学家热情称颂这个时刻，就连欧洲博物馆里悬挂的油画也捕捉到了这个时刻。
For many, progress is essentially a timeline of the breakthroughs made by extraordinary individuals like Jenner.
对众多人来讲，进步本质上是詹纳这样的杰出人物取得突破的大事年表。
Our mythology of science and technology treats the moment of discovery or invention as a sacred scene.
我们的科技神话把发现或发明的瞬间视为神圣的场景。
In school, students memorize the dates of major inventions, along with the names of the people who made them—Edison, light bulb, 1879; Wright brothers, airplane, 1903.
学校里的学生要记住重大发明的日期以及这些发明者的姓名——爱迪生，电灯泡，1879年; 莱特兄弟，飞机，1903年。
The great discoverers—Franklin, Bell, Curie, Tesla—get best-selling biographies, and millions of people know their names.
伟大的发现者——富兰克林、贝尔、居里夫人、特斯拉——这些人的传记都很畅销，他们的名字家喻户晓。
This is the eureka theory of history.
这就是历史的顿悟学说。
And for years, it is the story I’ve read and told.
多年来，我一直在阅读和讲述这个故事。
Inventors and their creations are the stars of my favorite books about scientific history, including The Discoverers, by Daniel Boorstin, and They Made America, by Harold Evans.
发明家及其他们的发明是我最喜欢的科学史书籍中的明星读物，包括丹尼尔·布尔斯汀的《发现者》和哈罗德·埃文斯的《他们创造了美国》。
I’ve written long features for this magazine holding up invention as the great lost art of American technology and the fulcrum of human progress.
我曾为这本杂志写过长篇特写，认为发明是美国科技中消逝的伟大艺术，认为发明是人类进步的支点。
But in the past few years, I’ve come to think that this approach to history is wrong.
但在过去的几年里，我开始认为这种研究历史的方法有误。
Inventions do matter greatly to progress, of course.
当然，发明对进步确实很重要。
But too often, when we isolate these famous eureka moments, we leave out the most important chapters of the story—the ones that follow the initial lightning bolt of discovery.
但是，当我们将这些著名的顿悟时刻分开看时，我们往往忽略了故事中最重要的章节——那些最初发现闪电球的后续章节。
Consider the actual scale of Edward Jenner’s accomplishment the day he pricked James Phipps in 1796.
想想爱德华·詹纳1796年割伤詹姆斯·菲普斯(为他接种水痘)那天的实际成就吧。
Exactly one person had been vaccinated in a world of roughly 1 billion people, leaving 99.9999999 percent of the human population unaffected.
在世界上的10亿人口中，只有一人接种了疫苗，99.9999999%的人口都没有受到影响。
When a good idea is born, or when the first prototype of an invention is created, we should celebrate its potential to change the world.
当一个好主意诞生时，或者当一项发明的首个原型被创造出来时，我们应该庆祝其改变世界的潜力。
But progress is as much about implementation as it is about invention.
但是，进步既关乎发明，也关乎实施。
The way individuals and institutions take an idea from one to 1 billion is the story of how the world really changes.
个人和机构如何将一个想法从一个人传给10亿人，这才是世界如何真正发生改变的故事。
