科學英雄：儒勒·凡爾納

儒勒·凡爾納（Jules Verne，1828年2月8日—1905年3月24日），法國小說家、博物學家，現代科幻小說的重要開創者之一。他一生寫了六十多部長長短短的科幻小說，總題為《在已知和未知的世界漫游》。他以其大量著作和突出貢獻，被譽為“科幻小說之父”。

Thats right the time for the Science Hero Award， where we honor a particular man or woman from history who made a contribution to science. Todays Science Hero， though， wasnt a scientist at all， but a science fiction writer. In fact， he was one of the pioneers of the genre of science fiction.

Jules Verne is our hero. Jules Verne was born in France in 1828 and originally studied to be alawyer. But he was fascinated with the exploration of nature and the world. Also， he loved writing. In his writing he was able to bring scientific ideas to a general audience. If he were alive today， hed probably be writing for us.

Jules Verne also wanted to challenge people to think about new things that science could bring them. His stories were full of fantastic machines， but they were always things that could in principle be constructed. Because of this combination of knowledge and imagination， he was able to anticipate many things that now actually exist.

For example， you may know that in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea， Verne imagined an enclosed boat that could travel underwater—what we now call a submarine. But did you know that on board his submarine he put another imaginary device， the electric stove？ Or that he was one of the first to suggest putting people inside a giant bullet and firing it at the moon？ Thats not quite how we got there， but the principle is much the same.

那正好是頒科學英雄獎的時間，我們以此紀念那些在歷史上為科學做出貢獻的個人。然而今天的科學英雄根本不是科學家，而是一位科幻小說作者。事實上，他是該體裁的先驅之一。

儒勒·凡爾納是我們的英雄。他于1828年出生在法國，起初他是學習法律的。但他對探索自然和世界十分著迷，而且他喜歡寫作。在他的作品中，他能將科學概念帶給讀者。如果他還活著，他很可能還在為我們創作。

儒勒·凡爾納也想挑戰人們去思考科學可能帶給他們的新事物。他的故事中充滿奇妙的機器，但都總是理論上可以創造出來的東西。由于知識和想象力的結合，他能預見很多現在確實存在的事物。

比如，在凡爾納的《海底兩萬里》中，你可能知道他設想了一艘可以在海底穿梭的船——我們現在稱之為潛水艇。但你知道在其潛水艇上，他放置了另一件想象的工具——電爐嗎？或者說他是第一個建議把人放在巨型炮彈里，瞄準月球發射的人之一嗎？我們并不是那樣登上月球的，但理論上大致相同。