演講MP3+雙語文稿:你在哪個年齡段最有可能成功？

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【演講人】Albert-László Barabás

【演講主題】成功，真的和年齡沒多大關系

 

 

翻譯者psjmz mz 校對者YolandaZhang

 

 

Today, actually, is a very special day forme,because it is my birthday.

今天對我來說很特別，因為是我的生日。

00:08（Applause） （鼓掌）

00:12And so, thanks to all of you for joiningthe party.

謝謝大家參與這個聚會。

00:16（Laughter） （笑聲）

00:17

But every time you throw a party, there'ssomeone there to spoil it. Right?

可是，每次你舉辦聚會的時候， 總是有人搗蛋，對吧？

00:22（Laughter） （笑聲）

00:23

And I'm a physicist,and this time Ibrought another physicist along to do so.His name is Albert Einstein --also Albert -- and he's the one who saidthat the person who has not made hisgreat contributions to scienceby the age of 30will never doso.

我是個物理學家，這次我?guī)砹肆硪粋€物理學家。他的名字是阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦—— 也叫阿爾伯特——他是那個說過如果一個人到30歲時對科學都沒啥大貢獻，也就永遠不會有貢獻了。

00:41

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

00:42

Now, you don't need to checkthat I'm beyond 30.

你不需要查維基百科去了解我是不是超過30歲。

00:46

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

00:47

So, effectively, what he is telling me, andus,is that when it comes to my science,I'm deadwood.Well,luckily, I had my share of luck within my career.Around age 28, I becamevery interested in networks,and a few years later, we managed to publisha few key papersthat reported the discovery of scale-freenetworksand really gave birth to a new discipline that we call networkscience today.And if you really care about it, you can get a PhD now in networksciencein Budapest, in Boston,and you can study it all over theworld.

實際上他是想告訴我們，當涉及到我在科學領域的作為時，我是朽木難雕了。幸運的是，我的事業(yè)運還算不錯。在28歲時，我對網(wǎng)絡產(chǎn)生了興趣，幾年后，我成功發(fā)表了幾篇關于發(fā)現(xiàn)無標度網(wǎng)絡的核心論文，并催生了一門我們今天稱為 網(wǎng)絡科學的新學科。如果你對這個學科也很感興趣，可以在布達佩斯，在波士頓讀取網(wǎng)絡科學的博士學位，也可以在全球各地學習這門課程。

01:27

A few years later,when I moved toHarvard first as a sabbatical,I became interested in another type ofnetwork:that time, the networks within ourselves,how the genes andthe proteins and the metabolites link to each otherand how they connectto disease.And that interest led to a major explosion withinmedicine,including the Network Medicine Division at Harvard,thathas more than 300 researchers who are using this perspectiveto treatpatients and develop new cures.

幾年后，當我第一次在哈佛進行學術休假時，我對另一種形態(tài)的網(wǎng)絡產(chǎn)生了興趣：在我們自身的網(wǎng)絡中，基因、蛋白質和代謝物如何相互聯(lián)系以及它們與疾病的關系。這個興趣引發(fā)了 醫(yī)學領域的一陣轟動，包括哈佛大學的網(wǎng)絡醫(yī)學部，有300多名研究人員 基于這個想法來治療病人，開發(fā)新的治療方法。

02:01

And a few years ago,I thought that Iwould take this idea of networksand the expertise we had innetworksin a different area,that is, to understandsuccess.And why did we do that?Well, we thought that, to somedegree,our success is determined by the networks we're part of--that our networks can push us forward, they can pull us back.AndI was curious if we could use the knowledge and big data andexpertisewhere we develop the networksto really quantify how thesethings happen.

幾年以前，我覺得我應該把網(wǎng)絡的概念和關于網(wǎng)絡的專業(yè)知識應用于一個新的領域，用來理解成功。我們?yōu)槭裁匆@么做？我們認為，在某種程度上，我們的成功取決于我們所處的網(wǎng)絡——我們的網(wǎng)絡可以推動我們前進， 也能拖我們后腿。我好奇我們能否使用在網(wǎng)絡中獲得的這些知識，結合大數(shù)據(jù)和專長來量化事情是如何發(fā)生的。

02:32

This is a result from that.What yousee here is a network of galleries in museumsthat connect to eachother.And through this map that we mapped out last year,we are ableto predict very accurately the success of an artistif you give me thefirst five exhibits that he or she had in their career.

這是一個結果。你在這里看到的是博物館里相互連接的畫廊網(wǎng)絡。通過這張我們?nèi)ツ昀L制的圖，如果給我他或她在他們的 職業(yè)生涯舉辦的前五個展覽，我們就能夠非常準確地預測一個藝術家是否成功。

02:53

Well, as we thought about success,werealized that success is not only about networks;there are so many otherdimensions to that.And one of the things we need for success,obviously,is performance.So let's define what's the differencebetween performance and success.Well, performance is what you do:howfast you run, what kind of paintings you paint,what kind of papers youpublish.However, in our working definition,success is about whatthe community notices from what you did,from your performance:Howdoes it acknowledge it, and how does it reward you for it?In otherterms,your performance is about you, but your success is about all ofus.And this was a very important shift for us,because the moment wedefined success as being a collective measurethat the community providesto us,it became measurable,because if it's in the community, thereare multiple data points about that.So we go to school, we exercise, wepractice,because we believe that performance leads to success.Butthe way we actually started to explore,we realized that performance andsuccess are very, very different animalswhen it comes to the mathematicsof the problem.And let me illustrate that.

當我們思考成功時，我們意識到成功不僅跟網(wǎng)絡有關；還有很多其他的維度。其中一個成功的必要因素，很明顯就是業(yè)績。讓我們定義一下業(yè)績和成功的差別。業(yè)績是你做的事情：你跑得有多快，你畫的是什么畫，你發(fā)表的是什么論文。然而，在我們的工作定義中，成功是社群從你的業(yè)績中注意到你做的哪些事情，如何承認你的成就，如何獎勵你？換句話說，你的業(yè)績跟你有關， 但你的成功跟大家都有關。這對我們來說是個非常重要的轉變，因為我們把成功定義為社群給予我們的集體評價。這樣一來成功就變得可衡量，因為在一個社群中， 關于成功包含著很多數(shù)據(jù)點。我們上學，我們練習，我們實踐，因為我們相信業(yè)績會讓我們成功。但當我們開始探索，我們開始意識到 以數(shù)學的方式看待這個問題時，業(yè)績和成功是非常， 非常不同的概念，讓我來解釋一下。

04:12

So what you see here is the fastest man onearth, Usain Bolt.And of course, he wins most of the competitions that heenters.And we know he's the fastest on earth because we have achronometerto measure his speed.Well, what is interesting about himis that when he wins,he doesn't do so by really significantly outrunninghis competition.He's running at most a percent faster than the one wholoses the race.And not only does he run only one percent faster than thesecond one,but he doesn't run 10 times faster than I do --and I'mnot a good runner, trust me on that.

你在這里看到的是世界上 最快的人，尤塞恩·博爾特。當然，他贏得了大多數(shù)參與的比賽。我們知道是他是世界上最快的人，因為我們有精密的計時器去測量他的速度。有趣之處在于當他獲勝時，他并沒有明顯地超過競爭對手。他跑得比輸?shù)舯荣惖娜?最多快百分之一。他不僅只比第二名快百分之一，他的速度也不超過我的10倍——并且我還不是個擅長跑步的人， 這點請相信我。

04:50

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

04:51

And every time we are able to measureperformance,we notice something very interesting;that is,performance is bounded.What it means is that there are no huge variationsin human performance.It varies only in a narrow range,and we doneed the chronometer to measure the differences.This is not to say thatwe cannot see the good from the best ones,but the best ones are very hardto distinguish.And the problem with that is that most of us work inareaswhere we do not have a chronometer to gauge our performance.

每次我們能夠評估業(yè)績時，我們都會注意到一些有趣的事情：業(yè)績是有界限的。這意味著人類的業(yè)績 并沒有巨大的差異。它變化的范圍非常小，我們確實需要精密的計時器 來測量這個差異。不是說我們不能從 最好的人身上看到好的一面，但最好的人非常難以識別。并且問題在于我們很多人的工作領域并沒有精密的計時器來衡量我們的業(yè)績。

05:23

Alright, performance is bounded,thereare no huge differences between us when it comes to our performance.Howabout success?Well, let's switch to a different topic, likebooks.One measure of success for writers is how many people read yourwork.And so when my previous book came out in 2009,I was in Europetalking with my editor,and I was interested: Who is thecompetition?And I had some fabulous ones.That week –

好了，業(yè)績是有界限的，當涉及我們的業(yè)績時， 我們之間并沒有顯著的差異。那么成功呢？讓我們轉到另一個話題，比如書籍。評估作家成功的一個方法是 有多少人閱讀了你的作品。當我早先那本書在2009年出版時，我在歐洲和編輯談話，我感興趣的是：誰是我的競爭對手？我有一些炙手可熱的對手。那周——

05:52

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

05:53

Dan Brown came out with "The LostSymbol,"and "The Last Song" also came out,NicholasSparks.And when you just look at the list,you realize, you know,performance-wise, there's hardly any differencebetween these books ormine.Right?So maybe if Nicholas Sparks's team works a littleharder,he could easily be number one,because it's almost byaccident who ended up at the top.So I said, let's look at the numbers --I'm a data person, right?So let's see what were the sales for NicholasSparks.And it turns out that that opening weekend,Nicholas Sparkssold more than a hundred thousand copies,which is an amazingnumber.You can actually get to the top of the "New York Times"best-seller listby selling 10,000 copies a week,so he tenfold overcamewhat he needed to be number one.Yet he wasn't numberone.Why?Because there was Dan Brown, who sold 1.2 million copiesthat weekend.

丹·布朗出版了《失落的秘符》，并且尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯的《最后一首歌》也問世了。當你看這個書單時，你意識到，就業(yè)績而言，這些書和我的之間并無多大差別。是吧？如果尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 的團隊再努力一點，他就可以輕松進入榜首，因為最終誰在暢銷榜頂端 幾乎是隨機的。所以我說，讓我們看看數(shù)字吧—— 我就是干這行的，對吧？讓我們看看尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 的作品銷量。結果在新書發(fā)售的那個周末，尼古拉斯·斯帕克斯 賣出了10萬多本書，這是個驚人的數(shù)字。你可以看看紐約時報 每周銷量在1萬冊以上的暢銷書榜單，所以他只憑借新書銷量的 十分之一就能輕松登上榜首。然而他不是第一名。為什么？因為有丹·布朗，他在 那個周末賣出了120萬冊。

06:51

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

06:53

And the reason I like this number isbecause it shows that, really,when it comes to success, it'sunbounded,that the best doesn't only get slightly more than the secondbestbut gets orders of magnitude more,because success is acollective measure.We give it to them, rather than we earn it through ourperformance.

我喜歡這個數(shù)字的原因 是因為它真正顯示了，當涉及到成功時，它是沒有界限的，最好的不止比第二名好一點點，而超越了好幾個數(shù)量級，因為成功是集體的衡量標準。我們給予他們成功，而不是通過我們的業(yè)績獲得它。

07:17

So one of things we realized is thatperformance, what we do, is bounded,but success, which is collective, isunbounded,which makes you wonder:How do you get these hugedifferences in successwhen you have such tiny differences inperformance?And recently, I published a book that I devoted to that veryquestion.And they didn't give me enough time to go over all ofthat,so I'm going to go back to the question of,alright, you havesuccess; when should that appear?

我們意識到業(yè)績是有界限的，但成功，屬于集體衡量的，是無界的，這一定讓你心生疑惑：當人們的業(yè)績表現(xiàn)差異很小的時候，為何成功的差異如此之大？最近，我出版了一本 關于這個問題的書。我沒有太多時間詳細介紹這本書，所以我打算回到這個問題，成功通常會在什么時候出現(xiàn)呢？

07:44

So let's go back to the party spoiler andask ourselves:Why did Einstein make this ridiculous statement,thatonly before 30 you could actually be creative?Well, because he lookedaround himself and he saw all these fabulous physiciststhat createdquantum mechanics and modern physics,and they were all in their 20s andearly 30s when they did so.And it's not only him.It's not onlyobservational bias,because there's actually a whole field of geniusresearchthat has documented the fact that,if we look at the peoplewe admire from the pastand then look at what age they made their biggestcontribution,whether that's music, whether that's science,whetherthat's engineering,most of them tend to do so in their 20s, 30s, early40s at most.But there's a problem with this genius research.Well,first of all, it created the impression to usthat creativity equalsyouth,which is painful, right?

那么讓我們回到派對搗亂者 的話題，問問我們自己：為什么愛因斯坦要發(fā)表這樣荒謬的言論，人的創(chuàng)造力止步于30歲？因為他發(fā)現(xiàn)周圍 所有這些創(chuàng)造量子力學和現(xiàn)代物理學的偉大物理學家，他們的偉大成就都是誕生在 20多歲和30歲出頭。并不是只有他這樣想。這不僅是觀察偏差，因為事實上有一整個 領域的天才研究都證明了這一點，如果回顧一下我們崇拜的先人，然后再看他們做出 最大貢獻的年紀，不管在音樂，在科學，還是在工程領域，大部分人都是在他們20歲，30歲， 最多40歲出頭時做出了這些成績。但這個天才研究有個問題。首先，它為大眾制造了一種印象，即創(chuàng)造力等于年輕，真讓人傷心，不是嗎？

08:45

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

08:47

And it also has an observationalbias,because it only looks at geniuses and doesn't look at ordinaryscientistsand doesn't look at all of us and ask,is it really truethat creativity vanishes as we age?So that's exactly what we tried todo,and this is important for that to actually have references.

并且它也存在觀察偏差，因為它只觀察了天才， 并沒研究普通科學家，并沒有看著我們這些人問，隨著年齡的增長， 創(chuàng)造力真的會消失嗎？所以這正是我們嘗試做的，并且有參照對象很重要。

09:08

So let's look at an ordinary scientist likemyself,and let's look at my career.So what you see here is all thepapers that I've publishedfrom my very first paper, in 1989; I was stillin Romania when I did so,till kind of this year.And vertically, yousee the impact of the paper,that is, how many citations,how manyother papers have been written that cited that work.And when you look atthat,you see that my career has roughly three different stages.Ihad the first 10 years where I had to work a lotand I don't achievemuch.No one seems to care about what I do, right?There's hardly anyimpact.

那么讓我們看看像我 這樣平凡科學家的職業(yè)生涯。這里是我發(fā)表的全部論文，從1989年發(fā)表的最早一篇論文； 當時我還在羅馬尼亞，直到今年這個時候?？v坐標，你可以看到論文的影響，也就是被引用的次數(shù)，有多少其他人發(fā)表的論文 引用了我的工作。當你看這個數(shù)據(jù)時，可以看到我的職業(yè)生涯有三個階段。我第一個10年，工作很多，但卻并沒有多少成就。似乎沒人關注我做的事情，對吧？沒有一點影響力。

09:43

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

09:44

That time, I was doing materialscience,and then I kind of discovered for myself networksand thenstarted publishing in networks.And that led from one high-impact paper tothe other one.And it really felt good. That was that stage of mycareer.

當時，我在做材料科學，然后我自己發(fā)現(xiàn)了網(wǎng)絡，然后開始發(fā)表網(wǎng)絡的文章，從那以后，高影響力的文章 我發(fā)表了一篇又一篇。那時感覺真是很好，那是 我職業(yè)生涯的高光時刻。

09:59

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

10:00

So the question is, what happens rightnow?And we don't know, because there hasn't been enough time passedyetto actually figure out how much impact those papers will get;ittakes time to acquire.Well, when you look at the data,it seems tobe that Einstein, the genius research, is right,and I'm at that stage ofmy career.

那么問題是，現(xiàn)在發(fā)生了什么？我們不知道，現(xiàn)在就去 計算出這些論文會產(chǎn)生怎樣的影響還為時尚早，需要時間來獲取這些信息。當你看這個數(shù)據(jù)時，會覺得愛因斯坦和 天才研究的結論是對的，我在我職業(yè)生涯的高光階段。

10:18

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

10:21

So we said, OK, let's figure out how doesthis really happen,first in science.And in order not to have theselection bias,to look only at geniuses,we ended up reconstructingthe career of every single scientistfrom 1900 till todayand findingfor all scientists what was their personal best,whether they got theNobel Prize or they never did,or no one knows what they did, even theirpersonal best.And that's what you see in this slide.Each line is acareer,and when you have a light blue dot on the top of thatcareer,it says that was their personal best.And the questionis,when did they actually make their biggest discovery?To quantifythat,we look at what's the probability that you make your biggest discovery,let'ssay, one, two, three or 10 years into your career?We're not looking atreal age.We're looking at what we call "academicage."Your academic age starts when you publish your firstpapers.I know some of you are still babies.

那么讓我們看看 這究竟是如何發(fā)生的，首先看看科學領域。為了不產(chǎn)生選擇偏差，只看天才，我們最終重建了1900年至今每一位科學家的職業(yè)生涯，并找到了所有科學家 的個人最高成就，不管他獲得了諾貝爾獎還是沒有，或是沒人問津，即便是他最好的成就。這就是你們在這張幻燈片上看到的。每條線是個職業(yè)生涯，在職業(yè)生涯的頂端 有一個淺藍色的點，代表著他們個人的最好成就。問題是，他們最重大的發(fā)現(xiàn) 發(fā)生在什么時候？要量化這點，我們看的是你獲得 最大發(fā)現(xiàn)的概率是多少，比如你職業(yè)生涯的 的第1，2，3或者10年。我們真正要看的并不是年紀。我們看的是所謂的“學術年齡。”你的學術年齡始于 你發(fā)表第一篇論文的時候。我知道你們有些人還是嬰兒。

11:19

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

11:20

So let's look at theprobabilitythat you publish your highest-impact paper.And what yousee is, indeed, the genius research is right.Most scientists tend topublish their highest-impact paperin the first 10, 15 years in theircareer,and it tanks after that.It tanks so fast that I'm about --I'm exactly 30 years into my career,and the chance that I will publish apaper that would have a higher impactthan anything that I didbeforeis less than one percent.I am in that stage of my career,according to this data.But there's a problem with that.We're notdoing controls properly.So the control would be,what would ascientist look like who makes random contribution to science?Or what isthe productivity of the scientist?When do they write papers?So wemeasured the productivity,and amazingly, the productivity,yourlikelihood of writing a paper in year one, 10 or 20 in your career,isindistinguishable from the likelihood of having the impactin that part ofyour career.

那么讓我們來看看你發(fā)表最高影響力論文的概率。你看到的是，的確， 天才研究的結論是正確的。很多科學家發(fā)表的影響力最高的論文傾向于發(fā)表在他們職業(yè)生涯的 前10到15年，在那之后就會直線下降。它下降得如此之快——我如今 正處在我職業(yè)的第30個年頭，我發(fā)表一篇比過往有 更高影響力的論文的概率不到1%。根據(jù)這個數(shù)據(jù)，我正處在 職業(yè)生涯的這個階段。但這里有個問題。我們的對照數(shù)據(jù)有問題。對照數(shù)據(jù)就是，對科學做出隨機貢獻的 科學家會是什么樣子？或者科學家的生產(chǎn)力怎樣？他們什么時候寫的論文？所以我們評估了生產(chǎn)力，令人驚訝的是，生產(chǎn)力，你在職業(yè)生涯的第1年、第10年 或第20年寫論文的概率，與論文產(chǎn)生影響的概率幾乎無法區(qū)分。

12:25

And to make a long storyshort,after lots of statistical tests, there's only one explanation forthat,that really, the way we scientists workis that every singlepaper we write, every project we do,has exactly the same chance of beingour personal best.That is, discovery is like a lottery ticket.Andthe more lottery tickets we buy,the higher our chances.And ithappens to be sothat most scientists buy most of their lotteryticketsin the first 10, 15 years of their career,and after that,their productivity decreases.They're not buying any more lotterytickets.So it looks as if they would not be creative.In reality,they stopped trying.So when we actually put the data together, theconclusion is very simple:success can come at any time.It could beyour very first or very last paper of your career.It's totally random inthe space of the projects.It is the productivity that changes.

長話短說，在很多的數(shù)據(jù)檢驗后， 只有一個解釋，真相是，我們科學家的工作，我們寫的每篇論文，做的每個項目都有同樣的概率成為 我們個人的最佳成果。那就是，發(fā)現(xiàn)就像中彩票。我們買了越多的彩票，我們中獎的幾率就越高。碰巧的是，很多科學家在他們 職業(yè)生涯的頭10年，15年買了大部分的彩票，在那之后，他們的生產(chǎn)力就下降了。他們不再買更多的彩票。所以看起來他們沒有創(chuàng)造力了?，F(xiàn)實中，他們停止了嘗試。所以當我們把數(shù)據(jù)放在一起時， 結論非常簡單：成功可能隨時會來。它可能是你職業(yè)生涯中 最早或最后的論文。它在項目的空間中完全是隨機的。改變的是你的生產(chǎn)力。

13:26

Let me illustrate that.Here isFrank Wilczek, who got the Nobel Prize in Physicsfor the very first paperhe ever wrote in his career as a graduate student.

讓我解釋一下。這是獲得諾貝爾物理學獎 的弗蘭克·威爾切克，他得獎要歸功于研究生時 寫的第一篇論文。

13:34

（Laughter）

（笑聲）

13:35

More interesting is John Fenn,who,at age 70, was forcefully retired by Yale University.They shut his labdown,and at that moment, he moved to Virginia CommonwealthUniversity,opened another lab,and it is there, at age 72, that hepublished a paperfor which, 15 years later, he got the Nobel Prize forChemistry.

更有趣的是約翰·芬，他在70歲時，被耶魯大學強制退休，他們關閉了他的實驗室，那時，他搬到了弗吉尼亞聯(lián)邦大學，開了另一個實驗室，就在那里，在年紀72歲時， 他發(fā)表了一篇論文，這篇論文在15年后 獲得了諾貝爾化學獎。