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.
一名男學生曾經問喬治丹尼爾斯，他那根伸進衣袋的鏈子末端有什么。多么愚蠢的問題。但是值得一答。因為丹尼爾斯小心翼翼從口袋里拿出來的表被他稱為宇宙旅行者之表。表盤上不僅能顯示平太陽時，還能顯示平恒星時、時差，記錄月相。丹尼爾斯說，去火星旅行的時候這款表就能大顯身手。其實在五六歲的時候他就想到這一點了。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?
那時候丹尼爾斯還從未想象過自己能夠將整個宇宙納入一塊表中。但是他確實做到了。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、指針以及簡潔但是有無數刻度的鐘面。連用來制作這些零件的工具都是他自己做的用來發動引擎的車床除外。在丹尼爾斯之前，沒有人學過如許多基本的制表技術。他自學鐘表制作多年，這些鐘表有的是花一兩個先令從舊貨攤上買來的，有的是軍隊軍官用壞了的，還有的是他為收藏者修復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。他會連續幾個小時地工作，切割塑造出基本形狀，用矬子將表打磨光滑，用小錘調整精確度。這些工作不允許匠人只敲打一會兒就去做的別的事情。匠人幾乎是無意識地被工具操控著。丹尼爾斯向一名匠人學習怎樣制作表盒，通常是那種銀質的背部和帶有銀質表座的金質表盒。他的第一塊表于 1970年以1900英鎊的價格賣給了一個名叫Sam Clutton的收藏家朋友。而這塊表在2002年賣出的時候，售價超過了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，這一段生活經歷培養了他善于發現商機的天才和對一切事物價值的敏銳直覺。但是他制作的鐘表都是個人的試驗品，而非受委托制作的商品。他還想制作出五百年來報時最準確的表。從20世紀60年代以來，人們就使用石英表，并對其每個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械表。20世紀70年代中期，他為Sam Clutton制作了一塊雙擒縱機構的表。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構。叉瓦式擒縱機構1754年由英國制表師Thomas Mudge發明，從那以后就廣泛運用于大部分表中。它的表面指針由齒輪在托盤上滑動產生的摩擦帶動。但是這一工作原理要求內部零件保持潤滑，否則隨著潤滑度的磨損，報時會逐漸喪失準確性。隨著研究的深入，丹尼爾斯越來越對鐘表發出的滴答聲著迷，這聲音和銀鈴般的報時鐘聲，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又不受濕度、溫度、潤滑度和震動影響的問題。該問題的解決方案于1976年誕生，這便是同軸式擒縱機構。這一裝置由疊置于托盤上的兩個齒輪組成，兩個齒輪會向托盤傳遞放射狀的傳動力而不需要任何的潤滑，因此永遠不會停止。
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.
這一成就作為他對鐘表業的杰出貢獻，為他贏得了諸多榮譽。但這只是他為普及自己的技術使用而踏上的荊棘之路的起點。鐘表業界是一個封閉的世界。他通過自己的經歷得出這一點，因為他童年時從圖書館的書籍上獲得的鐘表知識構成了一個只有他自己才能涉足的私人領域，而18世紀英國的制表大師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在孤獨工作時知悉的鐘表的秘密。即使后來，丹尼爾斯進入百萬富翁的行列，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內，這里有他能找到對老式賓利車和賽車的共同愛好者。他的朋友里沒有一個是制表師。
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，瑞士的鐘表制作業對他的同軸式擒縱機構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。他花了二十多年時間尋找鐘表制造商來采用他的技術，為了說服百達翡麗他就花了整整四年，但是仍然失敗了。歐米茄在對同軸式擒縱技術進行七年的發展后開始利用該技術生產限量版手表，而這七年在丹尼爾斯眼里毫無必要。歐米茄稱限量是因為大規模生產成本過高，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.
在修復他的偶像Breguet制作于19世紀的座鐘的同時，他還制作了兩臺同樣風格的座鐘，僅僅為了證明他可以戰勝這位制表大師。這兩臺座鐘高貴典雅精美絕倫，寶璣表公司甚至堅持要將Breguet的秘密簽名刻在上面。丹尼爾斯同意了。他自己也有一個秘密簽名，是一只銜著橄欖枝的鴿子，意味著與競爭對手法國和瑞士之間的和睦相處。但是如果250年來鐘表制造業中最具天才的發明對于這兩個國家太過神秘晦澀，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.
一名男學生曾經問喬治丹尼爾斯，他那根伸進衣袋的鏈子末端有什么。多么愚蠢的問題。但是值得一答。因為丹尼爾斯小心翼翼從口袋里拿出來的表被他稱為宇宙旅行者之表。表盤上不僅能顯示平太陽時，還能顯示平恒星時、時差，記錄月相。丹尼爾斯說，去火星旅行的時候這款表就能大顯身手。其實在五六歲的時候他就想到這一點了。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?
那時候丹尼爾斯還從未想象過自己能夠將整個宇宙納入一塊表中。但是他確實做到了。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、指針以及簡潔但是有無數刻度的鐘面。連用來制作這些零件的工具都是他自己做的用來發動引擎的車床除外。在丹尼爾斯之前，沒有人學過如許多基本的制表技術。他自學鐘表制作多年，這些鐘表有的是花一兩個先令從舊貨攤上買來的，有的是軍隊軍官用壞了的，還有的是他為收藏者修復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。他會連續幾個小時地工作，切割塑造出基本形狀，用矬子將表打磨光滑，用小錘調整精確度。這些工作不允許匠人只敲打一會兒就去做的別的事情。匠人幾乎是無意識地被工具操控著。丹尼爾斯向一名匠人學習怎樣制作表盒，通常是那種銀質的背部和帶有銀質表座的金質表盒。他的第一塊表于 1970年以1900英鎊的價格賣給了一個名叫Sam Clutton的收藏家朋友。而這塊表在2002年賣出的時候，售價超過了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，這一段生活經歷培養了他善于發現商機的天才和對一切事物價值的敏銳直覺。但是他制作的鐘表都是個人的試驗品，而非受委托制作的商品。他還想制作出五百年來報時最準確的表。從20世紀60年代以來，人們就使用石英表，并對其每個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械表。20世紀70年代中期，他為Sam Clutton制作了一塊雙擒縱機構的表。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構。叉瓦式擒縱機構1754年由英國制表師Thomas Mudge發明，從那以后就廣泛運用于大部分表中。它的表面指針由齒輪在托盤上滑動產生的摩擦帶動。但是這一工作原理要求內部零件保持潤滑，否則隨著潤滑度的磨損，報時會逐漸喪失準確性。隨著研究的深入，丹尼爾斯越來越對鐘表發出的滴答聲著迷，這聲音和銀鈴般的報時鐘聲，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又不受濕度、溫度、潤滑度和震動影響的問題。該問題的解決方案于1976年誕生，這便是同軸式擒縱機構。這一裝置由疊置于托盤上的兩個齒輪組成，兩個齒輪會向托盤傳遞放射狀的傳動力而不需要任何的潤滑，因此永遠不會停止。
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.
這一成就作為他對鐘表業的杰出貢獻，為他贏得了諸多榮譽。但這只是他為普及自己的技術使用而踏上的荊棘之路的起點。鐘表業界是一個封閉的世界。他通過自己的經歷得出這一點，因為他童年時從圖書館的書籍上獲得的鐘表知識構成了一個只有他自己才能涉足的私人領域，而18世紀英國的制表大師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在孤獨工作時知悉的鐘表的秘密。即使后來，丹尼爾斯進入百萬富翁的行列，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內，這里有他能找到對老式賓利車和賽車的共同愛好者。他的朋友里沒有一個是制表師。
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，瑞士的鐘表制作業對他的同軸式擒縱機構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。他花了二十多年時間尋找鐘表制造商來采用他的技術，為了說服百達翡麗他就花了整整四年，但是仍然失敗了。歐米茄在對同軸式擒縱技術進行七年的發展后開始利用該技術生產限量版手表，而這七年在丹尼爾斯眼里毫無必要。歐米茄稱限量是因為大規模生產成本過高，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.
在修復他的偶像Breguet制作于19世紀的座鐘的同時，他還制作了兩臺同樣風格的座鐘，僅僅為了證明他可以戰勝這位制表大師。這兩臺座鐘高貴典雅精美絕倫，寶璣表公司甚至堅持要將Breguet的秘密簽名刻在上面。丹尼爾斯同意了。他自己也有一個秘密簽名，是一只銜著橄欖枝的鴿子，意味著與競爭對手法國和瑞士之間的和睦相處。但是如果250年來鐘表制造業中最具天才的發明對于這兩個國家太過神秘晦澀，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。
