2015年职称英语考试《综合类》补全短文辅导及译文(7)
Einstein Named "Person of the Century"
Albert Einstein,whose theories on space time and matter helped unravel the secrets of the atom and of the universe,was chosen as "Person of the Century" by Time magazine on Sunday.
A man whose very name is synonymous with scientific genius，Einstein has come to represent more than any other person the flowering of the 20th century scientific thought that set the stage for the age of technology.
"The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history.The reason is not political or economic，but technological 一 technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science."wrote theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in a Time essay explaining Einstein's significance.(1)
Time chose as runner-up President Franklin Roosevelt1 to represent the triumph of freedom and democracy over fascism,and Mahatma Gandhi2 as an icon for a century when civil and human rights became crucial factors in global politics.、
"What we saw was Franklin Roosevelt embodying the great theme of freedom's fight against totalitarianism,Gandhi personifying the great theme of individuals struggling for their rights,and Einstein being both a great genius and a great symbol of a scientific revolution that brought with it amazing technological advances that helped expand the growth of freedom."said Time Magazine Editor Walter Isaacson.
Einstein was born in Ulm,Germany in 1879.(2) He was slow to learn to speak and did not do well in elementary school.He could not stomach organized learning and loathed taking exams3 ?
In 1905,however,he was to publish a theory which stands as one of the most intricate examples of human imagination in history.(3) Everything else — mass，weight,space,even time itself — is a variable.And he offered the world his now-famous equation ： energy equals mass times the speed of light squared — E = mc2.
(4)"There was less faith in absolutes,not only of time and space but also of truth and morality."
Einstein's famous equation was also the seed that led to the development of atomic energy and weapons.In 1939,six years after he fled European fascism and settled at Princeton University,Einstein，an avowed pacifist4，signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging the United States to develop an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany did.(5) Einstein did not work on the project.
Einstein died in Princeton,New Jersey in 1955.