What does the story of Chris Langan tell us?

里斯.兰根的故事说明了什么?

His explanations, as heartbreaking as they are, are also a little strange.

和那些悲伤的往事一样，他述说的一切令人伤感，但又令人觉得惊异。

His mother forgets to sign his financial aid form and, just like that, no scholarship.

他的母亲忘记了填写他的经济资助表，结果——正如已经回顾的——他没能申请到奖学金。

He tries to move from a morning to an afternoon class, something students do everyday, and gets stopped cold.

为了回避严寒，他希望把早上的课调整到下午——这并不为过，很多学生都这样做过。

And why were Langan's teachers at Reed and Montana State so indifferent to his plight?

为什么兰根在里德学院和蒙大纳州立大学的老师们对学生的窘境却视而不见?

Teachers typically delight in minds as brilliant as his.

在老师的心中，像兰根这样聪明的学生应该非常受欢迎。

Langan talks about dealing with Reed and Montana State as if there were some kind of vast and unyielding government bureaucracy.

但在兰根的眼中，里德学院和蒙大纳州立大学仿佛成为了一个结构庞大、体制僵硬的官僚机构。

But colleges, particularly small liberal arts colleges like Reed, tend not to be rigid bureaucracies.

按理来说，像里德学院这种比较小的文理学院，往往不可能成为死板的官僚机构。

Making allowances in the name of helping someone stay in school is what professors do all the time.

为帮助学生在学校的生活而提供资助，也一直是教师们在做的事情。

Even in this discussion of Harvard, it's as if Langan has no concept of the culture and particulars of the institution he's talking about.

即便说到哈佛大学，看起来兰根也没有了解他所谈机构的文化和特点。

When you accept a paycheck from these people,

“如果你想从他们手中领取薪水，

it's going to come down to what you want to do and what you feel is right

那还得看你想怎样做，看你的想法是否正确，

versus what the man says you can do to recieve another paycheck.

否则，他们会说你可以做自己的事情，但必须到别人那里领取薪水。”

What? One of the main reasons college professors accept a lower paycheck than they could get in private industry

什么意思?大学的教授们愿意接受比其他私人企业更低的工资，选择教师生涯，

is that university life gives them the freedom to do what they want to do and what they feel is right.

最重要的原因就是大学能给他们想怎么做就怎么做，有什么就说什么的自由。

Langan has Harvard backwards.

兰根对哈佛的观点显然有些落伍。

When Langan told me his life story, I couldn't help thinking the life of Robert Oppenheimer,

当兰根向我谈起他的生活经历时，我不由得想起物理学家罗伯特.奥本海默(RobertOppenheimer)的一生，

the physicist who famously headed the American effort to develop the nuclear bomb during world war II.

奥本海默是美国二战期间发展核武器的著名带头人。

Oppenheimer, by all accounts, was a child with a mind very much like Chris Langan's.

据说孩童时期的奥本海默也像克里斯.兰根一样拥有过人的智商，

His parents considered him a genius.

他的父母认为他是一个天才，

One of his teachers recalled that "he recieved every new idea as perfectly beautiful."

他的一个老师回忆“他能够极其透彻地理解各种思想”。

He was doing lab experiments by the third grade and studying physics and chemistry by the fifth grade.

小学三年级的时候，他就开始做各种实验，到了五年级，他开始学习物理学和化学。