The Best Essay
March 2024 Despite its title this isn't meant to be the best essay.
2024 年 3 月 尽管有标题，但这并不意味着是最好的文章。
My goal here is to figure out what the best essay would be like.
我的目标是弄清楚最好的论文是什么样的。
It would be well-written, but you can write well about any topic.
它会写得很好，但你可以写好任何主题。
What made it special would be what it was about.
它的特别之处在于它的内容。
Obviously some topics would be better than others.
显然，有些主题会比其他主题更好。
It probably wouldn't be about this year's lipstick colors.
这可能与今年的口红颜色无关。
But it wouldn't be vaporous talk about elevated themes either.
但它也不会是关于崇高主题的空谈。
A good essay has to be
一篇好的论文必须是
surprising.
令人惊讶。
It has to tell people something they don't already know.
它必须告诉人们一些他们还不知道的事情。
The best essay would be on the most important topic you could tell people something surprising about.
最好的文章应该是关于最重要的主题，你可以告诉人们一些令人惊讶的事情。
That may sound obvious, but it has some unexpected consequences.
这听起来似乎是显而易见的，但它会带来一些意想不到的后果。
One is that science enters the picture like an elephant stepping into a rowboat.
一是科学的介入就像大象踏入划艇一样。
For example, Darwin first described the idea of natural selection in an essay written in 1844.
例如，达尔文在 1844 年写的一篇文章中首次描述了自然选择的思想。
Talk about an important topic you could tell people something surprising about.
谈论一个重要的话题，你可以告诉人们一些令人惊讶的事情。
If that's the test of a great essay, this was surely the best one written in 1844.
如果这是一篇伟大文章的标准，那么这无疑是 1844 年写的最好的一篇。
And indeed, the best possible essay at any given time would usually be one describing the most important scientific or technological discovery it was possible to make.
事实上，在任何特定时间，最好的论文通常是描述可能做出的最重要的科学或技术发现的论文。
[ 1 ] Another unexpected consequence: I imagined when I started writing
[1]另一个意想不到的结果：我想象当我开始写作时
this that the best essay would be fairly timeless — that the best essay you could write in 1844 would be much the same as the best one you could write now.
最好的论文将是相当永恒的——你在 1844 年能写出的最好的论文与你现在能写出的最好的论文大致相同。
But in fact the opposite seems to be true.
但事实似乎恰恰相反。
It might be true that the best painting would be timeless in this sense.
从这个意义上说，最好的绘画可能是永恒的。
But it wouldn't be impressive to write an essay introducing natural selection now.
但现在写一篇介绍自然选择的文章不会令人印象深刻。
The best essay now would be one describing a great discovery we didn't yet know about.
现在最好的文章应该是描述我们还不知道的伟大发现。
If the question of how to write the best possible essay reduces to the question of how to make great discoveries, then I started with the wrong question.
如果如何写出最好的论文的问题简化为如何做出伟大发现的问题，那么我一开始就提出了错误的问题。
Perhaps what this exercise shows is that we shouldn't waste our time writing essays but instead focus on making discoveries in some specific domain.
也许这个练习表明我们不应该浪费时间写论文，而应该专注于在某些特定领域做出发现。
But I'm interested in essays and what can be done with them, so I want to see if there's some other question I could have asked.
但我对论文以及可以用它们做什么很感兴趣，所以我想看看是否还有其他问题可以问。
There is, and on the face of it, it seems almost identical to the one I started with.
是的，从表面上看，它似乎与我一开始的那个几乎相同。
Instead of asking what would the best essay be?
而不是问最好的论文是什么？
I should have asked how do you write essays well?
我应该问你如何写好论文？
Though these seem only phrasing apart, their answers diverge.
尽管这些看起来只是措辞不同，但他们的答案却有所不同。
The answer to the first question, as we've seen, isn't really about essay writing.
正如我们所见，第一个问题的答案实际上与论文写作无关。
The second question forces it to be.
第二个问题迫使它如此。
Writing essays, at its best, is a way of discovering ideas.
写论文在最好的情况下是发现想法的一种方式。
How do
怎么办
you do that well?
你做得很好吗？
How do you discover by writing?
你如何通过写作发现？
An essay should ordinarily start with what I'm going to call a question, though I mean this in a very general sense: it doesn't have to be a question grammatically, just something that acts like one in the sense that it spurs some response.
一篇文章通常应该以我所说的问题开始，尽管我的意思是在非常普遍的意义上：它不一定是语法上的问题，只是在某种意义上表现得像一个问题，因为它激发了一些反应。
How do you get this initial question?
你是如何得到这个最初的问题的？
It probably won't work to choose some important-sounding topic at random and go at it.
随机选择一些听起来很重要的主题并开始研究可能行不通。
Professional traders won't even trade unless they have what they call an edge — a convincing story about why in some class of trades they'll win more than they lose.
专业交易者甚至不会进行交易，除非他们拥有所谓的优势——这是一个令人信服的故事，说明为什么在某些类别的交易中他们的盈利会多于亏损。
Similarly, you shouldn't attack a topic unless you have a way in — some new insight about it or way of approaching it.
同样，你不应该攻击一个话题，除非你有办法进入——一些关于它的新见解或处理它的方法。
You don't need to have a complete thesis; you just need some kind of gap you can explore.
你不需要有完整的论文；你只需要某种可以探索的差距。
In fact, merely having questions about
事实上，只是有一些疑问
something other people take for granted can be edge enough.
其他人认为理所当然的事情也可能足够边缘。
If you come across a question that's sufficiently puzzling, it could be worth exploring even if it doesn't seem very momentous.
如果您遇到一个足够令人困惑的问题，即使它看起来不是很重要，也可能值得探索。
Many an important discovery has been made by pulling on a thread that seemed insignificant at first.
许多重要的发现都是通过拉动一开始看似微不足道的线索而取得的。
How can they all be finches?
怎么全都是雀？
[ 2
[ 2