来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2020年12月8日
An analysis of the 4,270 grants awarded by the public body UK Research and Innovation in 2019-20 shows that a mere 7.3% of £2.8bn research funding went to projects in the theoretical sciences. The lion’s share was lavished on experiment.
一项对公共机构英国研究与创新组织在2019-2020年授予的4270项拨款的分析显示，28亿英镑的研究资金中，只有7.3%用于理论科学项目。大部分资金被挥霍在实验上。
One reason why governments favour experimental science is that it can be seen. Inconveniently, theory is invisible. Politicians may assume the public is more likely to approve of a lofty telescope, which they can see, than a law of nature, which they cannot. Another reason is that experiments are easier to understand. A hypothesis is being tested or a phenomenon observed. This is something people can get their heads around. By contrast, many areas of theoretical science require years of study to comprehend.
政府偏向实验科学的一个原因是它是看得见的。不方便地是，理论是无形的。政客们可能会认为，公众更可能赞成他们看得见的高耸的望远镜，而不是他们看不见的自然法则。另一个原因是实验更容易理解。一个假说正在被检验，或者一个现象被观察到。这是人们可以理解的事情。相比之下，许多理论科学领域需要多年的研究才能理解。
Finally, governments are by nature shortsighted. Electoral cycles are fleeting compared with the time it takes for fundamental breakthroughs to make their mark. Politicians assume they’re more likely to be voted back in if they favour initiatives they can point to and say: we built that.
最后，政府天生短视。与取得重大突破所需的时间相比，选举周期转瞬即逝。政客们认为，如果他们支持那些他们可以指着说:“我们建造了这些”的倡议，他们就更有可能拿回选票。
It’s not clear that they’re right. The best-known films about science in the past decade – such as The Man Who Knew Infinity – are all about theories, not experiments. Hollywood may understand something that politicians don’t: the public has a deep interest in the power of ideas to transform how we understand reality.
现在还不清楚他们是否正确。在过去的十年里，最著名的关于科学的电影——如《知无涯者》——都是关于理论，而不是实验。好莱坞可能明白一些政客们不明白的事情：公众对思想的力量能够改变我们对现实的理解非常感兴趣。
Scientific theories may capture our imagination because they are hard to comprehend. There’s magic at work with the theoretician, who creates insights from within. There’s also the glamour of the theorists challenging the consensus without the apparatus or support network of the experimentalist. This is analogous to the idea of the lone artistic genius. The theoretician is the artist of science.
科学理论可能会引发我们的想象力，因为它们很难理解。理论家有一种魔力，他们从内心创造出洞察力。理论家在没有实验设备或实验学家群体的支持的情况下挑战共识，这也是他们的魅力所在。这类似于孤独的艺术天才的想法。理论家是科学的艺术家。
Presenting theoretical science as an art form helps us see the structural connections between art and theory. Nor is the price tag large. From the government’s perspective, one of the most attractive things about theory should be how cheap it is. Experiment requires equipment, which is expensive to buy, house and maintain, and the costs continue to soar. When Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus, he was the only author on the paper. One hundred years later, the paper that heralded the particle known as the Higgs boson had 2,933 authors.
把理论科学作为一种艺术形式来呈现有助于我们看到艺术和理论之间的结构联系。而且理论科学所需的资金投入也不高。从政府的角度来看，理论最吸引人的一点应该是它的廉价。实验需要昂贵的设备，购买、安置和维护成本都很高，而且还在不断飙升。当卢瑟福发现原子核时，他是论文的唯一作者。一百年后，预示希格斯玻色子粒子诞生的论文有2933位作者。
Even a small shift in research funding allocation would have a big effect on the power and prestige of British science. This current government has already committed to increasing the R&D budget to 2.4% of GDP over the next seven years, a hike to its highest level since the 1980s. But if Britain is to be a world leader in science, the government will also need to redress the funding imbalance between experiment and theory.
即使是研究经费分配上的一个小变动，也会对英国科学界的权力和声望产生重大影响。本届政府已经承诺在未来七年内将研发预算增加到GDP的2.4%，这是自上世纪80年代以来的最高水平。但是，如果英国想成为科学领域的世界领导者，政府还需要纠正实验和理论之间的资金不平衡。