One of my favorite tricks is the inversion process.

我最喜歡的技巧之一就是倒轉過程。

I'll give you an example.

我給你舉個例子。

When I was a meteorologist in World War II, what I was actually doing was clearing pilots to take flights.

當我在第二次世界大戰中擔任氣象學家時，我的實際工作是準許飛行員進行飛行。

And it just reversed the problem.

而這恰恰扭轉了問題。

I inverted.

我倒了過來。

I said, suppose I wanted to kill a lot of pilots.

我說，假設我想殺死很多飛行員。

What would be the easy way to do it?

有什麼簡單的方法？

And I soon concluded that the only easy way to do it would be to get the planes into icing the planes couldn't handle, or to get the pilot to a place where he'd run out of fuel before he could safely land.

我很快就得出結論，唯一簡單的辦法就是讓飛機遇到飛機無法承受的結冰，或者讓飛行員在安全著陸之前就耗盡燃料。

So I made up my mind I was going to stay miles away from killing pilots by either icing or getting them into socked in conditions when they couldn't land.

是以，我下定決心，我要遠離因結冰或讓飛行員陷入無法著陸的困境而導致飛行員死亡的情況。

I think that helped me be a better meteorologist in World War II.

我想這有助於我在第二次世界大戰中成為一名更好的氣象學家。

I just reversed the problem.

我剛剛扭轉了這個問題。

And if somebody hired me to fix India, I would immediately say, what could I do if I really wanted to hurt India?

如果有人僱我修理印度，我會馬上說，如果我真的想傷害印度，我能做什麼呢？

And I'd figure out all the things that could most easily hurt India.

我會找出所有最容易傷害印度的東西。

And then I'd figure out how to avoid them.

然後我會想辦法避開他們。

It's the same thing, it's just in reverse.

這是同一件事，只是反過來而已。

But it works better to frequently to invert the problem.

但經常把問題反過來想，效果會更好。

If you're a meteorologist, it really helps if you really know how to avoid something, which is the only thing that's going to kill your pilots.

如果你是氣象學家，如果你真的知道如何避開一些東西，那就真的很有幫助，這是唯一會讓飛行員喪命的東西。

And you can help India best if you understand what will really hurt India the easiest and worst.

如果你瞭解什麼對印度的傷害最大，什麼對印度的傷害最嚴重，你就能更好地幫助印度。

Algebra works the same way.

代數也是如此。

Every great algebraist inverts all the time because the problems are solved easier.

每一位偉大的代數學家都會經常反轉，因為這樣更容易解決問題。

Human beings should do the same thing on the ordinary walks of life.

人類在平凡的生活中也應如此。

It's constantly invert.

它一直在反轉。

You don't think about what you want, you think what you want to avoid.

你想的不是你想要什麼，而是你想避免什麼。

Or when you're thinking what you want to avoid, you also think about what you want.

或者說，當你在思考要避免什麼時，你也在思考自己想要什麼。

You just go back and forth all the time.

你就這樣一直來來回回。

Peter Kaufman, who's here today, he likes the idea that you want to know how the world looks from the top looking down and you want to know what it looks like from the bottom looking up.

彼得-考夫曼（Peter Kaufman），今天也在這裡，他喜歡這樣的觀點：你想知道從上往下看世界是什麼樣子，你也想知道從下往上看世界是什麼樣子。

And if you don't have both points of view, your reality recognition is lousy.

如果你沒有這兩種觀點，你的現實識別能力就會很差。

Peter's right.

Peter's right.

An inversion is the same thing.

反轉是一回事。

Just such a simple trick to think, how does this look from the people above me?

就是這麼一個簡單的小把戲，想一想，我上面的人是怎麼看的？

How does it look from the view beneath me?

從我腳下的視角看去，情況如何？

How can I hurt these people I'm trying to help?

我怎麼能傷害這些我想幫助的人？

All these things help you think it through.

所有這些都能幫助你想清楚。

And they're such simple tricks.

而且這些技巧都很簡單。

They really help.

它們真的很有幫助。

And yet, our great educational systems give advanced degrees, they don't teach people these simple tricks.

然而，我們偉大的教育系統只提供高級學位，卻不教人們這些簡單的技巧。

They're wrong.

他們錯了。

They're just plain wrong.

他們就是錯了。