《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第131期:最孤獨的人(2)
Antarctic explorers
During the period of Antarctic exploration, a few people have come close to beating the astronauts, and it's possible one of them actually holds the record. One person who came very close was Robert Scott.
在南極探險時代中，有一些人曾經離那些宇航員所獲得殊榮非常之近，其中之一沒準是紀錄的真正保持者。有一個離紀錄很近的人叫羅伯特•斯科特。Robert Falcon Scott was a British explorer who met a tragic end. Scott's expedition reached the South Pole in 1911, only to discover that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by several months. The dejected Scott and his companions began their trek back to the coast, but they all died while crossing the Ross Ice Shelf.
羅伯特•福爾肯•斯科特是個英國探險家，但他的生命最終以悲劇結尾。1911年，斯科特帶領的團隊到達南極點，卻發現挪威探險家羅爾德•阿蒙森早在幾個月前就已搶先到達。失望的斯科特和他的同伴開始往回走，但在穿越羅斯冰架時他們最後都遇難了。
The last surviving expedition member would have been, briefly, one of the most isolated people on Earth.2 However, he (whoever he was) was still within 3585 kilometers of a number of humans, including some other Antarctic explorer outposts as well as the Māori on Rakiura (Stewart Island) in New Zealand.
最後遇難的那位探險隊成員在很短的一段時間裏，應該可以說是世界上最孤單的人之一了。2但不管他是誰，在他周圍3585千米範圍內仍然找得到活人，包括其他南極探險者的前哨站以及在新西蘭雷奇歐拉（斯圖爾特島）上的毛利人。There are plenty of other candidates. Pierre François Péron, a French sailor, says he was marooned on Île Amsterdam in the southern Indian Ocean. If so, he came close to beating the astronauts, but he wasn't quite far enough from Mauritius, southwestern Australia, or the edge of Madagascar to qualify.
除此之外，還有其他一些人可以角逐這一稱號。一位法國水手皮埃爾•弗朗索瓦•普萊斯聲稱他曾被流放到南印度洋上的阿姆斯特丹島。如果確實如此的話，他很接近於宇航員們保持的紀錄，但他還是離毛里求斯、澳大利亞西南部以及馬達加斯加沿岸不夠遠。We'll probably never know for sure. It's possible that some shipwrecked 18th-century sailor drifting in a lifeboat in the Southern Ocean holds the title of most isolated human. However, until some clear piece of historic evidence pops up, I think the six Apollo astronauts have a pretty good claim.
也許我們將永遠無法準確地知道誰是最孤獨的人。也許是某個因船隻沉沒而漂泊在南半球大洋上的18世紀的水手。但在有力的歷史證據出現之前，我還是覺得那6位執行阿波羅任務的宇航員才該獲得這一稱號。Which brings us to the second part of Bryan's question: Were they lonely?
於是我們繼續看布賴恩的後半個問題：他們孤獨嗎？
