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大家好 ， 我是埃里克·马斯金 ， 哈佛大学经济学和数学教授 ， 2007年诺贝尔经济学奖得主 。 我很高兴今天能和你们对话 ， 因为我知道你们都对研究感兴趣 ， 而且研究是我自己非常感兴趣的事情 。 这是我生命中很重要的一部分 。 所以对我来说 ， 研究是我设定自己议程的机会 。 在大多数工作中 ， 他们被告知要做什么 。 他们有个老板 ， 他们有老板设定的议程 ， 他们的工作就是做老板想做的任何事 。 像我这样的研究工作的最大优势 ， 这是属于我的 。 更多是 ， 我作为研究人员 ， 可以自由地问任何我想问的问题 。 这样我就能专注于我最感兴趣的问题和我最好奇的东西 。 对某事的好奇是最好的动力 ， 这确保你能把工作做到最好 。
Hello, everyone, I'm Eric Maskin, a professor of economics and mathematics at Harvard University. And the winner of the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. I'm very excited to talk to you today because I know that you are all interested in research and research is something I'm very interested in myself. It's a major part of my life. So for me, research is the opportunity to set my own agenda. In most jobs that people have, they are told what to do. They have a boss, They have an agenda that the boss sets and their job consists of doing whatever their boss wants. The great advantage of a job like mine, research job like mine. Is that on my own books. And furthermore, I am free as researcher to ask any questions that I want. So I can concentrate on the questions that interest me the most, that I'm the most curious about. And being curious about something is the very best motivation for making sure that you do your best work.
你们可能都知道 ， 如果你对某件事充满热情 ， 你可能会更加努力 。 我的工作也是如此 。 如果我想要回答一些我很好奇的问题 ， 我会努力找到答案的 。 事实上 ， 做研究的乐趣之一就是问自己一些非常困难的问题 ， 就像解谜一样 。 当你最终发现解决方案的时候挑战越大 ， 回报越大 。 所以 ， 我确定你们中的大多数人可能不确定自己想要在一生中做什么 。 但我强烈建议你考虑从事研究 ， 研究你最感兴趣的领域 ， 也许你甚至还不知道这个领域是什么 。 对我来说 ， 这样的工作是世界上最好的工作 。
You probably all know that if you're enthusiastic about something, you're likely to work harder on it. And that's true in my job, too. If l pick questions to try to answer that I'm really curious about, I will work really hard to find the answer. In fact, part of the fun of doing research is asking yourself really difficult questions that it's like solving a puzzle. The more challenging, the more rewarding is the solution when you finally discover it. So, I'm sure that many of you, most of you are probably unsure what you want to do in life, but I strongly urge you to think of possibly having a career in research, research in whatever field most interests you and perhaps you don't even know what that field is yet. For me, such a job is the best possible job in the world.
现在让我告诉你们一些关于我是如何进入研究领域的以及我大学时如何进入经济学领域的 。 我其实是一名数学系学生 。 我学的大部分是我喜欢的数学课程 。 我仍然热爱数学 ， 它是我们拥有的最美丽的学科之一 。 但是 ， 碰巧的是 ， 我上了一门课 ， 听了一名用数学工具来回答重大的经济和社会问题的经济学家的讲座 。 我认为这是一个很好的组合 ， 因为我感兴趣研究哪些与社会有关 ， 哪些与经济有关的问题 ， 但我也喜欢经济学中的数学 。 事实证明 ， 这两个专业你都可以做 。 你可以用数学工具来解决重要问题 ， 这些问题可能会影响到数百万人的福祉 。
Now let me tell you a little bit about how I got into research and how I got into economics when I was at university, I was actually a math student, I was taking mostly mathematics courses which I loved and I still love mathematics. It's one of the most beautiful subjects that we have. But, just by chance, I happen to take a course, go to a set of lectures by an economist who was using mathematical tools to answer big economic and social questions. I thought that was a wonderful combination, because I was interested in working on questions which related to society and which related to the economy. But I also love mathematics in economics. It turns out, you can do both. You can use mathematical tools for solving important questions and questions which will affect the well being of possibly millions of people.