哈伯望遠鏡和梵谷看見一樣的星空

梵谷，可能不是最成功的畫家，終其一生畫了兩千多張作品，賣出去的，甚至不用一隻手，只需要一根指頭就數得出來－梵谷只賣掉過一張畫。 梵谷悲苦傳奇的人生，讓他成為後世最出名的藝術家之一。這裡是一份梵谷的畢生經歷，讓粉絲們重新認識這位印象派大師。進入本文之前，先來揣摩一下這幾個字的英文該怎麼說。

a) 融入；根深蒂固

b) 使..永垂不朽

c) 不辭辛勞地

If you have never seen his paintings in European museums, 1) chances are you've heard of the titular song of Don Mclean inspired by the artist. If you don't know the song "Vincent", you most likely would have read a book or watched a movie depicting the famous painter back in your school days. Vincent Van Gogh is so a) ingrained into Western art history and exemplifies the popular idea of what being an artist is all about; that it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between the romanticized myths, and the real man. 

如果你從來沒在歐洲博物館裡看過他的畫，至少應該聽過唐麥克林以他為名所寫下的那首歌。就算你從來沒有聽過Vincent這首歌，多半也在學校裡讀過這位知名畫家的傳記，或看是過他的相關電影。梵谷在西洋藝術史中地位之穩固，影響大眾對藝術家印象之深遠，如今已很難去分辨到底他的故事中那些是後人渲染，哪些是事實。

You might have the impression Van Gogh spent his life drawing and painting continually, but in fact he didn't produce his first work until he was 27, and his first major work was painted in 1885, when he was 32, 5 years before he reportedly shot himself and died of complications from the wound. The 2)missionary turned artist painted almost exclusively peasants, landscapes, everyday objects and himself, perhaps because he couldn't afford to hire models. 

一般人或許以為梵谷一生都在不斷作畫，但其實他直到27歲的時候才開始認真繪畫，而且一直到1885年他32歲的時候，也就是距離他開槍打傷自己不治喪命的五年前，才繳出第一幅重要作品。這位從傳教士轉換跑道的藝術家，描繪的對象幾乎都是農奴、風景，靜物還有他自己，可能因為沒錢雇用模特兒。

A couple of his famous self-portraits show the man with a bandaged ear, b) immortalizing Van Gogh as "the artist who cut off his own ear". It's true but also not true. The truth is the Dutch painter had long suffered from recurrent epilepsy, and in one violent episode he used a razor to slice himself, but instead of severing the whole ear, he only cut a piece of the lobe.

梵谷有名的自畫像中，有兩幅顯示他的耳朵被繃帶包紮，讓他成為後人所津津樂道的"那位把自己耳朵割掉的畫家"。其實這個說法不完全正確。事實上是這位荷蘭畫家長期為癲癇症所苦，在某次猛烈發作時持剃刀割傷了自己，但沒有割掉整個耳朵，只是削掉了一片耳肉。

The mystery of Van Gogh's artistic mind only seemed to grow when in 2004 astronomers observed with the Hubble Space Telescope a celestial scene strikingly similar to the turbulent night sky in "Starry Night." Scientists were so intrigued by the coincidence they digitized several of Van Gogh's works and b) painstakingly measured the luminance of every pixel to see if there is a pattern. To their astonishment, the swirling clouds and spinning stars corresponded closely to the mathematical model of turbulence, one of the most difficult topics in physics still puzzling experts worldwide.

天文學家在2004年，用哈伯太空望遠鏡觀測到與"星夜"的騷動夜空極為類似的天體景象，更增添了梵谷藝術心靈的高深莫測。科學家對於這樣的巧合備感興趣，於是將梵谷的幾幅作品進行數位處理，逐一耐心比對像素的亮度，尋找其中模式，結果大吃一驚，因為畫中翻騰的雲捲和旋轉的星星，竟高度符合紊流的數學模型，而紊流這種物理現象至今仍是全球學者公認最難解的物理謎題之一。

口語詞彙:

1)   chances are (that)...很有可能，應該會

比較口語的表達方式，表示機率，機會的可能性為…。

Chances are Taiwan wouldn't be allowed to join the development bank, even if the government filed the application before the deadline. 就算政府在期限前遞出申請書，台灣被接受成為開發銀行會員的機會也很低。

2)   A-turned-B 從A轉換跑道為B

The surgeon turned politician is facing a harder decision than life-and-death in the operating room. 外科醫生改行從政的他，正面臨一個比手術房裡生死交關還要困難的決定。