转自：筑龙论坛
太沙基是一个牛人。他的牛不单在于奠定了土力学作为一门学科的基础，更在于他这个人。他对工程，理论，实践的态度，以及他传奇的经历。Richard Goodman编写的太沙基传记用了这样的书名：
Karl Terzaghi - The Engineer as Artist
卡尔.太沙基 - 艺术家工程师
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“Unfortunately， soils are made by nature and not by man， and the products of nature are always complex… As soon as we pass from steel and concrete to earth， the omnipotence of theory ceases to exist. Natural soil is never uniform. Its properties change from point to point while our knowledge of its properties are limited to those few spots at which the samples have been collected. In soil mechanics the accuracy of computed results never exceeds that of a crude estimate， and the principal function of theory consists in teaching us what and how to observe in the field.”
不幸的是，土壤乃自然天成而非人力所为。天工造物自有其复杂性……一旦我们的目光从钢筋混凝土移至土壤，普适的理论便不复存在。天然状态下的土壤毫无均一性可言。不同位置的土壤，性状大不相同。我们对他的认识，仅仅局限于取样的几个点。在土力学中，计算结果的精确程度并不比粗略的估算高多少。理论的主要功能，仅在于教导我们在现场需要观察什么，和如何观察。
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“…once a theory appears on the question sheet of a college examination， it turns into something to be feared and believed， and many of the engineers who were benefited by a college education applied the theories without even suspecting the narrow limits of their validity.”
… 某个理论一旦出现在大学考卷上，便成为了某种令人敬畏和深信不疑的东西。很多受过大学教育的工程师在应用这些理论时，甚至都不去怀疑这些理论的有效性其实是多么局限。
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“Soil Mechanics arrived at the borderline between science and art. I use the term “art” to indicate mental processes leading to satisfactory results without the assistance of step-for-step logical reasoning…To acquire competence in the field of earthwork engineering one must live with the soil. One must love it and observe its performance not only in the laboratory but also in the field， to become familiar with those of its manifold properties that are not disclosed by boring records…”
土力学介于科学和艺术之间。我用“艺术”这个词只是表明，为寻找满意结果而进行的精神创作活动，并不需要进行按部就班的逻辑推理 … 欲达到在岩土工程领域随心所欲的境界，你必须和土壤一起生活，热爱他，观察它，不单在实验室里，还要在现场。唯有如此，方能揭示土壤形形色色的性能，而这些，是钻孔资料无从告诉你的 …
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“The one thing an engineer should be afraid of is the development of conditions on the job which he has not anticipated. The construction drawings are no more than a wish dream. I have the impression that the great majority of dam failures were due to negligent construction and not to faulty design.”
工程师应当担忧的，是现场情况发展超出预期。施工图纸只不过是设计者的梦想而已。我认为绝大多数的大坝事故，乃是因为建造过程的疏忽，而非设计的错误。
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再发三段，供腻味了我翻译的朋友去品味原汁原味。哈哈。
“Proving the old adage that results depend not on the perfection of the equipment but on the truth of the proposition… The simper and cheaper the apparatus， the better it expresses the purpose and accordingly one can gain insight into a process being investigated， approving or rejecting and postulating anew， without wasting time and money. Costly， sensitive instruments belong to the situation where one already has a clear hold of the natural phenomena and where there is value in obtaining refined numbers. When one begins experiments with costly apparatus， he becomes a slave to that apparatus and the experiment， rather than serving to establish the truthfulness of a valuable idea， serves merely to establish a fact-but never to establish a law.”
“Theory is the language by means of which lessons of experience can be clearly expressed.”
“Theory -and even very rigorous theory- is required for training and developing our capacity for correctly interpreting what we observe; but at the same time， with theory alone we could not accomplish anything at all in the field of earthwork engineering， an the more plain facts we can accumulate， the better. I always lose my temper with people who think they have grasped the very core of the substance after they have succeeded in representing some artificially simplified phase of it by means of complicated triple integrals; while at the same time， they have forgotten how the soil really looks. Keen observation is at least as necessary as penetrating analysis”
