单选题 Millions of kids around the world dream of becoming the next Bill Gates, the genius who made good(成功) by foreseeing the digital future and creating one of the world"s most successful companies around it. The Microsoft chairman seems to have gone beyond the software industry to become a cultural symbol that young minds find irresistible.
But who is a hero to Bill Gates? Who does he look up to?
In a column that he writes for The New York Times Special Features, Gates has identified individuals he respects and admires, "individuals who achieve something inspirational(有灵感的) or who possess extraordinary character." Of these, one name comes up more often than others: the late great Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.
Feynman was a hero because, as Gates put it, "he was incredibly inspirational. He was an independent thinker and gifted teacher who pushed himself to understand new things. I have enjoyed everything I"ve read about him and by him. I admired him deeply..."
Feynman had become everyone"s favorite physicist. He captured the public imagination as no other physicists before him. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, a set of lectures Feynman gave to the students at Cahech, is now a classic. Feynman"s fame grew when he was appointed to a special commission in 1986 to investigate the Challenger shuttle explosion. His dramatic demonstration on television, in front of millions of viewers, of the loss of resiliency(弹性) in the O-ring at freezing temperature as a principal cause of the Challenger accident made him a national celebrity.
Gates never met Feynman but it is fascinating to imagine a meeting between the two. Here is the wide-eyed pupil, wondering at the master"s capability with ideas and insights, wondering at the source of that magical genius that"s uniquely Feynman"s.