Quora：有谁真的拯救了这个世界吗？
Can you name some people who have really saved the world?
原文链接：http://www.quora.com/Can-you-name-some-people-who-have-really-saved-the-world
This man, Stanislav Petrov, literally saved the World.
这个男人，斯坦尼斯拉夫·彼得罗夫，确实拯救了世界。
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
He was in command of a Soviet missile silo back in 1983. His job was to watch for a potential nuclear attack from the United States, and if necessary - to respond with the power of God.
在1983年他负责管理前苏联的一个导弹发射井。他的工作就是监视来自美国可能的核打击，并且如果必要的话，使用神的力量（指核武器）进行反击。
On September 26th 1983, he received a missile warning - alerting him that a potential nuclear ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile) strike had been launched against his country.
在1983年9月26日，他收到了导弹预警信息-提醒他可能带有核弹头的 ICBM（洲际弹道导弹）被发射来攻击他的祖国。
Now, as a good Soviet officer - when this alarm was raised, it was Petrov's job to relay this to his high command immediately, which most likely would result in a full-scale counter strike on the part of the Soviets, the obvious result of that would have been something like...
现在，作为一个称职的苏联军官-当这个警报响起的时候，彼得罗夫的职责便是立即将这个信息转发给他的上级，而这样可能会导致在苏联全境开始全面的反击，最终将会导致如下结局。。。
Now, luckily for us - Mr. Petrov decided that it was more likely his new warning system was faulty, rather than the U.S. launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. In addition, the fact that his warning indicated five missiles in the air seemed strange, because all intelligence suggested any U.S. strike would be "all-out", that is, raining nukes, so "only" five seemed strange.
幸运的是，-彼得罗夫认为这可能是他的新系统的误报，而不是美国发动的第一次核打击。另外，警报显示总共有5枚导弹这点看起来也很奇怪，因为所有的情报显示如果美国发动袭击的话，将会是“全面出击”，也就是说，会有一场导弹雨，所以“只有”5枚有点奇怪。
It turns out our friend's intuition was right - the malfunction, that had nearly caused WW3, and the deaths of countless millions, was actually caused by the warning system detecting clouds:
事实证明，我们这位朋友的直觉是正确的-这次故障差点引起了第三次世界大战，以及无数的死难的故障，是由于预警系统探测到了云：
It was subsequently determined that the false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.
随后查明这个错误的警报是由于一次稀有的照射于高空云层的阳光与卫星的莫尼亚轨道排成一条直线所引起的，这个错误随后被地球同步轨道卫星的交叉参照所修复。
That's about as close to saving the World as one man is ever likely to get in my book...
这就是关于一个人拯救整个世界并有可能进入我的书本的故事。
