Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as MIT, is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the north bank of the Charles River.麻省理工学院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology），简称 MIT，是一所位于美国马萨诸塞州剑桥市、查尔斯河北岸的私立赠地研究型大学。

Chartered on 10 April 1861 on the initiative of the geologist William Barton Rogers, it teaches across six schools and 32 departments and has ranked first in the world in the QS World University Rankings for more than a decade.学校由地质学家威廉·巴顿·罗杰斯倡议，于 1861 年 4 月 10 日获得特许设立，设六个学院、32 个学系，并已连续十多年位居 QS 世界大学排名全球第一。

As of the autumn of 2025 it enrolled 11,816 students, 4,561 of them undergraduates and 7,255 postgraduate, taught by about 1,090 academic staff, with an endowment of 27.4 billion dollars.截至 2025 年秋季，学校在校学生 11816 人，其中本科生 4561 人、研究生 7255 人，约有 1090 名学术人员，捐赠基金规模为 274 亿美元。

History

• In 1859 a proposal to build a college of arts and sciences on reclaimed land in Boston's Back Bay was rejected by the Massachusetts legislature, prompting Rogers to draft a charter instead.1859 年，一项在波士顿后湾区填海土地上兴建文理学院的提案被马萨诸塞州议会否决，罗杰斯随即转而起草设立章程。

• Rogers, a professor at the University of Virginia, wanted a polytechnic that would combine liberal education with the applied sciences rather than a purely vocational school.罗杰斯原是弗吉尼亚大学教授，他想要的是把博雅教育与实用科学结合的理工学院，而非纯粹的职业学校。

• The charter was signed by Governor John Albion Andrew on 10 April 1861, two days before the first battle of the American Civil War, whose outbreak delayed the opening by several years.章程于 1861 年 4 月 10 日由州长约翰·安德鲁签署，两天后美国内战首场战役爆发，学校的开办因此推迟了数年。

• Teaching began in Boston in 1865, and because the new institution met the terms of the Morrill Land-Grant Act it received land that funded expansion from 1866.学校于 1865 年在波士顿开课；由于符合《莫里尔赠地法案》的条件，它获得赠地，并从 1866 年起以此资助发展。

• Rogers modelled the institute on German research universities, insisting that faculty both teach and carry out research, with lectures and laboratory work for students.罗杰斯以德国研究型大学为蓝本，坚持教师既授课又从事研究，并为学生安排讲堂与实验室教学。

• During its long period in Boston, known informally as Boston Tech, the institute was perpetually short of money and grew mainly under the presidency of Francis Amasa Walker in the 1880s and 1890s.在波士顿办学的漫长时期，学校俗称「波士顿理工」，长期经费紧张，主要是在 1880 至 1890 年代由校长弗朗西斯·沃克任内发展起来。

• Charles William Eliot, a former MIT faculty member who became president of Harvard, proposed six times that the two institutions merge, and MIT eventually accepted before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court blocked the merger in 1917.曾任 MIT 教师、后任哈佛校长的查尔斯·艾略特先后六次提议两校合并，MIT 最终一度接受，但马萨诸塞州最高法院于 1917 年以反垄断理由予以禁止。

• In 1916 the institute moved across the Charles River to its present Cambridge site, a filled stretch of riverbank more than a mile long.1916 年，学校跨过查尔斯河迁往如今的剑桥校址，那是一段填筑而成的、绵延一英里有余的河岸地。

• The new campus was designed in neoclassical style by William W. Bosworth with the help of an anonymous donor, whose identity emerged in January 1920 as the Rochester industrialist George Eastman, founder of Kodak.新校区由建筑师威廉·博斯沃思以新古典风格设计，资助者起初匿名，直到 1920 年 1 月才揭晓为罗切斯特工业家、柯达公司创办人乔治·伊士曼。

• Between 1912 and 1920 Eastman gave the institute twenty million dollars in cash and Kodak stock, an amount worth more than 230 million dollars in present terms.1912 至 1920 年间，伊士曼向学校捐赠了两千万美元现金与柯达股票，按现值折算超过 2.3 亿美元。

• In the 1930s President Karl Taylor Compton and Vice-President Vannevar Bush shifted the curriculum back towards basic science, reducing the weight of vocational training.二十世纪三十年代，校长卡尔·泰勒·康普顿与副校长万尼瓦尔·布什把课程重心转回基础科学，压缩了职业训练的成分。

• Unlike the Ivy League institutions, most MIT students came from middle-class families and the institute relied more on tuition than on endowment income.与常春藤盟校不同，MIT 的学生多来自中产家庭，学校的经费更多依赖学费而非捐赠收益。

• It was admitted to the Association of American Universities in 1934, and a 1949 committee chaired by James Killian urged the institute to broaden its undergraduate programme.学校于 1934 年加入美国大学协会；1949 年由詹姆斯·基利安主持的委员会建议学校拓宽本科课程。

• The School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and the Sloan School of Management were both founded in 1950, giving economics, management, political science and linguistics a formal place.人文艺术与社会科学学院与斯隆管理学院均于 1950 年成立，使经济学、管理学、政治学与语言学获得正式建制。

• With the Second World War came the Radiation Laboratory, where some four thousand staff developed the cavity magnetron for radar, a project widely held to have shaped the course of the war.第二次世界大战期间，学校的放射实验室聚集约四千名工作人员，为雷达研制多腔磁控管，这项被普遍认为影响了战争进程的工作。

• Other wartime projects included the gyroscopes, bombsights and inertial navigation systems of the Instrumentation Laboratory under Charles Stark Draper and the Whirlwind computer's flight simulator.其他战时项目还包括查尔斯·斯塔克·德雷珀主持的仪器实验室研发的陀螺仪、投弹瞄准器与惯性导航系统，以及旋风计算机的模拟飞行系统。

• By 1946 MIT was the largest wartime research and development contractor in the United States and still held about 100 million dollars in unspent government funds.到 1946 年，MIT 已是全美规模最大的战时研发承包商，账上尚存约一亿美元未用完的政府经费。

• On 4 March 1969, after a meeting between staff and students, the institute helped found the Union of Concerned Scientists and later divested the Instrumentation Laboratory.1969 年 3 月 4 日，在一次师生座谈之后，学校参与创立了科学家关注联盟，其后又将仪器实验室剥离出去。

• It was designated a sea grant college in 1976 and a space grant college in 1989, and in 2001 it launched OpenCourseWare, publishing lecture notes and examinations free of charge.学校于 1976 年与 1989 年先后获得海洋资助大学与太空资助大学资格；2001 年又推出开放式课程网页，免费公开课堂笔记与试题。

• MITx followed in 2011, offering certificates for online courses, and the edX platform was then developed jointly with Harvard in 2012.2011 年学校推出 MITx，为在线课程颁发证书；2012 年又与哈佛大学共同开发了 edX 平台。

Academics

• MIT is organised into six schools, covering science, engineering, architecture and planning, management, the humanities, arts and social sciences, and computing.MIT 设有六个学院，分别为理学院、工程学院、建筑与规划学院、管理学院、人文艺术与社会科学学院，以及计算学院。

• Its 32 departments and programmes span physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, economics, linguistics, political science, materials science, aeronautics and urban studies.其 32 个学系与项目涵盖物理、化学、生物、数学、经济学、语言学、政治学、材料科学、航空航天与城市研究等。

• The institute has long been known for the physical sciences and engineering, and has more recently built strength in the life sciences, economics, management and linguistics.学校长期以物理科学与工程学著称，近年又在生命科学、经济学、管理学与语言学方面积累了实力。

• It runs a 4-1-4 academic calendar, with a four-week independent activities period in January during which students take short courses, do research or take part in the Mystery Hunt.学校实行「四一四」学制，每年一月设有四周的独立活动期，学生在此期间修读短期课程、从事研究或参加解谜活动。

• Undergraduates choose from 44 degree programmes and must complete a common core of seventeen subjects in the sciences, humanities, social sciences and physical education.本科生可从 44 个学位项目中选择，并须完成由基础科学、人文、社会科学与体育共十七门课程组成的共同必修。

• First-semester subjects are graded only as pass or no record, a rule intended to reduce pressure on new students during their transition to the institute.第一学期的课程只记「通过或不记录」，这一规定意在减轻新生适应阶段的压力。

• The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme, created in 1969, lets students earn credit by working directly with faculty and researchers on their projects.1969 年设立的大学生研究机会计划，让学生直接参与教师与研究人员的项目并取得学分。

• Admission is among the most selective in the United States: for 2014-15 the institute admitted 7.9 per cent of undergraduate applicants and 15.4 per cent of graduate applicants.学校的录取竞争在全美最为激烈之列：2014 至 2015 学年本科录取率为 7.9%，研究生为 15.4%。

• Graduate students are admitted department by department rather than through a single central process, and each of the six schools sets its own standards.研究生按学系分别录取，而非通过统一的中央程序，六个学院各自设定标准。

• Research spending exceeded 670 million dollars in 2014, with the largest shares coming from federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and NASA.2014 年学校研究支出超过 6.7 亿美元，其中最大份额来自国立卫生研究院、国防部与美国国家航空航天局等联邦机构。

• In 2011 its researchers disclosed 632 inventions and were granted 153 patents, earning more than 85 million dollars in cash and 69 million dollars in royalties.2011 年，其研究人员披露了 632 项发明、获得 153 项专利，取得逾 8500 万美元现金收入与 6900 万美元特许权使用费。

• The institute's library system, built around the Barker engineering, Dewey economics, Hayden humanities and Lewis music libraries, holds some 2.9 million printed volumes.学校的图书馆系统以巴克工程图书馆、杜威经济图书馆、海登人文图书馆与路易斯音乐图书馆为核心，藏有约 290 万册印刷本。

• MIT Press, founded in 1962, is one of the world's leading academic publishers in science and technology, and Technology Review is published by a subsidiary.创建于 1962 年的麻省理工学院出版社是世界主要科技类学术出版机构之一，科技评论杂志则由其子公司出版。

• It runs joint programmes with neighbouring Harvard, including the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology programme and the Broad Institute, and its students may cross-register without extra tuition.学校与邻近的哈佛大学合办多个项目，包括哈佛—麻省理工健康科学技术项目与博德研究所，两校学生可跨校选课且无需额外学费。

• Its faculty have included 97 Nobel laureates, eight Fields medallists, 26 Turing Award winners, 52 recipients of the National Medal of Science and 38 MacArthur fellows.其教师与研究人员中包括 97 位诺贝尔奖得主、8 位菲尔兹奖得主、26 位图灵奖得主、52 位国家科学奖章获得者与 38 位麦克阿瑟奖得主。

• Beyond engineering, its natural science work spans subatomic and quantum physics, synthetic chemistry, immunology and oncology, and its researchers were central to the Human Genome Project.除工程之外，其自然科学研究涵盖亚原子与量子物理、合成化学、免疫学与肿瘤学，其研究人员也是人类基因组计划的主力之一。

• The Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing was announced in 2018 with a gift of 350 million dollars and opened in 2019, the institute's first new school in several decades.斯蒂芬·施瓦茨曼计算学院于 2018 年宣布设立并获 3.5 亿美元捐赠，2019 年正式成立，是学校数十年来新增的第一个学院。

Campus

• The campus covers 166 acres in Cambridge, divided east and west by Massachusetts Avenue, with residences and student activities mostly to the west and academic buildings to the east.校园位于剑桥市，占地 166 英亩，被马萨诸塞大道分为东西两区，宿舍与学生活动设施多在西侧，教学楼则多在东侧。

• Building 7 on Massachusetts Avenue, considered the institute's entrance, opens onto the Infinite Corridor, the spine that links most of the central campus.位于马萨诸塞大道旁的七号楼被认为是学校的入口，通向连接校园中部大部分建筑的「无尽长廊」。

• The Great Dome of Building 10, modelled on the Pantheon and housing the Barker Engineering Library, faces Killian Court, where graduation ceremonies are held.十号楼的大圆顶参照万神殿建造，内有巴克工程图书馆，正对每年举行毕业典礼的基利安阁。

• The first Cambridge buildings, known as the Maclaurin Buildings, were among the earliest reinforced-concrete non-industrial structures in the United States.剑桥校址上的第一批建筑称为麦克劳林建筑群，是全美最早以钢筋混凝土建造的非工业建筑之一。

• Post-war architecture on the campus includes Alvar Aalto's Baker House of 1947, Eero Saarinen's chapel and Kresge Auditorium of 1955, and I. M. Pei's Green Building.校园内的战后建筑包括阿尔瓦·阿尔托 1947 年设计的巴克舍、埃罗·沙里宁 1955 年设计的礼拜堂与克雷斯吉礼堂，以及贝聿铭设计的格林大楼。

• Later buildings include Frank Gehry's Stata Center of 2004, Steven Holl's Simmons Hall of 2002 and the Media Lab in its original 1982 building by I. M. Pei, extended by Fumihiko Maki in 2010.较晚的建筑包括弗兰克·盖里 2004 年设计的斯塔特科技中心、史蒂芬·霍尔 2002 年设计的西蒙斯舍堂，以及最初由贝聿铭于 1982 年设计、槙文彦于 2010 年扩建的媒体实验室。

• The campus operates a nuclear research reactor, one of the most powerful university reactors in the United States, whose proximity to housing has at times drawn criticism.校内的核研究反应堆是全美功率最高的大学生反应堆之一，因其靠近居民区而时有争议。

• Every building carries a number, often with a directional prefix such as W, N, E or NW, and a network of underground tunnels connects them during bad weather.校内每座建筑都有编号，常带 W、N、E 或 NW 等方位前缀，另有地下隧道网在恶劣天气时连接各处。

• Wireless coverage across the campus was completed in 2005 with nearly three thousand access points spanning some 9.4 million square feet.覆盖全校的无线网络于 2005 年建成，近三千个接入点覆盖约 940 万平方英尺。

• The Kendall/MIT station on the MBTA Red Line stands at the north-eastern edge of the campus, in Kendall Square, a district crowded with technology and biotechnology companies.麻省湾红线的肯德尔／MIT 站位于校园东北边界，地处肯德尔广场，这一带聚集了大量科技与生物技术公司。

Reputation

• MIT ranks first in the 2027 QS World University Rankings, and it has held the top position in that table for more than ten consecutive editions.MIT 在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中位列全球第一，并已连续十多个版本保持该榜单的榜首位置。^[1]

• It ranks second in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, third in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities and second in the 2026-2027 U.S. News Best Global Universities.在 2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名中位列第 2，2026 年软科世界大学学术排名第 3，2026 至 2027 年度 US News 全球最佳大学排名第 2。

• Its school of engineering was ranked first in the United States in a National Research Council report of 1995, and computer science, mathematics and the natural sciences are also strengths.在 1995 年美国国家研究委员会的一份报告中，其工程学院位列全美第一；计算机科学、数学与自然科学也是其强项。

• In a Reuters study covering 1999 to 2009, MIT ranked seventeenth in the world for citation impact of its published research.在路透社一项涵盖 1999 至 2009 年的研究中，MIT 发表论文的引用影响力位列全球第十七。

• A Times Higher Education survey of graduate employability in 2014 placed MIT sixth in the world and fourth in the United States among the universities attended by leading recruiters' hires.泰晤士高等教育 2014 年的毕业生就业力调查中，MIT 位列全球第六、全美第四。

• The entrepreneurial culture of the institute is such that, by one estimate, the revenue of companies founded by its alumni would rank as the eleventh largest economy in the world.学校的创业文化之盛，有估算认为其校友创办企业的营业收入合计可相当于全球第十一大经济体。

• Its research strengths in electronics and computing include early work on magnetic core memory, radar, inertial navigation and information theory.学校在电子与计算方面的研究强项，包括磁芯存储器、雷达、惯性导航与信息论的早期工作。

• In information theory and computer science, Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, Marvin Minsky, Joseph Weizenbaum and Ronald Rivest each shaped a foundation of the field.在信息论与计算机科学领域，克劳德·香农、诺伯特·维纳、马文·闵斯基、约瑟夫·维森鲍姆与罗纳德·李维斯特各自奠定了学科基础。

• Nine Turing Award winners and seven recipients of the Charles Stark Draper Prize have studied or worked at the institute.有九位图灵奖得主与七位查尔斯·斯塔克·德雷珀奖得主曾在学校学习或工作。

Student life

• MIT has more than 380 student activity groups, ranging from the campus radio station and the staff of The Tech newspaper to model railway and folk dance clubs.学校有三百八十多个学生活动团体，涵盖校园广播站、理工报编辑团队以及铁路模型与民间舞蹈等俱乐部。

• The January independent activities period offers hundreds of short courses, lectures and activities, of which the annual Mystery Hunt puzzle competition is the best attended.一月独立活动期开设数百门短期课程、讲座与活动，其中最受欢迎的是每年一度的解谜行动竞赛。

• Students traditionally wear a heavy brass class ring, the Standard Technology Ring, first issued in 1929, with a three-part design showing the seal, the graduation year and a beaver.学生传统上佩戴厚重的黄铜毕业纪念戒指，即 1929 年首次发行的标准科技戒，三片式设计分别刻有校印、毕业年份与河狸图案。

• The ring is often engraved with the letters IHTFP, an ambiguous student acronym that has been given both hostile and affectionate readings over the decades.戒指上常刻有 IHTFP 五个字母，这一含义暧昧的学生缩写几十年来被解读出既厌弃又亲近的两重意思。

• All undergraduates are guaranteed a place in one of twelve residence halls, and since 1997 first-year students have been required to live on campus.所有本科生可获保证入住十二座宿舍楼之一；自 1997 年起，一年级学生必须住校。

• The institute has never awarded honorary degrees, athletic scholarships or Latin honours, with exceptions only for honorary professorships such as those given to Winston Churchill in 1949 and Salman Rushdie in 1993.学校从不授予荣誉学位、体育奖学金或拉丁文学位荣誉，仅在荣誉教授头衔上破例，如 1949 年授予温斯顿·丘吉尔、1993 年授予萨尔曼·鲁西迪。

• MIT fields 31 varsity teams, among the most comprehensive in NCAA Division III, and competitions against the California Institute of Technology include long-running pranks.学校有 31 支校级运动队，是美国大学体育协会三级联盟中项目最全的院校之一；与加州理工学院之间的较量还长期伴有恶作剧。

• Hacking, in the sense of exploring roofs and tunnels and staging elaborate practical jokes, is a recognised part of student culture at the institute.所谓「黑客」在这里指登上屋顶、钻探隧道并策划精心设计的恶作剧，是学校学生文化中被认可的一部分。

Notable people

• William Barton Rogers, the geologist who drafted the charter and served as the institute's first president, defined its combination of teaching and research.起草章程并出任首任校长的地质学家威廉·巴顿·罗杰斯，确立了学校教学与研究并重的格局。

• Francis Amasa Walker, president from 1881 to 1897, put the institute on a sound financial footing and established its early engineering programmes.1881 至 1897 年任校长的弗朗西斯·阿玛萨·沃克使学校财政转趋稳健，并奠定了早期的工程学科。

• Vannevar Bush, an engineer and administrator at the institute, directed American wartime science as head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.学校工程师与管理者万尼瓦尔·布什，曾以科学研究与发展局局长身份主导美国战时科学工作。

• Claude Shannon, whose 1948 work founded information theory, and Norbert Wiener, who founded cybernetics, were both members of the faculty.以 1948 年著作奠定信息论的克劳德·香农，以及创立控制论的诺伯特·维纳，都是学校的教师。

• Noam Chomsky, the linguist and political writer, taught at MIT for more than half a century and helped create generative grammar.语言学家兼政论作家诺姆·乔姆斯基在 MIT 任教超过半个世纪，并参与创立了生成语法。

• Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project and the free software movement from the institute in the 1980s, and Tim Berners-Lee later established the World Wide Web Consortium there in 1994.理查德·斯托曼于二十世纪八十年代在此发起 GNU 计划与自由软件运动；蒂姆·伯纳斯-李则于 1994 年在此建立万维网联盟。

• Charles Stark Draper developed inertial navigation systems at the institute, and Harold Edgerton pioneered high-speed photography and sonar.查尔斯·斯塔克·德雷珀在此研发惯性导航系统，哈罗德·金顿则是高速摄影与声纳技术的先驱。

• Ellen Swallow Richards, who entered in 1870, was the institute's first woman student and later its first woman faculty member.1870 年入学的艾伦·理查兹是学校第一位女学生，后来成为其第一位女教师。

• Among its graduates are the architects I. M. Pei and the astronauts of the Apollo programme, and its alumni include founders of major technology firms.其毕业生中包括建筑师贝聿铭与阿波罗计划的航天员，校友中还有多家大型科技企业的创办者。