Confessions of an amateur translator

Many years ago, during my last semester in a top university in Shanghai, I struck the first pot of gold in my life, by translating a US best-seller.

One day, a journalism classmate came and asked if I wanted to co-translate Entropy: A New World View into Chinese and make some money. When I said yes, he tore the book into two halves and I was to work from Chapter Five.

But I didn't know much about physics and my translation expertise then was limited to writing fillers based on wire stories in China Daily which I sold to Chinese newspapers for pocket money. I'd read about translators' ideals of faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. But I'd be satisfied if I could get all the meaning in the source text right.