防地向东驶去，突然越过边缘，坠入中美洲和北极之间一个6000多公里高的悬崖，但我的注意力渐渐地转向这幅插图的科学含义，意识到地球由明确的层次组成，中心是一个铁和镍的发热球体。根据上面的说明，这个球体与太阳表面一样灼热。我记得当时我无限惊讶地想："他们是怎么知道的？" 　　我对这个信息坚信不疑--我至今仍然容易像相信医生、管道工和别的神秘信息的拥有者那样相信科学家的说法--但是，我无论如何也无法想像，人的脑子怎么能确定在离我们几千公里下面的地方是个什么样子，是由什么构成的，而那可是肉眼根本看不见、X射线也穿不透的呀。在我看来，那简直是个奇迹。自那以后，这一直是我对待科学的态度。 这篇材料你能听出多少？点击这里做听写，提高外语水平>>

出了通俗易懂而又激动人心的散文--我一下子就可以点出蒂姆西•费里斯、理查德•福泰和提姆•弗兰纳里等三位（且不说已故的出类拔萃的理查德•费曼）--但是，令人伤心的是，他们没有一人写过我用过的教科书。我用过的教科书全都出自那些怀有一种挺有意思的想法的男人（始终都是男人）的笔下，美国的孩子们会喜欢各个章节的结尾都带有问题部分，供他们在自己的时代冥思苦想。因此，我在成长过程中确信，科学是极其枯燥的，但同时我又认为大可不必如此：科学也可以是非常有趣的，要是我办得到的话。在很长的时间里，这成了我的立场。 　　接着，很久以后--我想大约是在四五年之前--我正做一次飞越太平洋的长途旅行，我漫不经心地朝飞机的舷

有水，就没有空气，就没有岩石，就没有恒星和行星，就没有远方的云团，就没有旋转的星云，就没

这是一部有关现代科学发展史的既通俗易懂又引人入胜的书，作者用清晰明了、幽默风趣的笔法，将宇宙大爆炸到人类文明发展进程中所发生的繁多妙趣横生的故事一一收入笔下。惊奇和感叹组成了本书，历历在目的天下万物组成了本书，益于人们了解大千世界的无穷奥妙，掌握万事万物的发展脉络。 收获英语 收获一本好书~！ 书本的朗读语音很charming的磁性英音~~~大家可以好好学着模仿哦~~~！！ 因为原著为美国人所写,单词采用美式拼法,不抄全文,不写各句标号。 Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. [---1---] To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. [---2---] Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. [---3---] They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. ([---4---]) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarching impulse: to keep you you. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. For the next many years, we hope, these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't actually care about you-indeed, don't even know that you are there. It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you. 欢迎，欢迎。恭喜，恭喜。我很高兴，你居然成功了。我知道，来到这个世界很不容易。事实上，我认为比你知道的还要难一些。 　　首先，你现在来到这个世界，几万亿个游离的原子不得不以某种方式聚集在一起，以复杂而又奇特的方式创造了你。这种安排非常专门，非常特别，过去从未有过，存在仅此一回。在此后的许多年里，（我希望）这些小粒子将任劳任怨地进行几十亿次的巧妙合作，把你保持完好，让你经历一次极其惬意而又赏心悦目的旅程，那就是生存。 为什么原子这样自找麻烦，这还搞不大清楚。形成你，对原子来说并不是一件心旷神怡的事情。尽管它们如此全神贯注，组成你的原子其实对你并不在乎--实际上甚至不知道你在哪里。它们实际上也不知道自己在哪里。它们毕

组成我们自己和我们身边一切原子也许是不远万里从外太空来到我们这儿的。他们也可能曾经是莎士比亚、释迦牟尼、成吉思汗、贝多芬等历史名人身上的一部分哦（其实这种可能性还是很渺茫滴）。尘归尘，土归土~~~~ ❤《万物简史》推出部落节目版，戳这里订阅: 文中需听写单词或词组用[-No-]表示，句子用[---No---]表示。请边听写边理解文意，这样可以提高听力准确度，并为训练听译打下基础哦~~~ Hints: Buddha Genghis Khan Beethoven They are also [-1-] durable.

重要的成果，确定原子的结构和性质。 到20世纪初，大家已经知道，原子是由几个部分构成的--汤姆逊发现电子，就确

出乎先前很多人的想象，宇宙并非一成不变，而是产生于爆炸。正如斯蒂芬•霍金指出的，奇怪的是以前谁也没有想到要解释宇宙。哈勃擅长观察，不大擅长动脑子，因此没有充分认识到自己的发现的重大意义~~~~ ❤《万物简史》推出部落节目版，戳这里订阅: 文中需听写单词或词组用[-No-]表示，句子用[---No---]表示。请边听写边理解文意，这样可以提高听力准确度，并为训练听译打下基础哦~~~ This was truly startling. The universe was expanding, swiftly and evenly in all directions. [---1---] Far from being the stable, fixed, eternal void that everyone had always assumed, this was a universe that had a beginning. It might therefore also have an end. The wonder, as Stephen Hawking has noted, is that no one had [-2-] the expanding universe before. A static universe, as should have been obvious to Newton and every thinking astronomer since, would [-3-] in upon itself. There was also the problem that if stars had been burning indefinitely in a static universe they'd have made the whole [-4-] hot—certainly much too hot for the likes of us. An expanding universe resolved much of this [-5-]. Hubble was [-6-] and didn't immediately appreciate the full implications of what he had found. Partly this was because he was woefully ignorant of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. [---7---] Moreover, in 1929 Albert Michelson—now in his twilight years but still one of the world's most [-8-] scientists—accepted a position at Mount Wilson to measure the velocity of light with his trusty interferometer, and must surely have at least mentioned to him the applicability of Einstein's theory to his own findings. It didn't take a huge amount of imagination to read backwards from this and realize that it must therefore have started from some central point. hit on the idea of collapse intolerably at a stroke a much better observer than a thinker This was quite remarkable because, for one thing, Einstein and his theory were world famous by now. alert and esteemed 这的确是令人吃惊的。宇宙在扩大，速度很快，而且朝着各个方向。你无须有多么丰富的想像力就能从这点往后推测，发现它必定是从哪个中心点出发的。宇宙远不是稳定的，固定的，永恒的，就像大家总是以为的那样，而是有个起点。因此，它或许也有个终点。 正如斯蒂芬•霍金指出的，奇怪的是以前谁也没有想到要解释宇宙。一个静止的宇宙会自行坍缩，这一点牛顿以及之后的每个有头脑的天文学家都应当明白。还有一个问题：要是恒星在一个静止的宇宙里不停燃烧，就会使整个宇宙酷热难当--对于我们这样的生物来说当然是太热了。一个不断膨胀的宇宙一下子把这个问题基本解决了。 哈勃擅长观察，不大擅长动脑子，因此没有充分认识到自己的发现的重大意义。在一定程度上，那是因为他可悲地不知道爱因斯坦的广义相对论。这是很有意思的，因为一方面爱因斯坦和他的理论在这时候已经世界闻名，另一方面，1929年，阿尔伯特•迈克尔逊--这时候已经进入暮年，但仍是世界上最敏锐、最受人尊敬的科学家之一--接受了威尔逊山天文台的一个职位，用他可靠的干涉仪来测量光的速度，至少可以肯定已经向哈勃提到过，爱因斯坦的理论适用于他的发现。 这篇材料你能听出多少？点击这里做听写，提高外语水平>>

看到那个火焰。根据远处星星最细微的搏动和抖动，他们能推算出行星的大小和性质，甚至潜在的适于栖居的可能性，而这些行星可是远得根本看不见的啊--它们如此遥远，我们乘宇宙飞船去那里也要花250万年。他们能用射电望远镜捕捉到一丝一毫的辐射，而这种辐射是如此微弱，自开始采集（1951年）以来，所采集到的来自太阳系之外的全部能量，用卡尔•萨根的话来说："还不到一片雪花落地时所产生的能量。" 　　总之，宇宙里没有多少东西是天文学家发现不了的，只要他们愿意。因此，想起为什么在1978年之前还没有人注意到冥王星有一颗卫星，这就更为寻常了。那年夏天，亚利桑那州弗拉格斯塔夫的美国海军天文台有一位名叫詹姆斯•克里斯蒂的年轻天文学家，正在对冥王星的照片作例行审查，突然发现那里有什么东西--模模糊糊、不大确定的东西，反正肯定不是冥王星。他跟一位名叫罗伯特•哈灵顿的同事讨论片刻以后下了结论：他观察到的是颗卫星。它还不是一般的卫星。相对于那颗行星而言，它是太阳系里最大的卫星。 这篇材料你能听出多少？点击这里做听写，提高外语水平>>

物质--碳、氮、氧以及其他一切，没有一个粒子是宇宙创建过程中产生的气体。但是--难点就在这里--若要打造这些重元素，你却非

这是一部有关现代科学发展史的既通俗易懂又引人入胜的书，作者用清晰明了、幽默风趣的笔法，将宇宙大爆炸到人类文明发展进程中所发生的繁多妙趣横生的故事一一收入笔下。惊奇和感叹组成了本书，历历在目的天下万物组成了本书，益于人们了解大千世界的无穷奥妙，掌握万事万物的发展脉络。 收获英语 收获一本好书~！ 书本的朗读语音很charming的磁性英音~~~大家可以好好学着模仿哦~~~！！ 因为原著为美国人所写,单词采用美式拼法,不抄全文,根据上下文注意各句标号。 Still unaware of what caused the noise, Wilson and Penzias phoned Dicke at Princeton and described their problem to him in the hope that he might find a solution. Dicke realized at once what the two young men had found. [---1---] Soon afterward the Astrophysical Journal published two articles: one by Penzias and Wilson describing their experience with the hiss, the other by Dicke's team explaining its nature. [---2---] The Princeton researchers got only sympathy. According to Dennis Overbye in Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos , neither Penzias nor Wilson altogether understood the significance of what they had found until they read about it in the New York Times . [---3---] Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive, and about 1% of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. [---4---] "Well, boys, we've just been scooped," he told his colleagues as he hung up the phone. Although Penzias and Wilson had not been looking for cosmic background radiation, didn't know what it was when they had found it, and hadn't described or interpreted its character in any paper, they received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe. 译文 　　彭齐亚斯和威尔逊仍然找不到噪声的原因，便打电话给普林斯顿大学的迪克，向他描述了他们遇到的问题，希望他能作出一种解释。迪克马上意识到两位年轻人发现了什么。"哎呀，好家伙，人家抢在我们前面了。"他一面挂电话，一面对他的同事们说。 　　此后不久，《天体物理学》杂志刊登了两篇文章：一篇为彭齐亚斯和威尔逊所作，描述了听到咝咝声的经历；另一篇为迪克小组所作，解释了它的性质。尽管彭齐亚斯和威尔逊并不是在寻找宇宙的本底辐射，发现的时候也不知道是什么东西，也没有发表任何论文来描述或解释它的性质，但他们获得了1978年诺贝尔物理学奖。普林斯顿大学的研究人员只获得了同情。据丹尼斯•奥弗比在《宇宙孤心》一文中说，彭齐亚斯和威尔逊都不清楚自己这一发现的重要意义，直到看到《纽约时报》上的一篇报道。 　　顺便说一句，来自宇宙本底辐射的干扰，我们大家都经历过。把你的电视机调到任何接收不着信号的频道，你所看到的锯齿形静电中，大约有1％是由这种古老的大爆炸残留物造成的。记住，下次你抱怨接收不到图像的时候，你总能观看到宇宙的诞生。 这篇材料你能听出多少？点击这里做听写，提高外语水平>>