时间:2019-01-01 作者:英语课 分类:万物简史


英语课

   "My own starting point, for what it's worth, was an illustrated 1 science book that I had as a classroom text when I was in the fourth or fifth grade.


  我写本书的最初灵感,不管其价值如何,来自我在念小学四、五年级时有过的一本科普读物。
  The book was a standard-issue 1950s schoolbook, battered 2, unloved, grimly hefty-but near the front it had an illustration that just captivated me:
  那是20世纪50年代学校发的一本教科书--乍一看去,皱皱巴巴,招人生厌,又笨又重--但书的前几页有一幅插图,一下子把我迷住了:
  a cutaway diagram showing the Earth's interior as it would look if you cut into the planet with a large knife一幅剖面图,显示地球的内部,样子就像你拿起一把大刀,切到行星里面,and carefully withdrew a wedge representing about a quarter of its bulk.
  然后小心翼翼地取出一块楔形物,代表这庞然大物的大约四分之一。
  It's hard to believe that there was ever a time when I had not seen such an illustration before,难相信,我以前怎么从没有见过这类插图,
  but evidently I had not for I clearly remember being transfixed.
  我记得完全给迷住了。
  I suspect, in honesty, my initial interest was based on a private image of streams of unsuspecting eastbound motorists in the American plains states很我的确认为,起初,我的兴趣只是基于一种个人的想像,美国平原上plunging over the edge of a sudden 4,000-mile-high cliff running between Central America and the North Pole,各州川流不息的车流毫无提防地向东驶去,突然越过边缘,but gradually my attention did turn in a more scholarly manner to the scientific import of the drawing and the realization 3 that the Earth consisted of discrete 4 layers,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,ending in the center with a glowing sphere of iron and nickel, which was as hot as the surface of the Sun, according to the caption,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。
  and I remember thinking with real wonder: "How do they know that?"我记得当时我无限惊讶地想:"他们是怎么知道的?
  I didn't doubt the correctness of the information for an instant-I still tend to trust the pronouncements of scientists in the way I trust those of surgeons,我对这个信息坚信不疑--我至今仍然容易像相信医生、plumbers, and other possessors of arcane 5 and privileged information防泄漏人员和别的神秘信息的拥有者那样相信科学家的说法---but I couldn't for the life of me conceive how any human mind could work out what spaces thousands of miles below us,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,that no eye had ever seen and no X ray could penetrate 6, could look like and be made of. To me that was just a miracle.
  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。,That has been my position with science ever since.",自那以后,这一直是我对待科学的态度。"
 

adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损
  • He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
  • The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。
n.实现;认识到,深刻了解
  • We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
  • He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。
adj.个别的,分离的,不连续的
  • The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
  • Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。
adj.神秘的,秘密的
  • The technique at one time was arcane in the minds of most chemists.这种技术在大多数化学家心目中一度是神秘的。
  • Until a few months ago few people outside the arcane world of contemporary music had heard of Gorecki.直至几个月前,在现代音乐神秘殿堂之外很少有人听说了戈莱斯基。
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解
  • Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
  • The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。
标签: 万物简史
学英语单词
aculeatiflorus
adelsheim
antirachitic value
apportionment of cost variance
armoriques
audit contract
automatons
baroquerie
beater grid
blood volume expander
business condition
can pack
cartographic feature
Cast aspersion
casting sand
chabasie
chemical constant
clad steel
claro obscuro
clientships
coal mine solid waste
commercial administration law
complex series
Contra-dance.
coronavirus group i swine gastroenteritis
crabbiest
CRacemization
cumulus drying
demand schedule
DHPU
dialectical reasoning
diamond-bearing
digital information display
diplorrhyncine
doxological
drive down
excess in luxuries
exhortest
fabric body
family Lophiidae
fertilizer unit
free-rotor gyro
great driffield
hand-coded compiler
Hawkers Act
hill-drop boot
infinitis
interrupt program signal
isochronous vibration
isomorphic graph
keyhole escutcheon
laliques
language art
leuc-
life-science
Magnesium-Allanite
magnetic electricity
mannington
multi-functional blood collecting vehicle
musical film
mutato nomine de te fabula narratur
neuroarchitecture
newly-installeds
noelia
non-communal
orgiasts
other long-term investments
outside back
oxovanadium
pipe-cutting machine
plant funds
posthuman law
pseudomamma
quadratic convergence rate
record data
reflcetivity
renfrews
retroreflected
runnions
scalfer
schedule of production
sedimentdischarge rating
shot putter
skip block welding sequence
slide test
soak period
soft art
stearins
target light valve
tear into sth
the provisions
thibaults
type designation
underrespected
untrace
valve microphone effect
weightless beam
whinings
wire resistance
wool-comb
zlatkoes