时间:2018-12-28 作者:英语课 分类:初学者听力文摘精选


英语课

Has Earth’s Gravitational Pull Been Changing?

地球的引力改变过吗?



Don, why are you slouching? Don’t you know it’s bad for you?

唐,为啥你无精打采?你不知道这对你不好?



Did you know that about 200 tons of debris 1 strike the Earth every day? So I was thinking! Although most of this stuff burns up in the atmosphere, the resulting dust still settles and adds to the Earth’s mass. That’s about half a million tons per year!

你知道每天大约200吨的碎片来到地球?所以我在思考。虽然这些东西中的大部分在大气中烧掉了,但是烧完后的灰尘仍然沉淀并增添地球的质量。大约每年有50万吨。



All right, but what does all this have to do with your posture 2?

好的,但是所有这些与你的仪态有啥关系呢?



Sit Up Straight

笔直端坐



So if the earth keeps accumulating mass, doesn’t that mean that the Earth’s gravitational pull has been increasing? After all, gravity is directly proportional to mass.

所以如果地球持续累积其质量,那不是意味着地球的引力也正在增加?毕竟,引力与质量是成比例的



Are you saying you can’t sit up straight because gravity is stronger now than it used to be?

你说你不能笔直端坐是因为地球引力比以前更强了?



Admit it, Yaël–it’s a good one.

承认这一点吧,耶尔,这是件好事。



Earth’s Mass

地球的质量



Earth’s mass in metric tons is approximately six followed by twenty-one zeroes. So assuming that your estimate is correct, and the Earth accumulates a half a million tons of debris every year, this means that in the sixty million years since dinosaurs 3 existed the Earth would have accumulated approximately thirty trillion tons of meteoric 4 debris. That’s thirteen zeroes.

地球的质量按照公制吨位来衡量大约是6后面加21个0.所以假设你的估计是正确的,并且每年地球积累50万吨的碎片,这意味着自从恐龙存在以来的6000万年,地球已经积累了大约30万亿吨的流星碎片。那是13个0。



The point is that a number with thirteen zeroes is minuscule 5 relative to a number with twenty-four zeroes. While thirty trillion tons sounds impressive, it is nothing compared to the Earth’s total mass. So it’ s definitely not all that extra gravity that’s making you slouch

关键是13个零相对24个零而言是非常小的。虽然30万亿吨听起来很震撼,但是它与地球总的质量相比还是微不足道的。所以很明确的是额外的重力不会使得你无精打采。



1 debris
n.瓦砾堆,废墟,碎片
  • After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
  • Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上,导致蛀牙。
2 posture
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势
  • The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
  • He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣,摆出一副打架的架势。
3 dinosaurs
n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 );守旧落伍的人,过时落后的东西
  • The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 meteoric
adj.流星的,转瞬即逝的,突然的
  • In my mind,losing weight is just something meteoric.在我眼中,减肥不过是昙花一现的事情。
  • His early career had been meteoric.他的早期生涯平步青云。
5 minuscule
adj.非常小的;极不重要的
  • The human race only a minuscule portion of the earth's history.人类只有占有极小部分地球历史。
  • As things stand,Hong Kong's renminbi banking system is minuscule.就目前的情况而言,香港的人民币银行体系可谓微不足道。
学英语单词
active locking
adjustable bush
alpha-leukocyte
Amalfi
american dewberries
aphanerite
aterre
average term
bear the cap and bells
Beck triad
bentyl
brachial plate
caltech intermediate form
calyver
centauromachy
chute-the-chute
color stability
compressed deck format
congoing
cut cocoon fibre
Dichlorphos
Digital Dashboard
direct sampling technique
disaffiance
disallowable
elec-tronic hole conduction
electrically independent earth electrode
essay-writing
family Eleotridae
femto-gram
flux tilting test
folk-etymologized
foraminiferal chalky ooze
fueros
gap seal
goldbeck
golf-hole
grey skate
Half-A-Bar
halfpasts
hand auger
hariris
hecto-moles
hook uneven
hydroxy-cycloheximide
hygieists
implanted channel
in a matter of
inlet guide vanes
intermediate-level waste
jadad
ketate
Kirtlington
kuwenezi
Kvicksund
latent defects
ligneous tissue
market-fresh
mat sheet
metallacyclopentenes
mouth preparation
multi-column journal
nearest neighbor decoding
neodymium-doped calcium tungstate laser
oblique(retinacular)ligament
ositis
oxynatural gas burner
pauperising
picture writings
plant planter
potassium metallic liquid alloy
preduodenal
pressure thermit welding PTW
primary prescriptive
pseudoplasma cell
Quembo
ray-tracing
reciprocal selection
revenue and costs
robado
sculpt
she-wolf
si-normalized atomic ratio
silica content
solictor
stemonitopsis reticulata
tea dances
tee steel
the great unwasheds
the lenient disposal
train pipe pressure gradient
treaty produced through error
trihemimer
turns inside out
unseparation
valuation
vertical-axis
vitaminized food-stuff
vitriolically
wet hydrogen
Zambonelli
Zepheads