万物简史 第491期:多灾多难的生命进程(11)

But come we did, though reaching our present state of eminence has not of course always been straightforward. 但是，我们毕竟还是来了，虽然达到我们目前这样的卓越状态肯定不总是一帆风顺的。 Since life on land began,

万物简史 第490期:多灾多难的生命进程(10)

Dinosaurs, whales, birds, humans, even fish all are tetrapods, which clearly suggests they come from a single common ancestor. 恐龙、鲸、鸟、人甚至鱼都是四足动物。这显然表明，它们出自一个共同的祖先。 The clue to th

万物简史 第488期:多灾多难的生命进程(8)

By combining their isotope findings with other fossil residuespollen levels and so on, 把对同位素测量的结果和能够说明其他情况（如花粉浓度等）的别的化石残留物结合起来， scientists can, with considerable confiden

万物简史 第487期:多灾多难的生命进程(7)

And how, you may reasonably wonder, can scientists know what oxygen levels were like hundreds of millions of years ago? 你也许有理由想知道，科学家们怎么会知道几亿年以前的氧气浓度？ The answer lies in a slightly obscure b

万物简史 第486期:多灾多难的生命进程(6)

So competition was fierce. 于是，竞争很激烈。 There was also an omnivorous and unsettling new type of predator on the scene, 而且，出现了一种新的无所不吃的、令人不安的捕食者。 one so perfectly designed for attack tha

万物简史 第485期:多灾多难的生命进程(5)

For all the trouble they take to assemble and preserve themselves, species crumple and die remarkably routinely. 尽管物种们费了九牛二虎之力聚集起来保存自己，但它们经常崩溃和死亡。 And the more complex they get, the mo

万物简史 第489期:多灾多难的生命进程(9)

Then, as now, dragonflies could cruise at up to thirty-five miles an hour, 当时和现在一样，蜻蜓能以每小时50多公里的速度飞行， instantly stop, hover, fly backwards, and lift far more proportionately than any human flying machin

万物简史 第395期:浩瀚的海洋(14)

As for what else was down there, people really had very little idea. 至于水下还有别的什么东西，人们实际上知道得很少。 Well into the 1950s, the best maps available to oceanographers were overwhelmingly based on a little detail

万物简史 第404期:浩瀚的海洋(23)

As of 1995, some 37,000 industrial-sized fishing ships, plus about a million smaller boats, 到1995年，世界上大约有37000越工业规模的渔船，加上大约100万条小型渔船。 were between them taking twice as many fish from the sea a

万物简史 第13期:如何营造一个宇宙(5)

Unknown to them, just thirty miles away at Princeton University, a team of scientists led by Robert Dicke was working on how to find the very thing they were trying so diligently to get rid of. The Princeton researchers were pursuing an idea that had

万物简史 第11期:如何营造一个宇宙(3)

In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. In the first lively second (a second that many cosmologists will devote careers to

万物简史 第10期:如何营造一个宇宙(2)

In either case, get ready for a really big bang. 无论哪种情况，准备好来一次真正的大爆炸。 Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe place to observe the spectacle. 很自然，你希望退避到一个安全的地方来观察这个

万物简史 第9期:如何营造一个宇宙(1)

Part I Lost in the cosmos 第一章 如何营造一个宇宙 They're all in the same plane.They're all going around in the same direction. . . . 它们都处于同一平面。 它们都在沿同一方向转动...... It's perfect,you know. It's gorgeo

万物简史 第8期:引言(8)

And ocean salinity of course represented only the merest sliver of my ignorance. 当然，海水的咸度只是我不知道的事情中的极小部分。 I didn't know what a proton was, or a protein, didn't know a quark from a quasar,我不知道什么

万物简史 第6期:引言(6)

Excited, I took the book home that night and opened it before dinner,那天晚上，我很兴奋，把这本书抱回了家，晚饭之前就把书打开--我想，an action that I expect prompted my mother to feel my forehead and ask if I was all ri

万物简史 第5期:引言(5)

My own starting point, for what it's worth, was an illustrated 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

万物简史 第4期:引言(4)

Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line,你不光自古以来一直非常走运，属于一个受到优待的进化过程，but you have also been extremely, make that miraculously fortu

万物简史 第3期:引言(3)

So thank goodness for atoms. 所以，谢天谢地，有了原子。 But the fact that you have atoms and that they assemble in such a willing manner is only part of what got you here. 不过，有了原子，它们心甘情愿地聚集在一起，这只

万物简史 第2期:引言(2)

The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting-fleeting indeed. 原子很脆弱，它们的献身时刻倏忽而过--简直是倏忽而过，这是个坏消息。 Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hour

万物简史 第1期:引言(1)

Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. 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 creat