万物简史 第12期:如何营造一个宇宙(4)

There is of course a great deal we don't know, and much of what we think we know we haven't known, or thought we've known, for long. Even the notion of the Big Bang is quite a recent one. 当然，有大量的事情我们不知道，还有大量的事情

万物简史 第14期:如何营造一个宇宙(6)

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 suggest a solution. Dicke realized at once what the two young men had found. Well, boys, we've just been

万物简史 第15期:如何营造一个宇宙(7)

Although everyone calls it the Big Bang, many books caution us not to think of it as an explosion in the conventional sense. It was, rather, a vast, sudden expansion on a whopping scale. So what caused it? 虽然人人都称其为大爆炸，但许多书

万物简史 第7期:引言(7)

I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose. 现在，我知道有好多好多科普作家，他们写出了通俗易懂而又激动人心的散文--Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey, and Tim

万物简史 第475期:生命在前进(17)

Writing in the journal Evolution, Dawkins attacked Gould's assertions that evolution in the Cambrian was a different kind of process from today 道金斯在《进化》杂志上的文章里，攻击古尔德关于寒武纪的进化不同于今天的进

万物简史 第476期:生命在前进(18)

I have never encountered such s in a book by a professional, Fortey wrote later. 一位专业人员在书里竟然如此怒气冲冲，我可从来没有碰到过，福泰后来写道， The casual reader of The Crucible of Creation, unaware of the h

万物简史 第477期:生命在前进(19)

The Burgess creatures, they believed, weren't as strange and various as they appeared at first sight. 他们认为，布尔吉斯动物群并不像初看起来那么古怪，那么多种多样。 They were often no stranger than trilobites, Fortey sa

万物简史 第478期:生命在前进(20)

Many of the Burgess specimens have now been assigned to living phyla just where Walcott put them in the first place. 许多布尔吉斯标本现在已经归到活着的动物的门里就是沃尔科特最初放置它们的地方。 Hallucigenia and s

万物简史 第479期:生命在前进(21)

Once again it was trilobites that provided the clue, 又是三叶虫提供了线索， in particular that seemingly mystifying appearance of different types of trilobite in widely scattered locations around the globe, all at more or less the same tim

万物简史 第480期:生命在前进(22)

The Cambrian explosion, if that's the word for it, probably was more an increase in size than a sudden appearance of new body types, Fortey says. 寒武纪大爆发，如果可以这么称呼的话，更可能是个儿变大，而不是新体形的突然

万物简史 第481期:多灾多难的生命进程(1)

22 Good-bye To All That 第二十二章 多灾多难的生命进程 When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. 要是你从人的角度去考虑生命这个问题，显

万物简史 第482期:多灾多难的生命进程(2)

Like most things that thrive in harsh environments, lichens are slow-growing. 像大多数在恶劣条件下茁壮成长的东西一样，地衣长得很慢。 It may take a lichen more than half a century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button. 地

万物简史 第483期:多灾多难的生命进程(3)

If you imagine the 4,500-million-odd years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, 请你想像一下。把地球的45亿年历史压缩成普通的一天。 then life begins very early, about 4 A.M., with the rise of the first simpl

万物简史 第484期:多灾多难的生命进程(4)

Throughout this greatly speeded-up day continents slide about and bang together at a clip that seems positively reckless. 在这大大压缩的一天中，大陆到处移动，以似乎不顾一切的速度砰地撞在一起。 Mountains rise and mel

万物简史 第396期:浩瀚的海洋(15)

There are still no submersibles that can go anywhere near the depth of the Mariana Trench 现在假然没有能下沉到接近马里亚纳海沟深度的探海艇。 and only five, including Alvin, that can reach the depths of the abyssal plainthe de

万物简史 第397期:浩瀚的海洋(16)

It was a world independent of sunlight, oxygen, or anything else normally associated with life. 那个世界独立于阳光、氧气和其他通常与生命有关的任何东西。 This was a living system based not on photosynthesis but on chemosynt

万物简史 第398期:浩瀚的海洋(17)

Millions of gallons of fresh water evaporate from the ocean daily, leaving all their salts behind, 每天有几百万加仑淡水从海洋蒸发，留下了全部盐分， so logically the seas ought to grow more salty with the passing years, but the

万物简史 第399期:浩瀚的海洋(18)

It was all quite extraordinarily sloppy. 这种事于得真是马虎。 Most of the drums were exactly the sort you see rusting behind gas stations or standing outside factories, with no protective linings of any type. 大多数的桶就是我们堆放

万物简史 第400期:浩瀚的海洋(19)

What little we know of them comes almost entirely from eavesdropping on their songs, but even these are a mystery. 我们对它们的一点了解，儿乎完全出自我们偷听到的它们的叫声，而连那个也还是个谜。 Blue whales will

万物简史 第401期:浩瀚的海洋(20)

According to one estimate, there could be as many as thirty million species of animals living in the sea, most still undiscovered. 据一项估计，海洋里可能生活着多达3000万种动物，大多数尚未被发现。 The first hint of how ab