[考博英語]2017考博英語閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（四十五）_考博_旭晨教育

2017 考博英語 閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（四十五）

考博英語閱讀大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《經濟學人》雜志文章作為題源，旭晨教育考博頻道為考博生們將其中的文章進行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英語閱讀水平，讀懂長難句。

導讀

宇宙是萬物的總稱，是時間和空間的統一。宇宙是物質世界，不依賴于人的意志而客觀存在，并處于不斷運動和發展中，在時間上沒有開始沒有結束，在空間上沒有邊界沒有盡頭。宇宙是多樣又統一的;多樣在物質表現狀態的多樣性;統一在于其物質性。宇宙是由空間、時間、物質和能量，所構成的統一體。

A brief history of nothing

一段有關虛空的簡短歷史

The uncanny physics of empty space

虛空的神秘物理學

The apparent void contains a sea of particles popping in and out of existence

表面上的真空包含一片海洋，粒子在其中突現又消失

Nov 19th 2016 | From the print edition

2016年11月19日|來自印刷版

MOST of the universe is empty. So it is natural that a great deal of modern physics concerns nothing—or rather the precise nature of the nothing that permeates the cosmos. Work in the past century in particular has shaken up scientists’ understanding of emptiness. Ideas about gravity and motion put in place by Isaac Newton in the 17th century were overturned by the work of Albert Einstein. The dawn of quantum mechanics revolutionised physicists’ understanding of the very small, but the theory’s conclusions were so counterintuitive that Einstein was never able to reconcile himself with them. James Owen Weatherall, a philosopher, now examines how scientists’ conceptions of supposedly empty space have changed in the light of these convulsions in his latest book, “Void”.

宇宙的大部分都是空的。自然而然許多現代物理學關心的就是虛無——更確切地說，是彌漫宇宙的虛空的精確規律。上世紀的研究成果尤其刷新了科學家們對于真空的認知。牛頓在17世紀時建立的重力和運動理念被愛因斯坦推翻。量子力學的出現徹底變革了物理學家們對微觀事物的理解，但是這項學說的結論是如此違反直覺以致于愛因斯坦難以接受。現在哲學家詹姆士·歐文·韋瑟羅爾，在他最新的一本書《太空》中，剖析了科學家們對所謂虛空的理解在撼動之下如何變化。

Uncanny 神秘的

popping in 突然出現

Counterintuitive 違反直覺的

Many people today imagine that, on a molecular scale, the air around them resembles a tumultuousthree-dimensional game of billiards. Yet this picture, of molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and other gassesricocheting through emptiness, is a mere 300 or so years old and has its roots in Newton’s theories. His law of universal gravitation described the attractive force between two masses in a void. But that void isfar from obvious. Before the publication of Newton’s “Principia Mathematica” in 1687, two of the most influential thinkers of the Western world, Aristotle and René Descartes, developed theories requiring space (for different reasons) to be filled with stuff of some sort.

如今許多人誤認為，在分子尺度上，周圍的空氣類似一場激烈的三維桌球游戲。然而這幅氮氧和其他氣體分子在真空中彈開的情景，僅僅有300年左右的時間并且扎根于牛頓的理論之中。他的萬有引力定律描述真空中兩個有質量物體之間的吸引力。但那個真空遠遠不是現在所公認的。在牛頓的《數學原理》于1687年出版之前，西方世界最具影響力的思想家中的兩位——亞里士多德和笛卡爾，提出理論要求空間被某種物質填滿(出于不同原因)。

Tumultuous 狂暴的，激烈的

Ricocheting 彈開

In the late 19th century, the work of James Clerk Maxwell also seemed to rule out the notion that a vacuum was truly empty. Maxwell discovered that electricity and magnetism were linked, but he erroneously believed light waves were vibrations in an invisible “aether”. Based on this premise, he and his contemporaries incorrectly reasoned that the speed of light measured in laboratories on Earth could not be its true value since the Earth was moving through space relative to this aether.

19世紀晚期，麥克斯韋的研究似乎同樣排除真空是真正的空的概念。麥克斯韋發現電與磁相互關聯，但他錯誤地認為光波是看不見的以太中的震動。基于此前提，他和同代人做出錯誤推斷：既然地球在和以太有關的空間中運動，在地球上的實驗室里測出的光速不可能是真實值。

rule out 排除可能性

aether 以太

Einstein’s work would sweep away this view less than 50 years later. First, in his special theory of relativity, he claimed that the speed of light was the same for all observers, dispensing with the need for the aether. Next, his general theory of relativity would show that space could be curved and textured, like a taut rubber sheet stretched and formed by the masses of planets and stars. Quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics (a theory that merges quantum theory with Maxwell’s electromagnetism) would later reveal that even an apparently empty vacuum resembles, at small enough scales, a boiling sea of particles that constantly pop in and out of existence.

將近50年后愛因斯坦的研究成果掃清這一觀點。首先，他在狹義相對論里宣稱光速對于所有觀察者是一樣的，摒棄以太的必要。接下來他的廣義相對論說明空間可以是彎曲和不平的，像一張繃緊的膠皮被行星和恒星的質量拉長成形。

textured 質地不平的，有紋理的

These are not easy concepts to describe, and sometimes Mr Weatherall is in danger of losing the uninitiated reader. A diagram or two would have helped. Nonetheless, sending the curious scrambling to Google is forgivable.

這些概念都不易描述，有時韋瑟羅爾會處于失去外行讀者的風險中。一兩張圖表本會有所幫助。雖然如此，讓抱著好奇心啃書的讀者去自行谷歌也可以原諒。

More difficult to understand is the book’s failure to mention the work of any female physicists in its pages. The author mentions, for instance, Paul Ehrenfest’s parrot (which the physicist trained to say “But gentlemen, this is not physics!” during discussions of quantum mechanics) but not his wife and collaborator, Tatyana. Also missing from the account is Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s work on Cepheid variables, pulsating stars which would become a yardstick for the expansion of the universe. That means a chapter discussing the possible shapes of the universe consistent with the general theory of relativity ends without discussing what its actual shape might be in the light of such discoveries. These oversights mar an otherwise engaging and interesting account, but perhaps it is natural that a history of space should have a few gaping holes.

更難理解的是這本書沒有提及任何一位女性物理學家的成果。比如，作者提到了保羅·埃倫費斯特的鸚鵡(這位物理學家訓練它在量子力學的討論會上說：“但是先生們，這可不是物理學!”)，而沒提他的妻子兼合作者Tatyana。同樣敘述中也沒有涉及亨麗愛塔·勒維特有關造父變星的成果，一類可以作為宇宙膨脹尺度的脈沖星。這意味著一章內容闡述宇宙的可能格局，與廣義相對論保持一致，卻以沒有根據這些發現去論述作結。這些瑕疵破壞了一件原本充滿吸引力的有趣作品，但是可能一段有關空間的歷史有幾個缺口才是自然。

Cepheid variables造父變星

Yardstick 尺度