新时钟可能颠覆现有时间概念

 　　DAVID GREENE, HOST:

　　The days after the end of Daylight Saving Time can be a bit confusing. Your cell phone probably adjusted automatically, but maybe the clock in your car did not leading to brief panic. Am I late for work? In the first of an occasional exploration of time that we're calling Tick-Tock, NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reports that sort of momentary¹ confusion is nothing compared to the confusion facing researchers who study time.

　　GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE²: Here's the first question - what is time?

　　O'BRIAN: My own personal opinion is that time is a human construct.

　　BRUMFIEL: Tom O'Brian's opinion matters. He keeps time at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

　　新时钟可能颠覆现有时间概念

　　O'BRIAN: It's a way that we as humans have developed to try to understand and put some order in this very fascinating and complex universe around us.

　　BRUMFIEL: We bring order using clocks. And O'Brian oversees³ America's master clock, one of the most accurate clocks on the planet.

　　O'BRIAN: And it is accurate to the equivalent of about 0.000000000000001. I think I said it right, but I might've miscounted (laughter).

　　BRUMFIEL: Put another way, this clock could tick for 300 million years and stay accurate to within a second, but here's the crazy thing...

　　O'BRIAN: We can measure time much better than the weight of something or an electrical current, but what time really is a question that I can't answer for you, and I'm embarrassed to say that as chief of the Time and Frequency Division. But I feel I'm in good company because even people like Albert Einstein would readily admit that he didn't really understand what time was.

　　BRUMFIEL: Maybe it's because we don't understand it that we keep trying to measure it more accurately⁴, and why at the nearby University of Colorado they're developing a clock to end all clocks.

　　So I'm standing⁵ in the basement of the University of Colorado Boulder⁶, and it's just chaos⁷ - wires hanging from the ceiling, wires on all the tables, wires held up with binder⁸ clips. I mean, I have never seen such a mess. And this is the home of the most accurate clock on the planet.

　　(SOUNDBITE OF CLOCK TICKING)

　　BRUMFIEL: Actually this tangle⁹ of wires and lasers is the clock. It's spread out on a giant table, parts of it wrapped in shiny foil.

　　There's tinfoil¹⁰, man. How can the most accurate clock on the planet depend on tinfoil?

　　TRAVIS NICHOLSON: Well, first of all that's research-grade tinfoil, so...

　　BRUMFIEL: Graduate students Travis Nicholson and Sara Campbell keep the clock running day-to-day.

　　Do you guys really know where all these wires go?

　　SARA CAMPBELL: I think half of them go nowhere.

　　NICHOLSON: Yeah. We can trace them out if we need to.

　　BRUMFIEL: At its heart, this new clock is actually just atoms of an element called strontium. Strontium vibrates at an incredibly fast frequency. It's a natural, atomic metronome ticking out teeny, teeny fractions of a second. Jun Ye is the scientist who built this clock. He says it could keep perfect time for 5 billion years.

　　JUN YE: It's about the whole entire age of the Earth.

　　BRUMFIEL: So if this clock were running since the start of the age of the Earth, it would have the time down to within a second?

　　YE: Right. And our aim is that we'll have a clock that would - during the entire age of the universe, would not have lost a second.

　　BRUMFIEL: But this perfect clock has run into a big problem because this thing we call time doesn't tick at the same rate everywhere in the universe or even on our planet. On top of Mount Everest, time is passing just a little bit faster than it does in Death Valley. That's because the speed at which to time passes depends on the strength of gravity. You don't need to take this to extremes either. If you take a clock off the floor and hang on the wall...

　　YE: The time will speed up by about one part in 10 to the 16.

　　BRUMFIEL: One part in 10 to the 16 is a sliver¹¹ of a second, but this isn't some effect of gravity on the clock's machinery¹². Time itself is flowing more quickly on the wall than on the floor. These differences didn't really matter till now, but this clock is so sensitive little changes in height throw it way off.

　　YE: So we're talking about lifting up a couple centimeters and you will start to see that difference.

　　BRUMFIEL: This new clock can sense the pace of time speeding up as it moves inch by inch away from the earth's core, and that's a problem because to actually use time, you need different clocks to agree on the time. Think about it - if I say let's meet at 3:30, we use our watches, but imagine a world in which your watch starts to tick faster because you're working on the floor above me. Your 3:30 happens earlier than mine. This clock works like that. Tiny shifts in the Earth's crust can throw it off even when it's sitting still. And two of them will never agree.

　　YE: At this level, maintaining absolute timescale on Earth is in fact turning into nightmare.

　　BRUMFIEL: This nightmare clock they've built doesn't just look chaotic¹³; it's turning our sense of time into chaos. But Chief Timekeeper Tom O'Brian isn't worried about all this because as confusing as these clocks are, they're going to be really useful.

　　O'BRIAN: Scientists can make these clocks into exquisite¹⁴ devices for sensing a whole bunch of different things.

　　BRUMFIEL: They're getting so sensitive to gravity. Maybe they can map the interior of the Earth or detect gravitational waves from black holes and exploding stars. They could change our view of the universe. They just might not be able to tells what time it is. Geoff Brumfiel, NPR News.

1 momentary   

adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的

参考例句：

• We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
• I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 oversees   

v.监督，监视( oversee的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• She oversees both the research and the manufacturing departments. 她既监督研究部门又监督生产部门。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Department of Education oversees the federal programs dealing with education. 教育部监管处理教育的联邦程序。 来自互联网

4 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

7 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

8 binder   

n.包扎物，包扎工具；[法]临时契约；粘合剂；装订工

参考例句：

• The cloth flower snaps on with a special binder.这布花是用一种特殊的粘合剂固定住的。
• Purified water was used as liquid binder.纯净水作为液体粘合剂。

9 tangle   

n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱

参考例句：

• I shouldn't tangle with Peter.He is bigger than me.我不应该与彼特吵架。他的块头比我大。
• If I were you, I wouldn't tangle with them.我要是你，我就不跟他们争吵。

10 tinfoil   

n.锡纸，锡箔

参考例句：

• You can wrap it up in tinfoil.你可以用锡箔纸裹住它。
• Drop by rounded tablespoon onto tinfoil.Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.用大餐勺把刚刚搅拌好的糊糊盛到锡纸上，烘烤9至11分钟，直到变成金黄色。

11 sliver   

n.裂片，细片，梳毛；v.纵切，切成长片，剖开

参考例句：

• There was only one sliver of light in the darkness.黑暗中只有一点零星的光亮。
• Then,one night,Monica saw a thin sliver of the moon reappear.之后的一天晚上，莫尼卡看到了一个月牙。

12 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

13 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

14 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。