国家地理:送给外星人的地图(6)

Several years ago, two significant things happened. I found the original, penciled-in pulsar map, folded away and casually¹ tucked into a tomato box in my parents' closet. And I linked up with a rock climber named Scott Ransom², one of the world's more prolific³ pulsar astronomers⁴.

几年前发生了两件重要的事。其一，我找到了这幅脉冲星地图用铅笔绘制的原本，它被折起来，随意放在我父母橱柜里放西红柿的容器内。其二，是我和一位喜好攀岩的男子斯考特·兰森有了交集，他也是世界上对脉冲星钻研最深的天文学家之一。

Scott had been thinking about the Voyagers, the "golden record," and the pulsar map since he was a 10-year-old in Mansfield, Ohio, watching Carl's Cosmos⁵ television show. Some years and an astronomy Ph.D. later, he realized that Dad's map has a near-future expiration⁶ date. Its Achilles' heel is the same property that lets it pinpoint⁷ Earth in time: Pulsars slow down, and the ones Dad had chosen (from the few known at the time) would fade and disappear within several million years, give or take a few millennia⁸.

自从十岁在俄亥俄州曼斯菲尔德家中看到卡尔的电视节目《宇宙》之后，斯考特就一直在考虑着有关旅行者号、“金唱片”和脉冲星地图的事情。多年之后，斯考特取得了天文学博士学位，他开始意识到我父亲的这幅地图在不久的未来就会失效。这幅地图的致命缺陷恰恰源自能让它准确指出地球时间维度的同一个特性：脉冲星自转速度会减慢，而我父亲从当时已知的少数脉冲星中挑选出的那一些，会在几百万年内消失，误差大约在几千年。

Coincidentally, Scott had set out to make a new, more precise, and longer-lived pulsar map even before we moved in together and portmanteau'd ourselves into the Dranksomes. Now I write the words that tell our stories, and Scott does the important cartographic stuff such as choosing pulsars and deriving⁹ their binary¹⁰ codes. He occasionally drafts some text passages, but you'll never catch me committing academic acts of astronomy.

巧的是，早在我们同居并将彼此的姓氏合并成德瑞克森前，斯考特就已着手绘制一幅更精确、能使用更久的新脉冲星地图。如今我负责书写我们的故事，斯考特则负责重要的制图工作，例如挑选脉冲星并推算它们的二进制编码。他偶尔会起草一些文章段落，但你永远不会看到我在进行天文学的学术研究。

1 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

2 ransom   

n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救

参考例句：

• We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
• The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。

3 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

4 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

6 expiration   

n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物

参考例句：

• Can I have your credit card number followed by the expiration date?能告诉我你的信用卡号码和它的到期日吗?
• This contract shall be terminated on the expiration date.劳动合同期满，即行终止。

7 pinpoint   

vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置

参考例句：

• It is difficult to pinpoint when water problems of the modern age began.很难准确地指出，现代用水的问题是什么时候出现的。
• I could pinpoint his precise location on a map.我能在地图上指明他的准确位置。

8 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

9 deriving   

v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• I anticipate deriving much instruction from the lecture. 我期望从这演讲中获得很多教益。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He anticipated his deriving much instruction from the lecture. 他期望从这次演讲中得到很多教益。 来自辞典例句

10 binary   

adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星

参考例句：

• Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
• Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试，把这个数本身变成二进制数。