万物简史 第50期:埃文斯牧师的宇宙(14)

 Supernovae are significant to us in one other decidedly central way. Without them we wouldn't be here. You will recall the cosmological conundrum¹ with which we ended the first chapter—that the Big Bang created lots of light gases but no heavy elements. Those came later, but for a very long time nobody could figure out how they came later.

超新星还有一方面对我们来说是绝对重要的。要是没有了超新星，我们就不会来到这个世界上。你会想得起来，第一章快结束的时候，我们谈到宇宙之谜--大爆炸产生了许多轻的气体，但没有创造重的元素。重元素是后来才有的，但在很长时间里，谁也搞不清它们后来是怎么产生的。

埃文斯牧师的宇宙.jpg

The problem was that you needed something really hot—hotter even than the middle of the hottest stars—to forge carbon and iron and the other elements without which we would be distressingly² immaterial. Supernovae provided the explanation, and it was an English cosmologist almost as singular in manner as Fritz Zwicky who figured it out.

问题是，你需要有某种温度确实很高的东西--比温度最高的恒星中央的温度还要高--来锻造碳、铁和其他元素；要是没有这些元素，我们就令人苦恼地不会存在。超新星提供了解释。这个解释是一位几乎像弗里茨?兹威基一样行为古怪的英国宇宙学家作出的。

He was a Yorkshireman named Fred Hoyle. Hoyle, who died in 2001, was described in an obituary³ in Nature as a "cosmologist and controversialist" and both of those he most certainly was. He was, according to Nature 's obituary, "embroiled⁴ in controversy⁵ for most of his life" and "put his name to much rubbish." He claimed, for instance, and without evidence, that the Natural History Museum's treasured fossil of an Archaeopteryx was a forgery⁶ along the lines of the Piltdown hoax⁷, causing much exasperation⁸ to the museum's paleontologists, who had to spend days fielding phone calls from journalists from all over the world.

他是约克郡人，名叫弗雷德·霍伊尔。霍伊尔死于2001年，在《自然》杂志的悼文里被描写成一位"宇宙学家和好辩论的人"，二者他都受之无愧。《自然》杂志的悼文说，他"在一生的大部分时间里都卷入了争论"，并"使自己名声扫地"。比如，他声称，而且是毫无根据地声称，伦敦自然史博物馆里珍藏的那件始祖鸟化石是假的，与皮尔当人头盖骨的骗局如出一辙，这使得博物馆的古生物学家们非常恼火。他们不得不花了几天工夫来回答记者们从世界各地打来的电话。

He also believed that Earth was not only seeded by life from space but also by many of its diseases, such as influenza⁹ and bubonic plague, and suggested at one point that humans evolved projecting noses with the nostrils¹⁰ underneath¹¹ as a way of keeping cosmic pathogens from falling into them.

他还认为，地球不仅从空间接受了生命的种子，而且接受了它的许多疾病，比如感冒和腺鼠疫。他有一次还提出，人类在进化过程中有了突出的鼻子和朝下的鼻孔，就是为了阻止宇宙病原菌掉进去。

 

1 conundrum   

n.谜语；难题

参考例句：

• Let me give you some history about a conundrum.让我给你们一些关于谜题的历史。
• Scientists had focused on two explanations to solve this conundrum.科学家已锁定两种解释来解开这个难题。

2 distressingly   

adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地

参考例句：

• He died distressingly by the sword. 他惨死于剑下。
• At the moment, the world's pandemic-alert system is distressingly secretive. 出于对全人类根本利益的考虑，印尼政府宣布将禽流感病毒的基因数据向所有人开放。

3 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

4 embroiled   

adj.卷入的；纠缠不清的

参考例句：

• He became embroiled in a dispute with his neighbours. 他与邻居们发生了争执。
• John and Peter were quarrelling, but Mary refused to get embroiled. 约翰和彼得在争吵，但玛丽不愿卷入。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

6 forgery   

n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为）

参考例句：

• The painting was a forgery.这张画是赝品。
• He was sent to prison for forgery.他因伪造罪而被关进监狱。

7 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。

8 exasperation   

n.愤慨

参考例句：

• He snorted with exasperation.他愤怒地哼了一声。
• She rolled her eyes in sheer exasperation.她气急败坏地转动着眼珠。

9 influenza   

n.流行性感冒，流感

参考例句：

• They took steps to prevent the spread of influenza.他们采取措施
• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。

10 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

11 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。