万物简史 第1期:引言(1)

（单词翻译）

 　　Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly¹ obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized² and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarching impulse: to keep you. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.For the next many years, we hope, these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft³, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely⁴ agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence. For all their devoted⁵ attention, your atoms don't actually care about you - indeed, don't even know that you are there. It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers⁶, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound⁷ of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.