VOA标准英语2009年-Website of the Week — SnowCrystals.c

An online guide to snow and other ice phenomena¹

Art Chimes | Washington, DC 18 December 2009

 
Photo: SnowCrystals.com
Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative² online destinations.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, Monday is the first day of Winter, which seems a good time to check out a website that's all about the snow.

"SnowCrystals.com is a website that is about snowflakes and snow crystals and generally ice phenomena," explains Kenneth Libbrecht,a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and for a decade he's been posting gorgeous photographs of snowflakes and a lot more on his website, SnowCrystals.com.

He says the site is a "little guide to different types of snowflakes – sectored plates and capped columns and hollow columns and all different types of crystals. I talk about some of the history of snow flakes³ and people who have photographed them and studied them before. I talk some about the physics of snowflakes. And I even have a section on what I call 'designer snowflakes,' which is us growing crystals in the lab, trying to understand how the physics works."

It's often said that no two snowflakes are alike. But is that literally⁴ true? Kenneth Libbrecht says it depends on what kind you're talking about, but if you mean the classic, complex six-sided version, the answer is yes.

"They are so complicated that if you tried to estimate how many ways you can make a snowflake, you get a huge number – not just billions or trillions, but bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. So the odds⁵ of seeing any two exactly alike are essentially⁶ zero."

Lots more – including videos of designer snowflakes being grown in the lab – at SnowCrystals.com, or get the link from our site, VOAnews.com.
 

1 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

2 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

3 flakes   

小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人

参考例句：

• It's snowing in great flakes. 天下着鹅毛大雪。
• It is snowing in great flakes. 正值大雪纷飞。

4 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

5 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

6 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。