研究生英语阅读教程(提高级)课后习题翻译(带原文、最全版)

Lesson 1

1. Yesterday’s terrorism darkened, marked and forever altered the way Americans live their lives. 昨日发生的恐怖主义活动使美国人的生活暗淡无光，在他们的生活中留下了印迹，并永远地改变了他们的生活。

2. “We are going to have to learn what a lot of other countries have gone through: to manage fear at a cultural and national level,” said Charles Figley, a professor of trauma psychology at Florida State University. “We’re getting a lesson in the way fear works.”

佛罗里达州立大学创伤心理学教授查尔斯?费格里说:“我们得学一学其它许多国家曾经经历过的东西，那就是从文化上和在全国范围内来应对恐惧。”他还说:“我们正在体验恐惧是怎样起作用的。”

3. In a country long proud and even boastful of its openness—a country where an ordinary citizen can stroll through the U.S. Capitol unescorted—the terrorist attacks are likely to force Americans to a lot of that. Metal detectors now mark the front door of many government buildings, and security guards are a fixture in the lobby of most large office buildings.

美国是一个一向以开放自豪甚至洋洋得意的国家，在这里，人们可以独自在美国国会大楼中闲庭信步，而现在，恐怖袭击很有可能迫使美国人处处小心，惶惶不可终日。其实我们很大程度上已经是这样了。许多政府大楼的前门装设的金属探测器已然成为一道风景线，大部分的办公大楼里也必备保安。

4. But retaliation carries the risk of setting off a tightening spiral of violence and counterviolence not unlike the Middle East or Northern Ireland. Unlike countries that have had to learn to live with violence, “We are new at this,”said Florida’s Dr. Figley, who heads a project that has trained trauma teams in Yugoslavia. “My fear is we will overreach and make things worse rather than better by retribution, revenge, racism and marginalizing ethnic groups.”

报复有很大的危险，会引发和在中东及北爱尔兰一样的紧张的暴力和反暴力的恶性攀升。与那些不得不在暴力中学习如何生存的国家不同，“我们是新手，”曾在南斯拉夫训练过创伤急救队的项目负责人费格里博士说，“我所担心的是惩罚、报复、种族主义和排斥少数民族的举动会过于偏激，适得其反。”

5. Fear of terrorism is likely to lead Americans to tolerate more government surveillance—such as overhead video cameras at sporting events—than they have to date. “It’s very likely in the wake of today’s events that we’re going to see a greater acceptance on the public’s part—and on the court’s part—to approve certain kinds of police tactics,”said William Stuntz, a Harvard Low School professor.

对于恐怖主义的恐惧会使美国人接受比现在更多的来自政府的监控，例如在运动竞赛场上高架的摄象机。哈佛大学法学院教授威廉姆斯?斯汤资说，“经过目前前这些事件，我们将发现，无论是公众，还是法庭，都会在更大程度上接受某些警察的策略。”

Lesson 2

1. But the very process that made it the biggest NASA contractor-a sweeping consolidation of the aerospace industry-has sharply reduced competition，and with it，critics say，the creative clash of ideas that helps produce great technological leaps.

一次大规模的航天工业企业的合并过程使得波音公司成为美国国家航空航天局最大的承包商，但是，正是这一合并的过程大大地削弱了竞争。评论人士说，这样一来，那些有助于产生巨大技术飞跃的创造性的思想碰撞也就少了。

2. The uncertainty has been underscored recently. Since bush made his initial announcement，which was greeted with some public skepticism，he has been largely silent on the subject，not even

mentioning it in his state of the union address.

其不确定性最近更加明显了。布什第一次宣布这一消息后，部分公众对此表示怀疑，此后他就一直在很大程度对此事保持沉默，甚至在他的国情咨文中也未涉及。

3. And their expertise is not being replenished. Bright engineering students are now more likely to go into areas like the Internet or biotechnology. Once the “industry of choice”for technical workers, aerospace ”presents a negative image to potential employees”, the industry association said. A survey of 500 American aerospace workers found that 80 percent would not recommend that their children follow them into the field.

而且他们的专业技术后备力量得不到充实。优秀的工科学生现在大多会进入像国际互联网和生物技术这样的领域。航天业对于技术工作者一度是一个首选的行业，现在却在可能进入该行业的工作人员中树立了一个不利的形象，行业协会如是说。一项对500名美国航天工作者的调查发现八成的人不愿让他们的子女步他们的后尘进入航天业。

4. Consolidation has hurt, too. Pulling rivals into a big tent can create a “more comfortable atmosphere” for corporate management, according to a study by the James A. Baker ⅢInstitute for Public Policy at Rice University in 2002, but over time it drains the industry of competition—the lifeblood of innovation—and”leads unavoidably to stagnation”.

合并也会造成伤害。根据2002年赖斯大学詹姆士?阿?贝克尔第三公众政策研究所的一项研究，把同行冤家都放到一个大家庭里对于公司管理来说是创造了一个“更加舒适的气氛”，但长此以往，创新活力的源泉——行业中的竞争氛围——将会耗尽，并会不可避免地导致停滞的局面。

5. The grand challenge of missions to the moon and to Mars, he said, may be just the thing to breathe new life into those programs.”What this vision does is provide a focus, not only for revitalization of NASA, but the revitalization of the U.S. civil space capability,”he said,”including the industrial base, including academia.”

约翰?M?劳格斯顿说，月球和火星计划的巨大挑战也许正是给那些项目带来新鲜活力的契机。“这一前景不仅能给我们国家航空航天局的振兴提供一个焦点，还能为包括工业基地和学术环境在内的美国国内航天能力的复兴提供一个工作中心。”

Lesson 4

1 Bill Clinton was hard to miss in the autumn of 1970. He arrived at Yale Law School looking more like a Viking than a Rhodes Scholar returning from two years at Oxford.. He was tall and handsome somewhere beneath that reddish brown beard and curly mane of hair. He also had a vitality that seemed to shoot out of his pores.

1970年秋天，你想不注意比尔-克林顿也不容易。他来到耶鲁大学法学院时,看上去像一个北欧海盗，而不像一个在牛津大学呆了两年后回国的罗兹奖学金获得者。他身材高大，他那棕红色的胡子和卷曲而浓密的头发使他显得很帅气。他浑身充满了活力。当我第一次在法学院的学生休息室里见到他时，正对着一帮全神贯注的同学滔滔不绝地讲着什么。

2 The way bill tells the story, he couldn’t remember his own name.

在比尔讲述这段事情的版本中他说他当时都想不起来自己叫什么名字了。

3 To this day, he can astonish me with the connections he weaves between ideas and words and how he makes it all sound like music.

直到现在我还常为他敏捷的思维和恰如其分的用词，以及他如何能够将要表达的思想说得那么动听而感到惊讶不已。

4 One of the first things I noticed about Bill was the shape of his hands. His wrists are narrow and his fingers tapered and deft, like those of a pianist or a surgeon. When we first met as students, I

loved watching him turn the papes of a book. Now his hands are showing signs of age after thousands of handshakes and golf swings and miles of signatures. They are, like their owner, weathered but still expressive, attractive and resilient.

我首先注意到的是比尔的手的形状。他的手腕不粗’手指修长而灵巧，就像一双钢琴家或外科医生的手。学生时代我们第一次见面时，我就喜欢他用手翻书的样子。如今他的手已因成千上万次的握手,打高尔夫球和无数次的签名而增添了岁月的痕迹。它们和他们的主人一样’虽经历风雨却依然充满表现力,魅力与活力。

5 I still didn’t know where I would live and what I would do because my interests in child advocacy and civil rights didn’t dictate a particular path.

我还不知道自己将来会住在哪里和要做什么，因为我在儿童权益促进和民权方面的兴趣尚未为我指明一条明确的道路。

6 The prospect of driving from one southern state to another convincing democrats both to support McGovern and to oppose Nixon’s policy in Vietnam excited him.

一想到能够驾车穿梭在南方各州之间来说服民主党人既支持麦克戈文，又反对尼克松的越战政策就使他非常激动。

7 We both had to work to pay our way through law school,on top of the student loans we had taken out.

尽管我们都获得了学生贷款，但是我们俩还是不得不打些工来完成法学院的学习。

Lesson 5

1. Dave got there first and he slaughtered me later about how the maitre d’ had changed his tone completely when Dave told him who he was supposed to be meeting. It went from: “Who’s this Manc?” to “This way, Sir.” All in a split second. When we got there, the snappers were doing their stuff outside. Dave was starting to take the mickey out of me for being a face at this expensive London restaurant when we looked across the room and saw Our Man at the same time.

戴维先到一步，事后他气愤地向我发难说当他告诉领班准备和谁一起吃饭时，领班的语气骤然逆转。一瞬间就从“这是个什么人？”变成“这边有请，先生。”当我们赶到时，拍照的人已经在饭店外忙个不停了。戴维开始嘲笑我是伦敦这家高级饭店里的知名人物。这时，我俩向屋内望去并同时看到了我们的偶像。

2. An amazing part of my life---of life with Victoria---is that, sometimes, those people I’m nervous before meeting and tongue-tied when I do turn out to become friends.

我的生活中---与维多利亚一起的生活中---一件美好的事情就是有时那些让我在见面之前紧张不安，在见面时张口结舌的人，最终却成为我的朋友。

3. They’re incredibly generous: almost the first thing Elton did the afternoon I met him in Italy was to offer Victoria and me their place in the South of France as somewhere to go if we ever needed to get away from it all.

他们非常慷慨：我在意大利见到埃尔顿的那个下午，几乎他所做的第一件事就是把他们在法国南部的住处提供给维多利亚和我以便我们一旦需要远离烦乱的生活时有个落脚的地方。4. I’d have been happy listening to his opinion on that and anything else for the rest of the day. We all know his story but, looking into his eyes, catching his smile, following the lines across his incredibly handsome face, you couldn’t help wanting to hear it from him.

在剩下的时间里如果能听到他对我的辫子和其他事情的看法我会非常高兴。我们都知道他的故事，但是看着他的眼睛，捕捉着他的笑容，追寻着这张异常英俊的脸上遍布的皱纹，你会情不自禁想要听他亲自讲述。

5. By the time we stumbled off the coach back at the hotel, having been up before dawn, our back

lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. The afternoon drifted past in a dream.

我们在天亮前就早早起床，因此从大巴下来跌跌撞撞走回酒店时，睡眠的不足开始让我犯困。下午就在梦乡中度过了。

Lesson 6

1 John Forbes Nash, Jr.---mathematical genius, inventor of a theory of rational behavior, visionary of the thinking machine---had been sitting with his visitor, also a mathematician, for nearly half an hour.

小约翰?福布斯?纳什---数学天才、|理性行为理论的缔造者、预见思想机器出现的预言家---已经和来访者，也是一位数学家，共坐了将近半个小时。

2 He had been staring dully at a spot immediately in front of the left foot of Harvard professor George Mackey，hardly moving except to brush his long dark hair away from his forehead in a fitful, repetitive motion.

他一直目光呆滞地盯着哈佛教授乔治麦克恩左脚前方不远的地方，除了一次次重复着将垂在前额的略长的黑发拨开的动作，他几乎一动不动。

3 Over the next decade, a decade as notable for its supreme faith in human rationality as for its dark anxieties about mankind’s survival, Nash proved himself, in the words of the eminent geometer Mikhail Gromov, “the most remarkable mathematician of the second half of the century”.

在未来十年，在那既以对人类理性抱有无尚信念而著称，又以对人类生存怀有无尽忧虑而闻名的十年，纳什，用知名几何学家米克哈尔格罗莫夫的话说，证明了自己是20世纪后半叶最杰出的数学家。

4 Geniuses, the mathematician Paul Halmos wrote, “are of two kinds: the ones who are just like all of us, but very much more so, and the ones who, apparently, have an extra human spark. We can all run, and some of us can run the mile in less than 4 minutes; but there is nothing that most of us can do that compares with the creation of the Great G-minor Fugue”. Nash’s genius was of that mysterious variety more often associated with music and are than with the oldest of all sciences.

数学家保罗?哈莫斯写道，天才“分为两种：一种就像我们大家一样，只是更为出色；另一种则是那些明显具备超凡人类灵感的人。我们都能跑步，有些人还能在四分钟内跑完一英里；但是我们所做的一切无论如何也无法与创作出G小调赋格曲相提并论。”纳什的天分就属于那种常与音乐和艺术而非与最古老的科学紧密相连的神奇异禀。

5 Compulsively rational, he wished to turn life’s decisions---whether to take the first elevator or wait for the next one, where to bank his money, what job to accept, whether to marry---into calculations of advantage and disadvantage, algorithms or mathematical rules divorced from emotion, convention, and tradition.

他具有一种难以抑制的理性，希望将生活中的决定---是搭乘第一部电梯还是等待下一部，到哪里存钱接受什么样的工作是否结婚---都转化为利弊得失的计算，转化为完全脱离感情、习俗和传统的算法法则或数学规则。

6 His remoteness was punctuated by flights of garrulousness about outer space and geopolitical trends，childish pranks，and unpredictable eruptions of anger. But these outbursts were，more often than not, as enigmatic as his silences. “He is not one of us” was a constant refrain.

他一贯冷漠，但一时兴起也会喋喋不休地谈论外太空和地缘政治趋势，或做出孩子般的恶作剧，或者毫无征兆地勃然大怒。这些情感的迸发总是和他的沉默一样神秘莫测。他和我们不一样。是人们常说的一句话。

7 Nash’s insight into the dynamics of human rivalry---his theory of rational conflict and cooperation---was to become one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century, transforming the young science of natural selection, and Newton’s celestial mechanics reshaped biology and physics in their day.

纳什对于人类竞争动态变化的洞察---他的理性竞争与合作理论---将会成为20世纪最具影响的思想理论之一.这一理论改变着新兴的经济学，其作用无异于孟德尔的基因遗传，达尔文的自然选择模式和牛顿的天体力学再造了当时的生物学和物理学。

Lesson 7

1 This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian.

今年圣诞时节，人们困惑惶恐，内心无法宁静，外部没有和平。无论身置何处，恐慌昼夜萦绕于胸，无论走到哪里，战争的阴霾时时笼罩天空。我们这个世界已烟卷了战争，无论何处都危机四伏。各位教友，即便如此，我们不能把祈求和平、善待众人的基督圣训视作不切实际的虔诚美梦。

2 If we don’t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good.

如果不能友善待人，我们所有和所能必将由于使用不当而使我们走向自我毁灭。历史的经验告诉我们，战争早已过时。曾几何时，战争或有以毒攻毒之效，可以遏制邪恶势力的蔓延与发展，然而正是现代战争利器的巨大破坏力，使它再不能被视作匡扶邪恶的正义之举。

3 Now let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.

现在，我首先要说的是，要想世界和平，我们就必须忠于芸芸，而不是忠于一隅。我们的忠心必须超越我们的种族和部落，超越我们的阶层和国家；这就意味着我们必须放眼世界。

4 Now let me say, secondly, that if we are to have peace in the world, men and nations must embrace the nonviolent affirmation that ends and means must cohere. One of the great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren’t important. The important thing is to get to the end, you see.

其次，我呼吁，要实现世界和平，所有众人、所有国家必须坚守非暴力信念，坚信目的、手段必须互渗互连。手段与目的的关系一直是历史上颇有争议的重大哲学问题。总有人认为只要目的正确，可以不择手段，重要的是要达到目的。

5 Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and goodwill toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is the somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say ” Thou shall not kill, ”we’re really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world.. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering.

再之，我要说，若想世界和平、世人和睦，必须以非暴力申明所有人的生命都是神圣的。每

个人都很重要，因为他们都是上帝之子，因此，我们说“勿杀生”，是指人的生命是神圣的，不应在战场上被轻易夺走。人的生命远非旋转电子构成的奇妙之物，也不是无尽燃烧的焖火中升起的一缕轻烟。

Lesson 8

1 Sallee had n’t minded having to come in when the clerk on duty became ill that afternoon. And later, instead of calling in another employee for the evening shift, he’d remained until closing.

那天下午,因当班的职员生病,萨利并不介意来顶班.随后他也没叫其他职员来值夜班而是自己一直干到商店打佯。

2 Sallee hesitated, but only for a second. At 27, he owned three video shops and was a successful businessman. He’d often delayed closing for customers. There was no reason not to accommodate this one.

萨利迟疑了片刻，但仅仅是片刻年仅27岁的萨利已拥有三家音像店是个成功的商人。他经常为了顾客而推迟关店门。这次同样也没有理由不满足顾客的需求。

3 Shocked into the reality of what was happening, Sallee strained at his bonds, trying to turn away from the slashing knife. His attackers angrily pushed him out of the cramped closet. Sallee yanked his hands apart repeatedly until the cloth binding them gave way.

惊恐地意识到眼前所发生的事实，萨利用力挣脱绑在手脚上的绳子，试图躲开寒光逼人的匕首。三名劫匪恼羞成怒地把他从狭窄的储藏室推了出来。萨利用力地、不停地拉扯着他的双手，直到捆绑的绳子断开。

4 Haltingly, he raised his hand to his throat. As he pulled it way he saw through blurred eyes what appeared to be multiple hands, covered with blood. His life was ebbing away, but he could not move. He thought how sorry he was that his parents might have to find him this way.

他犹豫着，把手慢慢地抬到嗓子部位。随后，又慢慢地把手拿开，他双眼模糊，似乎看到了许多只手的叠现，它们全都沾满了血。生命渐渐地离他而去，但他却一动也不能动。他想父母也许会看到他这副样子，那该多伤心啊。

5 The store lights were still on, but interior lighting could not explain the bright shining in his face. Sallee did not know what it was. He knew only that he was growing stronger with each step.

店里的灯还亮着，但这店里的灯光却不能解释他脸上所泛出的光明。萨利自己也不知道这是什么。他只知道每走一步他都变得更坚强了。

6 What happened to Sallee through those eternally long minutes after he was left for dead continues to fill him with awe. “ I’ve always heard and read about miracles,” Troy Sallee says,”and now I know they really happen.”

他被离弃等死的漫长的几分钟内所发生的事仍然使萨利心有余悸“以前经常听说这类奇迹，自己也读了不少这种奇迹般的故事”，(特罗伊?萨利说，“但现在我明白了这种奇迹真的会发生。”

Lesson 9

1. Still, it tugs at our minds. If we unexpectedly encounter the full moon, huge and yellow over the horizon, we are helpless but to stare back at its commanding presence. And the moon has gifts to bestow upon those who watch.

但无论怎样，月亮依旧牵动我们的心灵。倘若我们偶尔遇见一轮黄灿灿的满月高悬中天，谁都会禁不住停下来凝神仰望她尊贵的姿容。而月亮也向注视她的人赐予厚礼。

2. But as the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of

the horizon, full chested and round and color of ivory, the valleys were deep shadows in the landscape.

然而当月亮缓缓升起，离开山头，它变得坚定、威严；它的面孔也由红变成了橘红，又变成金色，最后是平静的明黄色。它似乎从渐暗的大地中吸取了光明，因为随着它的升起，下面的丘陵山谷愈来愈黯淡朦胧。待到皓月当空，满月如盘，闪烁着象牙般乳白的清辉，山谷便成了风景中一片片幽深的阴影。

3. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.

月出是缓慢的，充满神奇。观看月出，我们得回到过去那种对时间的耐心中去。观看月亮不可阻挡地升到空中就能让我们内心安宁，我们的神思能让我们看到宇宙的广漠和大地的宽阔，能让我们忘掉自己。我们觉得自身渺小，却又深感大自然的厚待。

4. Moonlight shows us none of life’s harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.

月色下，我们看不到生活中坚硬的棱角。山坡在月光下如同笼上了柔和的轻纱，一片银白；海水在月光下碧蓝而静谧；我们在月光下也不再像白日那般精于算计，而是沉醉于自然的情感中。

5. I return often to the rising moon. I am drawn especially when events crowd ease and clarity of vision into a small corner of my life.

后来我常回到山上观月，尤其是在接踵而来的事使我身心疲惫、头晕眼花时。

6. Lovers and poets find deeper meaning at night. We are all apt to pose deeper questions-about our origins and destinies. We indulge in riddles, rather than in the impersonal geometries that govern the daylit world. We become philosophers and mystics.

恋人和诗人在夜里能找到生活更深刻的意义。其实我们都爱问一些深刻的问题——我们的祖先是什么？我们的命运在哪里!我们不喜欢那些统治着白天世界的刻板的几何教科书，都愿意沉溺于永远找不到答案的谜团中。在夜里，我们都成了哲人和神秘主义者。

7. At moonrise, as we slow our minds or the pace of the heavens, enchantment steals over us. We open the vents of feeling and exercise parts of our minds that reason locks away by day. We hear, across the distances, murmurs of ancient hunters and see anew the visions of poets and lovers of long ago.

月出之时，当我们放慢自己的思想，让它跟随天国的脚步，一种心醉神迷的感觉就会流遍全身。我们会打开情感的窗口，会让白天被理智锁住的那部分思绪尽情奔涌。我们有越过遥远的时空，听见远古猎人的低语’再次看到很久以前的恋人与诗人眼中的世界。

Lesson 11

1. That hanging a man (or frying him or gassing him) is a dreadful business, degrading to those who have to do it and revolting to those who have to witness it.

绞死（或电死或用毒气杀死）一个人是桩恐怖的事情，使行刑人变得卑劣，使目击者感到恶心。

2. It may be quite necessary to society for all that.

即便如此，他们的工作对社会来说也可能是十分必要的。

3. These persons, and particularly the first group, are concerned only indirectly with deterring other criminals. The thing that they crave primarily is the satisfaction of seeing the criminal actually before them suffer as he made them suffer.

这些人，特别是第一类人，对是否遏止其他罪犯并不太关心。他们极欲得到的是一种满足，就是看到给他们带来痛苦的罪犯在他们面前也饱尝痛苦。

4. Every law-abiding citizen feels menaced and frustrated until the criminals have been struck down-until the communal capacity to get even with them, and more than even, has been dramatically demonstrated.

每位守法公民都感到威胁，感到无计可施，直到罪犯受到打击，直到凭借公众力量报了仇，还不仅仅是扯平，而这力量得到充分的体现后，这种感觉才会消失。

5. Why should he wait at all? Why not hang him the day after the last court dissipates his last hope? Why torture him as not even cannibals would torture their victims?

他到底为什么要等呢？为什么不在终审法院使他的希望破灭后的第二天处决他呢？为什么要用连食人族都不会用的手段折磨他呢？

Lesson 13

1 A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

一位著名的科学家(有人说是罗索·贝特朗)曾经做过一次关于天文学的演讲。他描述了地球是如何围绕太阳运转的，以及太阳是如何进而围绕大量星群的中心运转的，这些星群即所谓的银河系。

2 According to a number of early cosmologies and the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition, the universe started at a finite, and not very distant, time in the past.

依据一些早期的宇宙论的观点和犹太/基督/穆斯林教派传统的观点，宇宙起源于一个特定的，并且不太遥远的过去时间。

3 When most people believed in an essentially static and unchanging universe, the question of whether or not it had a beginning was really one of metaphysics or theology. One could account for what was observed equally well on the theory that the universe had existed forever or on the theory that it was set in motion at some finite time in such a manner as to look as though it had existed forever.

在多数人都认为宇宙基本上是静态的而且是不变的情况下，探讨宇宙是否有一个起源确实是一个属于玄学或神学范畴的问题。人们可以用两种不同的理论解释他们所观察到的事物。一种理论是宇宙永存；而另外一种理论是宇宙在某一个有限的时间以一种特定的方式被启动，而这种方式又使得宇宙看上去曾经永远存在。

4 In order to talk about the nature of the universe and to discuss questions such as whether it has a beginning or an end, you have to the clear about what a scientific theory is.

为丁探讨宇宙的本质以及关于宇宙是否有始终等问题，你必须清楚什么是科学理论。

5 A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

一个好的理论应满足两个要求。一是它必须能够基于一个只有少量的任意元素的模型来准确地描述大量的人们所观察到的现象。二是它还必须能够对人们未来所能观察到的现象的结果加以明确的预测。

6 It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories.

事实上，要想设计出一个能够描述宇宙现象的理论是十分困难的。取而代之的是，我们可以把问题分割开来，进而发明一些局部理论。

Lesson 14

1 Take another look at those cables: They snake into the back of the computer and then out again, terminating in a cap on the monkey’s head, where they receive signals from hundreds of electrodes buried in its brain. The monkey is directing the robot with its thoughts.

再看看那些电缆。电缆弯弯曲曲地进入计算机后盖，然后又出来，最后到达猕猴头上的帽子里。电缆从埋在猕猴大脑里的数百个电极接收信号，猕猴用思维向机器手臂发出指令。

2 For decades scientists have pondered, speculated on, and poor-poohed the possibility of a direct interface between a brain and a machine---only in the late 1990s did scientists start learning enough about the brain and signal-processing to offer glimmers of hope that this science-fiction vision could become reality.

几十年来，科学家就一直在思索、推测大脑和机器直接联系的可能性，但都认为这不切实际。只是到了20世纪90年代末，科学家才开始充分地了解大脑与信号处理的有关知识，从而出现了使科幻小说的幻象变成现实的希望的曙光。

3 The notion of decoding the brain’s commands can seem, on the face of it, to be pure hubris. How could any computer eavesdrop on all the going-on that take place in there every moment of ordinary life?

解码大脑指令的想法乍看起来可能像是十足的狂妄自大。计算机怎么能窃听日常生活每时每刻发生在大脑甩的全部活动呢？

4 But most researchers assumed that each type of movement was governed by a specific handful of the brain’s billions of neurons---the need to monitor the whole brain in order to find those few would make the successful decoding a practical impossibility.

但是，大多数研究人员认为，每种类型的运动都是靠大脑几十亿神经元中一些少数特定的神经元来控制的---为了找到那些少数神经元而需要监测整个大脑则会使成功的解码变为实际办不到的事。

5 Thus everything that was known at the time suggested that brain-machine interfaces were a fool’s errand. Everything, it turned out, was wrong.

因此，那时知道的一切表明，使脑-机联系是徒劳无益之举。结果证明，那一切都是错误的。Lesson16

1 艺术家们喜欢棕榈树生长的形状以及那面对花园与大海的旅馆的明亮色彩。

Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea.

2 雨水在砾石路上聚集成了一个个小水坑。在雨中，海浪涌上海滩，卷起一条长长的浪花线，然后退下去，又涌上来，又卷起一条长长的浪花线。

Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain.

3 就在他们的窗外一只小猫蹲在一张绿色的滴着雨水的桌子下面。它尽量地缩着身子以免被雨水淋湿。

Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.

4 她喜欢旅馆老板非常认真地听取顾客意见的方式。她喜欢他那威严的样子。

She liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints. She liked his dignity.

5 女孩的心被轻轻地触动了。旅馆老板对她的态度使她感到自己既柔弱又非常重要。在一瞬间她感觉自己好像是最要的人物了。

Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at

the same time really important… She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance.