今天是Chapter5的最后一部分了,介紹了物理巨匠人物威廉湯姆森唯一沒(méi)有完成的研究是他的第二職業(yè)——算出地球的確切年齡。隨著時(shí)間的推移,我們的開爾文勛爵的結(jié)論變得越來(lái)越確切,越來(lái)越不正確~~

?《萬(wàn)物簡(jiǎn)史》推出部落節(jié)目版,戳這里訂閱:http://bulo.hujiang.com/menu/6004/


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書本的朗讀語(yǔ)音很charming的磁性英音~~~大家可以好好學(xué)著模仿哦~~~??!
因?yàn)樵鵀槊绹?guó)人所寫,單詞采用美式拼法,不抄全文,也不用寫序號(hào)。答完一空換行繼續(xù)下一空作答。文中需聽寫單詞或詞組用[-No-]表示,句子用[---No---]表示。請(qǐng)邊聽寫邊理解文意,根據(jù)下面的TIPS訓(xùn)練聽寫。這樣可以提高聽力準(zhǔn)確度,并為訓(xùn)練聽譯打下基礎(chǔ)哦~~~


TIPS聽寫訓(xùn)練點(diǎn):?jiǎn)卧~拼寫,時(shí)態(tài),單復(fù)數(shù),連讀,長(zhǎng)難句(請(qǐng)邊聽邊用符號(hào)先記下內(nèi)容,然后自己回頭組織語(yǔ)句,最后校對(duì),不要逐字逐句聽寫)

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Hints:
the Sun
exhaust
contradict

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He had really only one flaw and that was an inability to [-1-] the correct age of the Earth. [---2---] His first effort, in 1862 for an article in a popular magazine called Macmillan's, suggested that the Earth was 98 million years old, but cautiously allowed that the figure could be as low as 20 million years or as high as 400 million. With remarkable prudence he [-3-] that his calculations could be wrong if “[---4---]”—but it was clear that he thought that unlikely.

With the passage of time Kelvin would become more [-5-]in his assertions and less correct. He continually [-6-] his estimates downward, from a maximum of 400 million years, to 100 million years, to 50 million years, and finally, in 1897, to a mere 24 million years. Kelvin wasn't being [-7-]. [---8---]Therefore it followed that the Sun and its planets were relatively, but inescapably, youthful.

[---9---]

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calculate The question occupied much of the second half of his career, but he never came anywhere near getting it right. acknowledged sources now unknown to us are prepared in the great storehouse of creation forthright revised willful It was simply that there was nothing in physics that could explain how a body the size of the Sun could burn continuously for more than a few tens of millions of years at most without exhausting its fuel. The problem was that nearly all the fossil evidence contradicted this, and suddenly in the 19th century there was a lot of fossil evidence.
他實(shí)際上只有一個(gè)瑕疵,那就是沒(méi)能計(jì)算出地球的年齡。這個(gè)問(wèn)題占去了他后半生的許多時(shí)間,但他從來(lái)沒(méi)有得出個(gè)比較正確的數(shù)字。1862年,在為一本名叫《麥克米倫》的通俗雜志寫的一篇文章里,他第一次提出地球的年齡是9800萬(wàn)年,但謹(jǐn)慎地認(rèn)為這個(gè)數(shù)字最小可為2000萬(wàn)年,最大可達(dá)4億年。他還小心翼翼地承認(rèn),他的計(jì)算可能是錯(cuò)的,要是"造物主的大倉(cāng)庫(kù)里備有我們目前沒(méi)有掌握的資料"的話--但是,他顯然認(rèn)為那是不可能的。   隨著時(shí)間的過(guò)去,開爾文的結(jié)論變得越來(lái)越確切,越來(lái)越不正確。他不停地把自己的估計(jì)數(shù)字往下降,從最大的4億年降到1億年,然后又降到5000萬(wàn)年,最后在1897年降到了僅僅2400萬(wàn)年。開爾文并不是在隨心所欲,只是因?yàn)槲锢韺W(xué)無(wú)法解釋為什么像太陽(yáng)這么個(gè)龐然大物可以連續(xù)燃燒幾千萬(wàn)年以上,而又耗不盡其燃料。因此,他就想當(dāng)然地認(rèn)為,太陽(yáng)及其行星必然相對(duì)年輕。   問(wèn)題在于,幾乎所有的化石都證明和這個(gè)結(jié)論相矛盾。而突然之間,19世紀(jì)發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量的化石。