5篇英语精读文章+翻译

1.Can We Know the Universe? - Reflections on a Grain of Salt

Carl Sagan

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things - from sub-nuclear particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole. Our intuition is by no means an infallible guide. Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world.

Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a grain of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage-at the very least, the courage to question the conventional wisdom.

But to what extent can we really know the universe around us? Sometimes this question is posed by people who hope the answer will be in the negative, who are fearful of a universe in which everything might one day be known. And sometimes we hear pronouncements from scientists who confidently state that everything worth knowing will soon be known - or even is already known.

Let us approach a much more modest question: not whether we can know the universe or the Milky Way Galaxy or a star or a world. Can we know ultimately and in detail, a grain of salt? Consider one microgram of table salt, a speck just barely large enough for someone with keen eyesight to make out without a microscope. In that grain of salt there are about 1016 sodium and chlorine atoms. This is a 1 followed by 16 zeros, 10 million billion atoms. If we wish to know a grain of salt, we must know at least the three-dimensional positions of each of these atoms. (In fact, there is much more to be known - for example, the nature of the forces between the atoms - but we are making only a modest calculation.) Now, is this number more or less than the number of things which the brain can know?

How much can the brain know? There are perhaps 1011 neurons in the brain, the circuit elements and switches that are responsible in their electrical and chemical activity for the functioning of our minds. A typical brain neuron has perhaps a thousand little wires, called dendrites, which connect it with its fellows. If, as seems likely, every bit of information in the brain corresponds to one of these connections, the total number of things knowable by the brain is no more than 1014, one hundred trillion. But this number is only one percent of the number of atoms in our speck of salt.

So in this sense the universe is intractable, astonishingly immune to any human attempt at full knowledge. We cannot on this level understand a grain of salt, much less the universe.

But let us look more deeply at our microgram of salt. Salt happens to be a crystal in which, except for defects in the structure of the crystal lattice, the position of every sodium and chlorine atom is predetermined. If we could shrink ourselves into this crystalline world, we could see rank upon rank of atoms in an ordered array, a regularly alternating structure - sodium, chlorine, sodium, chlorine, specifying the sheet of atoms we are standing on and all the sheets above us and below us. An absolutely pure crystal of salt could have the position of every atom specified by something like 10 bits of information. This would not strain the information-carrying capacity of the brain.

If the universe had natural laws that governed its behavior to the same degree of regularity that determines a crystal of salt, then, of course, the universe would be knowable.Even if there were many such laws, each of considerable complexity, human beings might have the capacity to understand them all.Even if such knowledge exceeded the information-carrying capacity of the brain, we might store the additional information outside our bodies - in books, for example, or in computer memories - and still, in some sense, know the universe.

Human beings are, understandably, highly motivated to find regularities, natural laws. The search for rules, the only possible way to understand such a vast and complex universe, is called science. The universe forces those who live in it to understand it. Those creatures who find everyday experience a muddled jumble of events with no predictability, no regularity, are in grave peril. The universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out.

It is an astonishing fact that there are laws of nature, rules that summarize conveniently - not just qualitatively but quantitatively - how the world works. We might imagine a universe in which there are no such laws, in which the 1080 elementary particles that make up a universe like our own behave with utter and uncompromising abandon. To understand such a universe we would need a brain at least as massive as the universe. It seems unlikely that such a universe could have life and intelligence, because beings and brains require some degree of internal stability and order. But even if in a much more random universe there were such beings with an intelligence much greater than our own, there could not be much knowledge, passion or joy.

Fortunately for us, we live in a universe that has at least important parts that are knowable. Our common-sense experience and our evolutionary history have prepared us to understand something of the workaday world.

When we go into other realms, however, common sense and ordinary intuition turn out to be highly unreliable guides.

For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.

2.Extraterrestrial Life

A. Bowdoin Van Riper

Whether life exists anywhere in the universe besides Earth is an open question, one that Western scholars have debated for over 200 years without coming significantly closer to a solution.Proving that extraterrestrial life does not exist is, by definition, impossible.Our galaxy is too large for us to investigate every corner of it where life might have arisen since we last looked, and it is only one galaxy among many.Proving that extraterrestrial life does exist is easy in principle but difficult in practice.The discovery of an alien organism would provide proof, but searching for one would require interstellar travel-something well beyond humans' technological reach.

NONINTELLIGENT LIFE IN OUR GALAXY

Most of the planets and moons in our solar system appear inhospitable to life as we know it. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune lack solid surfaces and receive only limited sunlight. Mercury is baked and irradiated by the sun, while Pluto is perpetually dark and frozen. Venus's dense atmosphere creates crushing pressures, intense heat, and corrosive rain at its surface. Few of the solar system's moons, and none of its asteroids, are large enough to hold even a thin atmosphere. The most likely places to search for life in our solar system appear to be Mars and the larger moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Robot spacecraft have photographed Mars, Europa, and Titan from space. Robot landers have explored small portions of the Martian surface. Finding intelligent life on any of the three worlds now seems unlikely. Finding simpler forms of life, if they exist at all, is likely to require systematic observation at close range.

The probability that life exists somewhere else in our galaxy is high, simply because the number of stars in our galaxy is so high. Even if only a tiny fraction of stars have planets, even if only a tiny fraction of those planets are suitable for life, even if life only develops on a fraction of those planets, and even if intelligence only evolves on a fraction of the planets with life, there are still likely to be thousands of life-bearing planets in our galaxy. Finding such life will, however, mean finding the planets. Even if

interstellar travel was routine, the job would be daunting. It would mean finding one world among thousands, with no evidence of its special status visible at interstellar distances.

INTELLIGENT LIFE IN OUR GALAXY

Intelligent life, if it exists elsewhere, is likely to be much rarer than nonintelligent life. It may, however, prove easier actually to find. Our own species beams a steady stream of radio and television signals into space and attaches information-laden metal plates to spacecraft headed out of the solar system. The signals are an accidental by-product of broadcasting; the plates are a conscious attempt at communication. Both announce our existence, our level of technological sophistication, and a tiny bit about our culture.

It is also possible that a sufficiently intelligent and technologically adept species might find us before we develop the ability to go looking for it. Believers in the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs argue that such encounters have already happened, either in the past or in the present. Most mainstream scientists are skeptical of such beliefs, explaining purported encounters with aliens in more prosaic terms.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE IN POPULAR CULTURE

Popular culture depicts thousands of human encounters with extraterrestrial life. Entire subgenres of science fiction are devoted to such encounters: "first contact" stories, "alien invasion" stories, "aliens among us" stories, and so on. A detailed discussion of popular culture's treatment of aliens could easily fill a book. Nearly all stories about extraterrestrial life, however, follow three well-established conventions.

First, most stories featuring imagined extraterrestrial life tend to focus on one or, at most, two species from any given world. Gatherings of intelligent aliens from many worlds are common, but fully imagined alien ecosystems are not. The reason for this is both obvious and understandable. Ecosystems are extraordinarily complex. Describing one on Earth, the building blocks of which are familiar, is a significant challenge; creating a plausible alien ecosystem from scratch, using very different building blocks, is an even greater challenge.

Second, the physical form of extraterrestrial species reflects human attitudes toward species on Earth. The sweet-natured title character of Stephen Spielberg's film E.T. has a head that is large in proportion to its body and eyes that are large in proportion to its head. It has, in other words, the basic morphology of a human infant. Alien species that invade or attack the earth often resemble creatures that Western culture deems unpleasant. Powerful and benevolent aliens, on the other hand, recall angels in their lack of permanent physical bodies. Their evolution "beyond the need for physical form" is also suggestive of ideas about the afterlife.

Third, the personalities and thought patterns of intelligent aliens closely resemble those of humans. Alien invaders of Earth want what human invaders want: territory, resources, slaves, or mates. Alien benefactors of Earth act out of altruism or paternalism or to secure allies in a hostile universe. Humans and aliens routinely discover that despite their physical differences, they share many of the same hopes and fears.

We know nothing of how extraterrestrial life - if it exists - appears, behaves, or (if intelligent) thinks. Stories about it thus allow for limitless imagination. We tend, nevertheless, to imagine aliens whose appearance reflects our attitudes toward species here on Earth and whose thought and behavior patterns mirror our own. The reason for this is less a failure of imagination than an acknowledgement of dramatic necessity.

Stories about human encounters with alien species are, ultimately, stories about us rather than the aliens. The innocent, stranded aliens of films like Escape from the Planet of the Apes and Starman are litmus tests for human society. Good-hearted individuals shelter and aid them, but those in power persecute them; the stories simultaneously reveal the best and worst of human behavior. Stories like these require aliens that are more human than any real alien species is likely to be-aliens that are human enough for human characters to interact with and for human audiences to care about.

3.We Are All Scientists

Thomas H. Huxley

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about.There is no more difference, between the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person, than there is between the operations and methods of a baker weighing out his goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely graduated weights.It is not that the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, differ in the principles of their construction or manner of working; but the beam of one is set on an infinitely finer axis than the other, and of course turns by the addition of a much smaller weight.

You have all heard it repeated, that men of science work by means of induction and deduction: and that by the help of these operations, they wring from Nature certain other things, which are called natural laws and causes, and that out of these, they build up hypotheses and theories. And it is imagined by many that the operations of the common mind can by no

means be compared with these processes, and that they have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to the craft. To hear all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men; but if you will not be frightened by the terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong. Probably there is not one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the causes of natural phenomena.

A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify this. Suppose you go into a fruiter's shop, wanting an apple--you take up one, and, on biting it, you find it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard and green. You take up another one, and that too is hard, green, and sour. The shop man offers you a third; but, before biting it, you find it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you will not have it, as it must be sour.

Nothing can be simpler than that, but if you take the trouble to analyze and trace out into its logical elements what has been done by the mind, you will be greatly surprised. You found that, in the two experiences, hardness and greenness in apples went together with sourness. When you are offered another apple which is hard and green, you say: "All hard and green apples are sour; this apple is hard and green, therefore it is sour." You see, you have, in the first place, established a law by induction, and upon that you have founded a deduction, and reasoned out the special conclusion of the particular case. Now, suppose, someday, you are questioned by a friend: "But how do you know that all hard and green apples are sour?" You at once reply, "Oh, because I have tried them over and over again, and have always found them to be so." Well, if we were talking science instead of common sense, we should call that an experimental verification. The more extensive verifications are, the more frequently experiments have been made, and results of the same kind arrived at, and the more varied the conditions under which the same results are attained, the more certain is the ultimate conclusion. And in science, as in common life, our confidence in a law is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result of our experimental verifications. We believe gravitation in such an extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal experience of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any time; and that is the strongest possible foundation on which any natural law can rest.

Let us now take another example.

Suppose that on coming down to the parlor of your house, you find that a teapot and some spoons which had been left in the room are gone--the window is open, and you observe the mark of a dirty hand on the window frame, and you notice the impress of a hobnailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and before two

seconds have passed you say, "Oh, somebody has broken open the window, entered the room, and run off with the spoons and the teapot!" You mean to say exactly what you know; but in reality you are giving a hypothesis. You do not know it at all; it is nothing but a hypothesis rapidly framed in your own mind. By a train of reasoning involving many inductions and deductions, you have probably arrived at the general law that the windows do not open by themselves. Something has opened the window. A second general law you have arrived at is that teapots and spoons do not go out of a window spontaneously. They have been removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the windowsill and the shoe-marks outside, and you conclude that they are made by a man. You assume from all these premises that the man who made the marks outside and on the window sill, opened the window, got into the room, and stole your teapot and spoons.

Now, in this supposition case, I have taken phenomena of a very common kind, in order that you might see what are the different steps in an ordinary process of reasoning. I say that you are led to your conclusion by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which a man of science pursues when he is endeavoring to discover the origin and laws of the most occult phenomena. The only difference is that the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse, every step has to be most carefully watched, so that there may not be a single crack or flaw in his hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses of daily life may be of little or no moment; but, in a scientific inquiry, a fallacy, great or small, is always of importance, and is sure to be in the long run constantly productive of mischievous, if not fatal results.

https://www.sodocs.net/doc/0c3924829.html,puter Addicts

Dina Ingber

It is 3 A.M. Everything on the university campus seems ghostlike in the quiet, misty darkness--everything except the computer center. Here, twenty students sit transfixed at their consoles, tapping away on the terminal keys. For the rest of the world, it might be the middle of the night, but here time does not exist. As in the gambling casinos of Las Vegas, there are no windows or clocks. This is a world unto itself. Like gamblers, these young computer "hackers" are pursuing a kind of compulsion, a drive so consuming it overshadows nearly every other part of their lives and forms the focal point of their existence. They are compulsive computer programmers.

What do they do at the computer at all hours of the day or night? They design and play complex games; they delve into the computer's memory bank for obscure tidbits of information; like ham radio operators, they communicate with hackers in other areas who are plugged into the same system. They even do their everyday chores by computer, typing term

papers and getting neat printouts. By breaking the code, they can cut into other programs, discovering secrets in computerized systems or making mischievous (and often costly) changes to other people's programs.

Computer-science teachers are now more aware of the implications of this hacker phenomenon and are on the lookout for potential hackers and cases of computer addiction that are already severe. They know that the case of the hackers is not just the story of one person's relationship with a machine. It is the story of a society's relationship to the so-called thinking machines, which are becoming almost ubiquitous.

Many feel we are now on the verge of a computer revolution that will change our lives as drastically as the invention of the printing press and the Industrial Revolution changed society in the past. By the most conservative estimates, one out of three American homes will have computers or terminals within the next five to ten years. Electronic toys and games, which came on the market in 1976, already comprise a more than half-billion-dollar business. And though 300,000 Americans now work full time programming computers, at least another 1.2 million will be needed by 1990. Many of them are likely to come from today's young hackers.

There is a strong camaraderie and sense of belonging among hackers. They have their own subculture, with the usual in jokes and even a whole vocabulary based on computer terminology (there is even a hacker's dictionary). But to outsiders, they are a strange breed. In high schools, the hackers are called nerds or the brain trust. They spend most of their free time in the computer room and don't socialize much. And many have trouble with interpersonal relationships.

Joel Bion, a sophomore at Stanford, explains how he got hooked: "I've been working with computers since I was eight. I grew up in Minnesota and I didn't have many friends. I wasn't into sports and couldn't participate in gym class because I had asthma. Then I found a computer terminal at school. I bought some books and taught myself. Pretty soon I was spending a few hours on it every day. Then I was there during vacations. Sure, I lost some friends, but when I first started I was so fascinated. Here was a field I could really feel superior in. I had a giant program, and I kept adding and adding to it. And I could use the computer to talk to people all over the state, I thought that was a great social interaction. But, of course, it wasn't, because I never came into face-to-face contact."

Interesting and malleable are the two key words if you want to understand the hacker's addiction and the increasing allure of the computer for all segments of our society.

The computer can be almost as interesting as a human being. Like people, it is interactive. When you ask it a question, it gives you an answer. And because it stores great quantities of information, it can often answer

more questions, more accurately, than human friends. This interaction has led some to attribute human characteristics to the machine.

Hackers are not the only ones interacting with the computer on a personal level. The amazing powers of the machine have enticed even the most sophisticated scientists into wondering just how human it can become. The newly developing science of artificial intelligence aims at programming the computer to think, reason and react in much the same way that people do. Computers can diagnose a patient's ailments and recommend treatments. They can mimic the dialogue of a psychotherapist or the reasoning of a lawyer.

If computers can replace our most admired humans, the professionals, then why shouldn't the hackers feel close to them and invest emotional energy in them? After all, the computer seems to have unlimited potential. Already, with today's technology, tens of thousands of words can be stored on a tiny silicon chip measuring less than a centimeter square and millimeter thick. And any item of information on the chip can be called up and displayed on a TV screen in a fraction of a second. So the computer user has access to worlds of information within reach, literally, of his fingertips. And the computer can rearrange that information and interrelate facts or draw conclusions at the programmer's command. It is extremely malleable.

Computer-science teachers say they can usually pick out the prospective hackers in their courses because these students make their homework assignments more complex than they need to be. Rather than using the simplest and most direct method, they take joy in adding extra steps just to prove their ingenuity.

But perhaps those hackers know something that we don't about the shape of things to come. "That hacker who had to be literally dragged off his chair at MIT is now a multimillionaire of the computer industry," says MIT professor Michael Dertouzos. "And two former hackers became the founders of the highly successful Apple home-computer company."

When seen in this light, the hacker phenomenon may not be so strange after all. If, as many psychiatrists say, play is really the basis for all human activity, then the hacker games are really the preparation for future developments.

Computers are not just becoming more and more a part of our world. To a great degree they are our world. It is therefore not unlikely that our relationship with them will become as subjective as that of the hackers. So perhaps hackers are, after all, harbingers of the world to come.

5.Why Superstitions?

Peter Lorie

Every age pays attention to the ancient superstitions according to a certain subtle fashion, very often knowing nothing about the original sources from which they derived. It wasn't so long ago that bibles were fanned in front of sick men's faces and communion wine was prescribed for whooping cough while women bathed their sore eyes with baptismal water. Although modem Westerners would not admit to crossing themselves when faced with potential evil such as a passing magpie, they do cross fingers to prevent bad luck. Some superstitions merely transform from the original, and the original is frequently a relic of still more ancient cultures and long-vanished ways of life. Above all, superstitions remain as outward expressions of the tensions and anxieties that hold sway over humanity as it struggles down the corridor of life from birth to death, full of change and uncertainty.

We can see the superstition, therefore, as a kind of reassurance against fluctuation as though we are part of an impenetrable mystery with incomprehensible rules.

And yet - strangely perhaps in this age of reason - it very often turns out that we are more interested in the mysteries of superstitions than in previous centuries when they were taken for granted, and that in fact there is much more to many superstitions than is at first obvious. Mistletoe, for example, was the most holy of plants to the Druids, why so? To hang a sprig of this strange plant in a house at Christmas is to attract young men to kiss young women beneath it, each time plucking one of the berries from the sprig. Why should this be so? Who started it? Why did the hanging of mistletoe keep away the devil? The young woman to whom the man had given the plucked berry would retire to her room, lock the door and swallow the berry. She would then inscribe the initials of the man onto a mistletoe leaf and "stitch it into her corset close to her heart, binding him to her so long as it remain there."

Superstitious nonsense! But how do we maintain the best love affairs, the best and most happy relationships? By mutual concern, by bringing the partner close to an open heart, by honesty and warmth, by acknowledging their presence in our lives. How better to represent this than with a mistletoe leaf inscribed and secreted in the most intimate place?

All superstition has grown from something; there is no smoke without fire. Who was the first one to decide that opening an umbrella in a house is bad luck? Who was the first to walk under a ladder and suffer the consequences? Who smashed a mirror, and spilled salt to spend a life-sentence at the hands of the fates? Who first branded Friday the 13th as a day on which luck would run out? What was the world like that produced and maintained such extraordinary ideas?

The bulk of the population, aside perhaps from the aristocratic classes, was concerned largely with the search for or production of food; therefore the changes of the seasons, the success or failure of the crops and all the influences that nature had upon life. The greater part of the populations of Europe lived in rural areas in small isolated communities. The difference between rich and poor was marked, and 99 percent of the people were very poor. Even as late as seventeenth century England, around two-thirds of the adult male population were unable to read and would sign their names with an "X."

Life was extremely hazardous, and the central feature of day-to-day existence was a preoccupation with the explanation for and relief of human misfortune. In seventeenth-century Europe, for example, life-expectancy was influenced by the constant presence of sickness and premature death. The average life expectancy at birth of boys born in the last part of that century was just under 30 years. Today it is around 70 years. One-third of the children within the aristocracy died before the age of five.

Food supply, of course, was totally reliant on the success of harvests in the local areas. Each family went either to the local farms and bartered goods for food direct from the land, grew it themselves, or at best went to local village markets. If an epidemic of bubonic plague happened to coincide with a poor harvest, the population could suffer as much as a 50 percent loss in one year! The seventeenth-century plague in England, for example, killed 34 percent of people living in the London area. It is said that the greatest reason why this particular epidemic was stopped was the Great Fire of London in 1666, which literally burned the dirty and rat-infested buildings to the ground and thus ended the spread of disease. Living in these times was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

The main causes of disease were readily seen to be derived from supernatural sources, and the only form of psychotherapy was provided by the clergy. Physicians were regarded with the greatest suspicion and "avoided like the plague" they sought unsuccessfully to cure.

Helplessness in the face of disease and suffering was perhaps the most essential element in the background to the beliefs of superstition, but not the only reason. There was also fire. The only form of light after the sun went down was fire, and fire killed relentlessly and often. The Great Fire of London was only one example of an uncontrollable element within ordinary lives. So many other examples of death by fire existed that it seems if one survived ill-health one would as readily die of accidental burning.

But the greatest single source of superstition was the magic of religion. Throughout the whole of the Western developing world, all the way from the most ancient pagan beliefs right up to the beginning of the Americas, religion and its powerful rituals gave life to superstition.

1与其说科学是一套知识体系倒不如说是一种思维方式。其目标是弄清世界如何运转，探求可能存在的规律，洞察事物之间的联系---从可能是构成万物的基本单位的亚核粒子到生命有机体及人类社会乃至整个宇宙之间的联系。我们的直觉是一点也不可靠的。由于教育和偏见，或者由于我们感觉器官的局限，我们的认知会出现偏差，我们的感觉器官只能直接感知世界上的一小部分现象。

甚至像“在没有摩擦力的情况下，一磅铅是否要比一点绒毛下落得快”这样简单的问题，在伽利略之前的亚里士多德和几乎所有的人都回答错了。科学基于实验，基于勇于怀疑古训，基于渴求探索宇宙真理。因此，科学有时需要勇气，至少需要有敢于怀疑传统知识的勇气。

我们对周围的世界能认识多少呢？有时那些提出这样问题的人希望得到否定的答案，他们害怕一个终将可能被完全认识的世界。有时这样的问题是一些科学家提出的，他们自信地宣称，一切值得我们认识的事物很快就会被认识，甚至已经被认识了。

让我们来考虑一个要小得多的问题：不是我们能否认识宇宙，或者银河系，或者一个星球，或者一个世界的问题，而是我们能否最终完全认识一粒盐的问题。设想一微克的食盐，只有一个视力好的人不借助显微镜刚好能看到的那么大一粒。在那一粒盐中，有约1016个钠和氯的原子，也就是1后面有16个0，即1亿亿个原子。如果我们想要认识一粒盐的话，至少我们得知道每一个原子的空间位置。（事实上，还有许多需要知道的---比如，原子之间力的性质等问题，不过我们现在尽量少考虑一些。)这个数字和人脑能够认知的事情相比是多还是少呢？

人脑有多大认知能力呢？大脑中约有1011个神经元，它们是在电和化学反应中控制我们大脑活动的电路元件和开关。典型的神经元上面有约1000个须状物，叫做树突, 树突把这些神经元与其同类连接起来。如果大脑中的每条信息对应一个树突的话（情况很可能是这样的），大脑最多可以认知1014个事物，也就是100万亿，不过这个数字仅仅是我们那一粒盐中原子数量的1%。

因此，在这个意义上，宇宙是难以认识的，人类想要获得完全的认知是不可能的，这个结论出乎我们的意料。在这个层面上，我们连一粒盐也认识不了，更不用说认识宇宙了。

不过，让我们再深入研究一下我们这一微克的盐。盐正好是晶体，在晶体中，除非晶格结构有缺陷，每个氯原子和钾原子的位置是固定的。如果我们能缩小身体，走进这个晶体世界的话，我们就会看到一排排的原子有序排列，呈规则的交互结构---氯、钠、氯、钠，这样的结构规则统治着我们所站立的这排原子，以及我们上面和下面所有的原子。一粒纯晶体盐中原子的位置可以说是由10位信息的规则所规定的，这就不会让大脑的信息负荷能力感到吃力了。

如果宇宙运行的自然规律都像一粒晶体盐那样有规则的话，那么宇宙当然可以被认知了。即使有许多这样的规则，每条规则都相当复杂，人类也可能有能力全部认识它们。即便这样的知识超出了大脑的信息负荷能力，我们可以把放不下的信息储存在体外，比如储存在书本中、计算机存储器中，我们仍然可以在某种程度上认识宇宙。

人类非常积极地探求规则和自然规律是可以理解的，它是认识如此浩瀚复杂宇宙的惟一可能的途径，探求规律就叫做科学。宇宙迫使居住其间的生命认识它，那些没有预见能力，没有规律，每天生活在混沌中的生命是很危险的。宇宙至少在某种程度上属于那些认识了它的生命。

让人惊讶的是居然有数量众多的、高质量的自然规律和规则，方便地总结了世界是如何运行的。我们可以设想一个没有这些规律的宇宙：那些和组成我们这个宇宙一样的1080个基本粒子完全自由、互不相让地任意运动。要认识这样的宇宙，我们需要一个至少和这个宇宙一样大的大脑，看来这样的宇宙不可能有生命和智慧，因为生命和大脑需要一定程度的内部稳定和秩序。即使在一个混乱的宇宙中有比我们智慧高得多的生命，也不可能有多少知识、激情和快乐。

我们很幸运，生活在一个至少其重要部分可以被认识的宇宙，我们的日常经历和我们的进化史给我们提供了某种程度上认识这个世界的前提，然而我们进入到其他领域时，常识和日常的直觉还是很不可靠的向导。

就我个人来说，我喜欢一个存在着许多未知，同时又是可知的宇宙。一个一切都已被认识了的世界是静止的，也是枯燥的，就像某些低能的神学家的天堂一样乏味。一个不可知的宇宙对于有思想的生命来说是不适合的。对我们来说理想的宇宙就像我们居住的宇宙一样，我想这实在也不是一个巧合。

2

在地球之外，宇宙的其他地方是否存在生命现仍无定论。西方学者已就此争论了200多年，但与最终结论还有相当的距离。要证明外星生物不存在从概念上讲是不可能的。银河系太大了，使我们无法探索其每个角落。或许在我们的探索工作刚刚完成之后，生命却产生了，况且银河系只不过是众多星系中的一个。要证明外星生物确实存在，理论上虽容易，但实际上是很困难的。找到外星生物体可以为此提供证据，但是要寻找这样的证据就需要进行星际旅行---这远远超乎了人类科技发展水平。

银河系中的非智慧生物

我们知道，太阳系中大多数的行星和卫星似乎不适合生命存在。木星、土星、天王星和海王星缺乏坚实的地表，光照也非常有限。水星处于太阳的烘烤和辐射之下。而冥王星则常年暗无天日，天寒地冻。金星浓稠的大气形成了极具毁灭性的、被压力、炽热和酸雨所笼罩的地表。太阳系中的所有小游星和绝大多数卫星都没有大到足以吸聚哪怕非常稀薄的大气层。在太阳系中最有可能寻求生命的地方看来只有火星以及木星、土星的大卫星。载有机器人的宇宙飞船已从太空拍下了火星、欧罗巴星以及泰坦星的情况。机器人着陆舱也已对火星表面的少部分进行了探测。现在看来已经不可能在这其中

任何一个星球上找到高级生物了。如果较为低级的生物存在的话，寻找它们可能会需要在近距离进行系统观测。

在我们这个星系的其他地方存在生命的可能性是极高的，因为此星系中的恒星数量极多。即使恒星中只有极少部分有行星，即使这些行星中只有极少数适合生命存在，即使适合生命生存的行星中只有部分孕育出了生命，即使这些孕育了生命的行星中只有一部分发生了智慧进化，那么在我们星系中仍可能有成千上万颗行星中有生命体存在。不过要找到这些生命体就意味着要找到这些行星。即便是星际旅行已成家常便饭，这项工作也会使人却步。由于在茫茫星空中无法确定其特殊状况，要想找到它们无异于大海捞针。

银河中的智慧生物

如果智慧生物在其他星球存在的话，它会比非智慧生物稀少得多。不过，智慧生物可能会更容易找到。我们人类一直在向太空发射无线电及电视信号。并且在飞出太阳系的宇宙飞船上安装了存储信息的金属盘。发出的信号是进行广播时偶然的副产品；金属盘是进行联络的有意尝试。这两种方式都在宣告我们的存在、科技的发展水平和一小部分文化。

另外一种可能就是某个智能发达、技术先进的物种在我们有能力找到它们之前先发现我们。那些相信UFO来自外星的人们认为，无论是过去还是现在，这种与外星人的接触业已发生。大多数正统科学家对此持怀疑态度。他们在解释这些所谓的“遭遇”时，语气要平淡得多。

大众文化中的外星人

大众文化中有着成千上万人类同外星人相遇的情景。科幻小说中也有单独的类别专门叙述这样的内容：“初次相遇”、“外星人入侵”、“外星人在我们身边”等等。有关大众文化对外星人的处理方式的详细讨论可以很容易就写成一本书。不过几乎所有关于外星人的故事都依照以下三个固定的套路。

第一，大多数故事在对想像中的外星人描述时都集中体现在一种或至多两种来自特定星球的生命体上。关于各种星球上的智慧生物的素材比比皆是，但精心构想的有关外星人生态系统的描述却是罕有的。其原因既显而易见，又情有可原。生态系统是错综复杂的。对于我们熟知其组成部分的地球的描述已具有一定的挑战性，拟造一个合情合理的且具有不同组成部分的外星生态系统则是更大的挑战。

第二，外星人的外形反映出人类对于地球物种的态度。在斯蒂文·斯皮尔伯格的电影《外星人》中，性情温柔的主人公就有着一个与身体不相称的大脑袋和一双与头部不相称的大眼睛。换句话说，它有着婴儿的基本形象。入侵或进攻地球的外星人经常与西方文化中令人生厌的形象相类似。另一方面，强壮、乐善好施的外星人则形体飘忽不定，映射出天使的外形。这种可以“脱离肉身”的进化也是对于来世的暗示。

第三，智慧生物的性情及思维方式与人类极其接近。外星入侵者想要得到的东西与人类侵略者毫无两样：土地、资源、奴隶或者情人。乐善好施的外星人在地球上的行为体现了大公无私或承担重任，抑或在充满敌意的宇宙空间保护同盟者的精神。人类和外星人经常会发现，尽管长相各异，他们具有共同的希望，怀着同样的畏惧。

我们不了解外星人---如果他们的确存在的话---是如何产生的，行为举止如何，如何思考（如果是智慧生物的话）。因此外星人的故事拥有无限的想像空间，不过我们想像中外星人的样子一般都反映出了我们对于地球物种的看法。外星人的思想及行为方式也是我们自身的映射。究其原因，与其说这是想像力的枯竭，倒不如承认这是出于营造戏剧效果的需要。

人类遭遇外星人的故事归根结底是关于我们自身而非外星人的故事。《逃出人猿星球》和《外星人》等电影中淳朴天真、身陷困境的外星人实际上检验了人类社会。好心人保护和帮助他们，而当权者则加以迫害，这同时揭露了人类行为中最美好和最恶劣的两方面。这些故事中描述的外星人比任何真正的外星人更具人性---他们必须被完全人性化以便同人类交往并引起我们观众的关注。

3科学调查的方法其实只是人类大脑思维必要方式的一种表达。它只是对所有现象做出推理的一种方式。科学家与普通人的思维方式之区别无异于面包师用普通秤秤货的方式和化学家用天平秤和精确砝码作困难复杂分析的方式之区别。并不是两者的秤在构造原理和操作方式上有什么区别，只是后者的秤杆比前者的精确得多，砝码也小得多。

你们都不止一次地听说过科学家的工作方式是归纳和演绎。以此，他们从自然中探索到自然规律和自然现象的起因，并在此基础上创立假设和理论。许多人设想，普通人的思维不可与这一过程相提并论。只有通过专门的训练才能形成这种归纳和演绎的思维方式。听了这些深奥的词，你们或许会认为科学家的大脑构造必定不同于普通人。但是如果不被这些术语吓倒，你们会发现这一想法是错误的。也许没有人在一天之中没做过像科学家在探索自然现象起因时的那种复杂推理，当然，只是程度不一而已。

一个简单的例子就能说明这一问题。假设你走进一家水果店，去买水果。---你拿起一个苹果，咬了一口，发觉它是酸的；你看了看苹果，发现它又硬又青。你拿起另一个苹果，发现它也是又硬又青又酸。店员递给你第三个苹果，在品尝前，你发现它也是又硬又青，你马上会说你不要了，因为它肯定是酸的。

没有比这更简单的道理了。但如果你费神分析，追思一下大脑所作的逻辑思维过程，你会惊讶地发现，在两次经历中，又硬又青的苹果总是酸的。当店员递给你第三个又硬又青的苹果时，你会说：“所有又硬又青的苹果都是酸的，这个苹果又硬又青，所以它是酸的。”你瞧，首先，你通过归纳总结出了一个规律，然后按照这个规律你作了演绎并得出了这一特定例子的特殊结论。好了，假设有一天一个朋友问你：“你怎么知道又硬又青的苹果都是酸的呢？”你会马上回答：“噢，因为我作了一次又一次的

尝试，结果总是如此。”好，如果我们是在谈论科学而不是普通常识，我们可以把上述过程称为实验验证。验证的范围愈广，实验的次数愈多，实验条件的差异性愈大，而结果总是一致，最终的结论就愈肯定。正如日常生活中一样，在科学上，我们对于规律的信心是与实验结果的一致性完全相符的。我们如此广泛深入、毫不犹豫地相信地心引力，是因为人类普遍的经历证实了它，而且我们可以在任何时候自己证明它。这是自然规律可以依赖的最有说服力的基础。

我们来看另一个例子。

假设你来到楼下的客厅，你发现留在屋子里的茶壶和勺子不见了，窗户大开着。你看到留在窗户框架上的手印和窗外砾石上的钉鞋脚印。所有这些立即吸引了你的注意。不到两秒钟，你就会说：“哦，有人破窗而入，偷走了茶壶和勺子。”你是想如实讲述你所知道的情况，但事实上你只是作了一个假设。你对此一无所知。它只不过是立马在你脑子里形成的一种假设。通过一系列归纳和演绎推理，你可能得出第一个普遍规律，即窗户不可能自己打开，必定是外力将它打开的。你得出的第二个普遍规律是茶壶和勺子不会自动跑出窗外，它们是被挪走的。第三，看到窗框上的手印和窗外的脚印，你得出结论说这是人为的。基于这些前提，你认为在窗框和窗外留下痕迹的那个人打开了窗户，走进屋子，偷走了你的茶壶和勺子。

在这个假设例子中，我用了一个十分普通的现象，以便使你能看到普通推理过程中的不同步骤。我说你得出结论的过程是与科学家在试图揭示最深奥的现象的起因和规律的推理顺序是一样的。唯一的区别是后者的研究对象更加深奥，每一步都得缜密考虑，以确保他的假设中没有缺陷或疏漏。日常生活中许多假设的缺陷或疏漏可能影响甚少或无关紧要，但在科学研究上，一个错误的推理，不管大小，总是关系重大。从长远看，其结果即使不是致命的，也必定是有害的。

4凌晨三点，校园的一切在雾蒙蒙的黑夜中死一样寂静---惟有计算机中心例外。在这里，20个学生一动不动地端坐在计算机操作台前，一刻不停地敲击着终端机的键盘。别的地方时间可能已进入了子夜，但在这里时间并不存在。这儿就像是拉斯维加斯的卡西诺赌场，没有窗户，没有钟表。这是一个超脱的世界。就像赌徒一样，这些年轻的计算机“黑客”陷入了一种不由自主的痴迷。这种痴迷消耗了他们全部的精力，使他们其他方面的生活黯然失色。计算机是他们生活的惟一。他们成了身不由己的计算机编程者。

他们没日没夜地在计算机上做什么呢？他们设计和玩各种复杂的游戏；深入到计算机记忆库中探寻隐藏的趣闻；像业余无线电玩家一样，与插入同一系统的异地黑客交流。他们甚至用计算机完成他们的日常功课，如输论文、打印等。通过破译密码，他们能切入别的程序，截取系统机密或对别人的程序作恶作剧的改动（这种改动往往代价高昂）。

计算机科学老师现在更深地意识到黑客现象的含义，并密切关注潜在黑客和日趋严重的计算机痴迷案例。他们知道，黑客事件不只是个人与机器的关系，而是一个社会与所谓的会思考的机器的关系。这一现象正在扩展到我们社会的每一个角落。

许多人觉得我们现在正面临一场计算机革命。正如过去印刷术的发明和工业革命改变了我们的社会，这场革命也将极大地改变我们的生活。以最保守估计，三分之一的美国家庭在未来的五到十年中会有计算机或终端机。1976年上市的电子玩具和游戏现已占了5亿美元以上的生意。虽然目前已有30万美国人在参与全职编程，到1990年至少另需120万全职编程人员。他们中的许多人很可能来自今天年轻的黑客。

黑客之间有很强的同行情谊和归属感。他们有自己的亚文化。其形式通常是玩笑，甚至全部使用计算机术语的行话（现在甚至出现了黑客词典）。但对局外人来说，他们是另类。在中学，黑客们被称为讨厌鬼或智囊团。他们的大部分空余时光在计算机房度过，很少与人交往，许多黑客在人际关系方面有障碍。

乔尔·彼翁是斯坦福大学二年级的学生。他讲述了自己上瘾的经过：“我8岁开始玩计算机。我在明尼苏达州长大，没有太多的朋友。我不参加运动项目，也不能上体操课，因为我有哮喘病。后来我发现了学校的计算机终端机。我买了一些书开始自学。不久，我每天都有几小时在上机。后来，我一到假期就去上机。当然，我失去了许多朋友。但开始时我非常着迷。在这个领域，我真正感到我比别人强。我有一个庞大的程序并每天不断增添。我可用计算机与本州所有人交流。我原以为这是一种了不起的社会交流。但当然它不是，因为我从来没有面对面地与人交谈。”

黑客之所以沉迷于计算机，及计算机对我们社会各行各业之所以越来越具有吸引力，关键在于它有意思并且能适应我们的各种需求。

计算机几乎可以与人类一样有趣。像人一样，你可以与它交流。你提问，它就回答。因为储存了大量的信息，它可以比现实世界的朋友回答更多的问题，答案也更确切。这种交流特点使一些人把人的特点赋予了机器。

黑客并不是进行人机对话的惟一人类。计算机令人着迷的功能甚至吸引了最富经验的科学家思考究竟它能人性化到什么程度。刚开发的人工智能科学致力于开发像人类一样能思考、推理、作出应答的计算机程序。计算机能诊断病人的疾病，推荐治疗方法。它们能模仿心理医生的对话或律师的推理。

如果计算机可以取代我们最崇拜的人类---专业人士，那么为什么黑客不该接近它们，并在它们身上倾注感情呢？毕竟，计算机有无限的潜力。用今天的技术我们已可把成千上万的词条储存到一片边长不足一厘米，厚度不足一毫米的正方形硅片里。不到一秒钟，硅片上的任何一条信息都可以被提取，并在计算机屏幕上显示出来。因此，可以毫不夸张地说计算机用户一伸手就可以进入到信息世界。根据编程者的指令，计算机可以重新安排信息，把相关的事实连接起来或得出结论。计算机完全能适应我们的需求。

英语精读第二册课文翻译

UNIT 2-1 一场关于男人是否比女人勇敢的激烈的讨论以一个意外的方式。晚宴我最初听到这个故事是在印度，那儿的人们今天讲起它来仍好像实有其事似的——尽管任何一位博物学家都知道这不可能是真的。后来有人告诉我，在第一次世界大战之后不久就出现在一本杂志上。但登在杂志上的那篇故事, 以及写那篇故事的人，我却一直未能找到。故事发生在印度。某殖民官员和他的夫人举行盛行的晚宴。跟他们一起就座的客人有——军官和他人的夫人，另外还有一位来访的美国博物学家——筵席设在他们家宽敞的餐室里，室内大理石地板上没有铺地毯；屋顶明椽裸露；宽大的玻璃门外便是阳台。席间，一位年轻的女士同一位少校展开了热烈的讨论。年轻的女士认为，妇女已经有所进步，不再像过去那样一见到老鼠就吓得跳到椅子上；少校则不以为然。“女人一遇到危急情况，”少校说，反应便是尖叫。而男人虽然也可能想叫，但比起女人来，自制力却略胜一筹。这多出来的一点自制力正是真正起作用的东西。”那个美国人没有参加这场争论，他只是注视着在座的其他客人。在他这样观察时，他发现女主人的脸上显出一种奇异的表情。她两眼盯着正前方，脸部肌肉在微微抽搐。她向站在座椅后面的印度男仆做了个手势，对他耳语了几句。男仆两眼睁得大大的，迅速地离开了餐室。在座的客人中，除了那位美国人以外论证也没有注意到这一幕，也没有看到那个男仆把一碗牛奶放在紧靠门边的阳台上。那个美国人突然醒悟过来。在印度，碗中的牛奶只有一个意思——引蛇的诱饵。他意识到餐室里一定有条眼镜蛇。他意识到餐室里一定有条眼镜蛇。他抬头看了看屋顶上的椽子——那是最可能有蛇藏身的地方——但那上面空荡荡的。室内的三个角落里也是空的，而在第四个角落里，仆人们正在等着下一道菜。这样，剩下的就只有一个地方了餐桌下面。他首先想到的是往后一跳，并向其他人发警告。但他知道这样会引起骚乱，致使眼镜索受惊咬人。于是他很快讲了一通话，其语气非常威严，竟使所有的人安静了下来。我想了解一下在座的诸位到底有多大的克制能力，我数三百下——也就五分钟——你们谁都不许动一动。动者将罚款五十卢比。准备好！”在他数数的过程中，那2 0 个人像一尊尊石雕一样端坐在那儿。当他数到“……280……”时，突然从眼然处看到那条眼镜蛇钻了出来，向那碗牛奶爬去。在他跳起来把通往阳台的门全都砰砰地牢牢关上时，室内响起了一片尖叫声。“你刚才说得很对，少校！”男主人大声说。一个男子刚刚为我们显示了从容不迫、镇定自若的范例。”“且慢”，那位美国人一边说着一边转向女主人。温兹太太，你怎么知道那条眼镜蛇是在屋子里呢？”女主人的脸上闪现出一丝淡淡的微笑，回答说：“因为它当时正从我的脚背上爬过去。” UNIT2 杰斐逊很久以前就死了，但是我们仍然对他的一些思想很感兴趣,杰斐逊的箴言, 布鲁斯.布利文、托马斯.杰斐逊美国第三任总统，也许不像乔治.华盛顿和亚伯拉罕.林肯那样著名，但大多数人至少记得有关他的一件事实：《独立宣言》是他起草的。虽然杰斐逊生活在二百多年以前，但我们今天仍可以从他身上学到很多东西。他的许多思想对当代青年特别有意义。下面就是他讲过和写到过的一些观点：自己去看。杰斐逊认为，一个自由的人除了从书本中获取知识外，还可以从许多别的来源获得知识；亲自做调查是很重要的。当他还年轻的时候，他就被任命为一个委员会的成员，去调查詹姆斯河南部支流的水深是否可以通行大型船只。委员会的其他成员都坐在州议会大厦内，研究有关这一问题的文件，而杰斐逊却跳进一只独木舟去做现场观测。你可以向任何人学习。按出身及其所受的教育，杰斐逊均属于最高的社会阶层。然而很少跟出身卑贱的人说话的年代，在那个贵人们除了发号施令以外。杰斐逊却想尽办法跟园丁、仆人和侍者交谈。有一次杰斐逊曾这样对法国贵族拉斐特说：你必须像我那样到平民百性的家里去，看看他们的烧饭锅，吃吃他们的面包。只要你肯这样做，你就会发现老百姓为什么会不满意，你就会理解正在威胁着法国的革命。”自已作判断。未经过认真的思考，杰斐逊绝不接受别人的意见。“不要相信它或拒绝它。

5篇英语精读文章+翻译

1.Can We Know the Universe? - Reflections on a Grain of Salt Carl Sagan Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things - from sub-nuclear particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole. Our intuition is by no means an infallible guide. Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world. Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a grain of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage-at the very least, the courage to question the conventional wisdom. But to what extent can we really know the universe around us? Sometimes this question is posed by people who hope the answer will be in the negative, who are fearful of a universe in which everything might one day be known. And sometimes we hear pronouncements from scientists who confidently state that everything worth knowing will soon be known - or even is already known. Let us approach a much more modest question: not whether we can know the universe or the Milky Way Galaxy or a star or a world. Can we know ultimately and in detail, a grain of salt? Consider one microgram of table salt, a speck just barely large enough for someone with keen eyesight to make out without a microscope. In that grain of salt there are about 1016 sodium and chlorine atoms. This is a 1 followed by 16 zeros, 10 million billion atoms. If we wish to know a grain of salt, we must know at least the three-dimensional positions of each of these atoms. (In fact, there is much more to be known - for example, the nature of the forces between the atoms - but we are making only a modest calculation.) Now, is this number more or less than the number of things which the brain can know? How much can the brain know? There are perhaps 1011 neurons in the brain, the circuit elements and switches that are responsible in their electrical and chemical activity for the functioning of our minds. A typical brain neuron has perhaps a thousand little wires, called dendrites, which connect it with its fellows. If, as seems likely, every bit of information in the brain corresponds to one of these connections, the total number of things knowable by the brain is no more than 1014, one hundred trillion. But this number is only one percent of the number of atoms in our speck of salt.

大学英语精读1课文翻译

大学英语精读1课文翻译 Unit1 Some Strategies or Learning English 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语，然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差？其实，责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑，必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习，有用的词汇必须牢记，而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2．密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过，为什么我们说 "我对英语感兴趣"是"I'm interested in English"，而说"我精于法语"则是"I'm good at French"？你可曾问过自己，为什么以英语为母语的人说"获悉消息或秘密"是"learn the news or secret"，而"获悉某人的成功或到来"却是"learn of someone's success or arrival"？这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时，你不仅必须注意词义，还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3．每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力，而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外，你还可以听英语广播，看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段，你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意，然后再反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。 4．抓住机会说。的确，在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多，但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如，跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们随意交谈。或许练习讲英语最容易的方式是高声朗读，因为这在任何时间，任何地方，不需要搭档就可以做到。例如，你可以看着图片或身边的物件，试着对它们详加描述。你还可以复述日常情景。在商店里购物或在餐馆里吃完饭付过账后，假装这一切都发生在一个讲英语的国家，试着用英语把它表演出来。

人教版(PEP)小学英语课文翻译四年级下

人教版（PEP）小学英语课文翻译四年级下 一单元 首页这是我们的学校！这是食堂。看！那是操场。噢！不！这是图书馆！对不起！这是计算机室吗？不，这是教师办公室。那也是教师办公室吗？不，那是图书馆。 A部分 Let’s learn食堂在哪里？它在一楼。 Let’s do去花园。给花浇水。去图书馆。读故事书。去食堂，吃面条。去教师办公室，交作业。去操场，踢足球。 Let’s talk欢迎来到我们学校！这是教师办公室。那是我的教室。你们班里有多少名学生？45名。你们有图书馆吗？是的。你们在学校吃午餐吗？是的！食堂在一楼。请这边走。看！这是我们的操场。哦，你们学校真漂亮。 Let’s play那是食堂！ Read and write我们有一个新计算机教室！喔！让我们去那吧。看，一个写字板，两个风扇，四盏灯……还有十台新计算机！我喜欢这台。对不起。这台是我的计算机！那台是你的计算机。哦——哦！ B部分 Let’s learn绘画教室在哪儿？在二楼。 Let’s chant学校生活，学校生活。多么的有趣啊！在图书馆里看书。在绘画教室里画画。在食堂吃饭。在体育馆里做游戏。学校生活，学校生活。多么的有趣啊！ Let’s talk 看，这是我的学校。太棒了！这是图书馆吗？是的，它是。那是绘画教室吗？不，它不是。它是音乐教室。绘画教室在一楼。那是电视机房吗？不，它不是。它是计算机教室。哇!你的教室太酷了！谢谢你。 Let’s play

仔细看。这是电视机房吗？不，它是卫生间。对了！ Read and write这是老师办公桌吗？是的，它是。桌子上面有什么？让我们去看一看。这是一台电视吗?不，它是一台计算机。那是一张图画吗？不，它是一张地图。这是地板。那是墙。是的，你是对的。 C部分 Task time 1设计你的学校地图。2讨论你的学校这是图书馆吗？是的，它是。这是操场！太漂亮了! Good to know在图书馆里要保持安静。不要在计算机教室吃东西或喝饮料。不要践踏花园的草坪。不要在门厅推挤。不要在食堂浪费食物。 Story time①欢迎到我们学校来。这边请。太漂亮了！②这是图书馆。这里有许多书。我喜欢故事书。噢！我饿了。③那是音乐教室吗？是的，它是。④这是计算机教室吗?不，它不是计算机教室。它是老师办公室。⑤这是体育馆。它可真大。那是食堂吗？是的，它是。 ⑥吃午饭的时间到了。祖姆在哪儿？祖姆？我知道！我吃饱了。 二单元 首页祖姆，几点了？嗯……伦敦中午12点 12点了。是吃午餐的时间了。北京下午8点是看电视的时间了！开罗下午2点 2点了。让我们去踢足球吧！悉尼下午10点 10点了。是上床睡觉的时间了。晚安，妈妈。纽约上午7点几点了？7点。该起床了。巴西利亚上午9点快点！上学的时间到了！ A部分 Let’s learn 9点了。到上英语课的时间了。 Let’s do早餐时间到了。喝些牛奶。午餐时间到了。吃点鸡肉。晚餐时间到了。吃些米饭。体育课时间到了。跑跑跳跳。英语课时间到了。读读写写。音乐课时间到了。唱唱歌跳跳舞。 Let’s talk 放学了。让我们去操场吧。好的。让我们回家吧，约翰。现在几点了？5点。再玩一会儿吧。回家吧，孩子们。几点了？6点了。是吃晚饭的时间了。噢!让我们跑

大学英语精读第二册翻译

翻译 Unit1 1.她砰地关上门，一声不吭地走了，他们之间那场争执就此结束。 Their argument ended when she slammed the door and left without a word. 2. 出席晚宴的客人对那个美国人威严的语气感到有点意外。 The guests at the dinner party were slightly surprised at the commanding tone of the American. 3. 约翰尼已长大成熟，不再害怕独自呆在家里了。 Johnny has outgrown the fear of staying at home alone. 4. 当全部乘客都向出口处(exit) 走去时，他却独自留在座位上，好像不愿意离开这架飞机似的。 While all the other passengers made for the exit, he alone remained in his seat as if unwilling to leave the plane. 5. 这封信必须交给威尔逊博士本人。 The letter is to be handed to Dr. Wilson himself. 6. 南希虽然很想参加辩论，但腼腆得不敢开口。 While she felt like joining in the argument, Nancy was too shy to open her mouth. 7. 你觉得什么时候最有可能在家里找到他？ What do you think is the likeliest time to find him at home? 8. 猎人一看见有只狐狸从树丛中出现并向他设下(lay) 的陷阱(trap) 方向跑去，脸上顿时闪出了兴奋的表情。 The hunter’s face lit up with excitement as soon as he saw a fox emerge from among the bushes and run in the direction of / make for the trap he had laid. Unit 2 1) 会上有人建议任命一个十一人委员会来制定新章程。 It was suggested at the meeting that a committee of eleven be appointed to make a new constitution. 2) 这些青年科学家通过现场观察，获得了研究工作所需的第一手资料。 By making on-the-spot observations, the young scientists obtained first-hand information they needed in their research work. 3) 他很可能会因视力不好而被拒收入伍。 It is very likely that he will be rejected by the army because of his bad eyesight.

现代大学英语精读翻译

现代大学英语精读翻译 Revised by Hanlin on 10 January 2021

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[实用参考]大学英语精读第三版第四册课文及课文翻译.doc

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