The Cosmos
When I was little, I lived in a section of Brooklyn in the City of New York. I knew my immediate
neighborhood intimately, every apartment building, backyard, empty lot, and elm tree. I knew where my friends lived. But more than a few blocks away, north of the noisy automobile traffic on 86th Street, was a strange unknown territory, off-limits to my wanderings. It could have been Mars for all I knew.
宇宙的
当我还小的时候，我住在布鲁克林的一段在纽约市。我知道我地附近，每栋公寓楼，后院，空地，和榆树。我知道我的朋友住在一起。但超过几个街区之外，北部的嘈杂的汽车交通在第八十六街，是一个奇怪的未知领域，从我的漫游限制。这可能是火星上所有我知道的。
Even with an early bedtime, in winter you could sometimes see the stars. I would look at them,
twinkling and remote, and wonder what they were. I would ask older children and adults, who would only reply, \hovering lamps? Whatever for? There had to be some answer.
即使早早睡觉，在冬天你有时能看到星星。我会看着他们，闪烁和远程，和不知道它们是什么。我会问年长的儿童和成
年人，谁会回答，“他们的灯光在天空中，孩子。”我可以看到他们在天空灯。但他们是什么？只是小悬浮灯？无论是？一定有答案。
As soon as I was old enough, my parents gave me my first library card. Immediately, I asked the
librarian for something on stars. She returned with a picture book displaying pictures of men and women with names like Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I complained, and for some reason then strange to me, she smiled and found another book—the right kind of book. I opened it in excitement and read until I found it. The book said something astonishing, a very big thought. It said that the stars were suns, only very far away. The Sun was a star, but close up. Imagine that you took the Sun and moved it so far away that it was just a tiny point of light. How far away would you have to move it? I did not have any idea of angular size. I was ignorant of the inverse square law for light propagation. I did not have the slightest idea of calculating the distance to the stars. But I could tell that if the stars were suns, they had to be very far away—farther away than 85th Street, farther away than Manhattan, farther away, probably, than New Jersey. The Cosmos was much bigger than I had guessed.
等我长大了，我的父母给了我第一个图书馆卡。立刻，我问图书管理员做明星。她再次显示男性和女性的名字像克拉克
盖博和哈洛的照片，图画书。我抱怨道，由于某种原因，我就奇怪了，她笑了笑，找到另一本书好。我打开它的激动和读直到我找到它。书上说一些令人吃惊的事情，一个非常大的思想。它说，恒星是太阳，只有非常遥远。太阳是一个恒星，但是靠近了。想象一下，你把太阳和移动到目前为止离开那只是轻一点。如何远离你会搬家吗？我没有任何想法的角大小。我不了解光传播规律。我没有计算到恒星的距离丝毫的想法。但我可以告诉大家，如果恒星是太阳，他们必须非常远远超过第八十五街，比曼哈顿远，再远，也许，比新泽西。宇宙比我猜想的要大的多。
Later I read another astonishing fact. The Earth, which includes Brooklyn, is a planet, and it goes
around the Sun. There are other planets. They also go around the Sun; some are closer to it and some are farther away. But the planets do not shine by their own light, as the Sun does. They merely reflect light from the Sun. If you were a great distance away, you would not see the Earth and the other planets at all? they would be only faint luminous points, lost in the glare of the Sun. Well, then, I thought, it stood to reason that the other stars must have planets too, ones we have not yet detected, and some of those other planets should
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have life (why not?), a kind of life probably different from life as we know it, life in Brooklyn. So I decided I would be an astronomer, learn about the stars and planets and, if I could, go and visit them.
以后我读了另一个令人惊讶的事实。地球，其中包括布鲁克林，是一颗行星，它绕着太阳转。还有其它的行星。他们也
围绕着太阳转；有些是接近它和一些较远。但行星不会发出自己的光，太阳一样。他们仅仅是反射太阳的光。如果你是一个伟大的距离，你不会看到地球和其他行星吗？他们将只有微弱的发光点，迷失在耀眼的阳光。好吧，那么，我想，因为其他的星星要有行星，我们尚未发现的，和一些其他的行星应该生活（为什么不？），一种生活可能不同于我们所知道的生命，在布鲁克林的生活。所以我决定，我将是一个天文学家，了解恒星和行星，如果我可以的话，去拜访他们。
It has been my immense good fortune to have parents and some teachers who encouraged this odd
ambition and to live in this time, the first moment in human history when we are, in fact, visiting other worlds and engaging in a deep exploration of the Cosmos. If I had been born in a much earlier age, no matter how great my dedication, I would not have known that there were other suns and other worlds. This is one of the great secrets wrested from Nature through a million years of patient observation and courageous thinking by our ancestors.
这是我的巨大财富有父母和教师鼓励这种奇怪的志向和生活在这个时间，第一次在人类历史上我们，事实上，访问其他
世界和从事宇宙的深层探索。如果我已经出世在更早的时代，无论多么伟大的我的执着，我不知道还有其他的太阳和其他星球上。这是一个伟大的秘密终于从大自然通过一百万年的病人的观察与我们的祖先勇敢的思考。
What are stars? Such questions are as natural as an infant 's smile. We have always asked them. What
is different about our time is that at last we know some of the answers. Books and libraries provide a ready means for finding out what those answers are.
星星是什么？这些问题是由于一个婴儿的微笑，自然。我们总是问他们。所不同的是我们的时间，我们终于知道一些答案。图书和图书馆寻找这些答案是什么提供了一个现成的手段。
Stars
A star starts out life from what seems like nothing at all. Stars are born in huge clouds of gas that are
actually far less dense than the space immediately surrounding Earth.
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shuttle flies through seem as thick as chicken soup,\says Jeff Hester, an astronomer at Arizona State University in Tempe. But because the clouds are so big, they contain a lot of molecules—enough, eventually, to build massive stars.
How big are these clouds that serve as star nurseries? They can be a light-year across—so enormous it
would take light one year to cross one. In contrast, it takes light only one-seventh of a second to travel the nearly 25,000-mile distance that equals the circumference of tiny Earth.
The key to star formation is gravity, says Hester. Gravity causes the multitude of spread-out molecules
to move toward each other and pulls them toward the center of the cloud. \the force of its own gravity,\happens relatively quickly (by cosmic standards)—only about 30 million years, or less.
Over time the cloud gets smaller and smaller. As the cloud contracts, it also begins to spin faster. (This
is due to a little something called conservation of angular momentum—the same phenomenon that allows a figure skater like Nancy Kerrigan to speed up her spin when she pulls her arms in toward her body. As the mass of gas moves toward the center, the cloud spins faster.) Next, the cloud starts to flatten. \
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when you make a simple pizza,\Finally, because gravity becomes so strong in the center of the cloud, the center starts to collapse in on itself as it continues to rotate. At this point, you have a disk that's a few times the size of our solar system. (The disk would be about a couple of light-days across, if you 're keeping track of the size of things.) As the disk continues to rotate, matter in the center of the disk starts to move further inward and a big lump forms in the middle of the disk. This lump, says Hester, is a protostar.
What happens to the matter that's left over further out in the disk? In our solar system, it went on to
become the planets. (In essence, earth is made up of leftovers.)
Protostars are very hot because so much of the gravitational energy that was once contained in the
loose cloud of interstellar gas has been converted into heat. Protostars are spectacular, glowing with dull red light and infrared light. As a protostar emits this light, it continues to shrink and gets hotter and hotter. Finally, it's hot enough for real star business to begin—nuclear fusion.
At high enough temperatures, atoms slam together at incredibly fast speeds. When this happens,
lighter atoms like hydrogen can fuse together to make heavier atoms like helium. One reaction releases massive amounts of energy; add all the reactions together, and \Hester says. Once nuclear fusion begins, that's truly when a star is born.
After a star \he says, its power can cause destruction to the surrounding environment. A
young star expands, tearing apart the cloud that formed it. New stars often break up neighboring stars before they can form. It's hard to overstate what a powerful process star formation is. Even as they are forming, protostars eject huge amounts of material in jets and streams and create violent solar winds.
Unit 5
A Merry Christmas ...
Another Serving?
A Merry Christmas to you all ...
\
of British people, then your Christmas will be an alcoholic, rather than a religious, occasion.
If you walk down Piccadilly or Oxford Street just before Christmas, you will see an incredible amount
of money being spent on electronic games, bottles of wine, expensive clothes, CDs, cassettes, cameras, and a large number of luxury items. If you walk down the main street of several towns in the Third World just before Christmas, you won't see a large amount of money being spent on presents: in fact, you won't see a large amount of money being spent on anything.
80 % of all disease in the world is caused by bad water supply: for millions of people, the perfect
Christmas present would be a tap in the village square which would give pure, clean, water.
Do we think of these people when we sit down to our Christmas dinner? Of course not—we 're too
busy thinking about the turkey, the roast potatoes, and the presents sitting under the Christmas tree. The whole
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idea of Christmas now is completely unchristian—I 'm sure that Christ would be furious if he could see what sort of celebrations are being carried out in his name.
So I 'm against Christmas—I agree with Scrooge: \
this wasteful, thoughtless ceremony, then let 's be truthful about it, and call it \Week,\or \—but let 's get rid of the insincere pretence that Christmas is \
Not only for Children?
Recently, a rather sophisticated woman told me shyly that she saves up all her presents until Christmas
morning and then sits up in bed and opens them, just like a child. She thought I would laugh at her and say how silly she was. But in fact I was absolutely delighted to meet someone who treats Christmas as I do. Many people today have a very different attitude to Christmas. They think it's just a time when
shopkeepers make a lot of money and everyone rushes round buying presents they don't want to give and food they don't want to eat. But have they grown so far away from their own childhood that they can't remember all the good things?
First of all, Christmas takes you out of the ordinary humdrum routine of life. For children, the fun
begins weeks before when the decorations are put up, and excitement gradually mounts as December the 25th approaches.
Everyone seems much friendlier to each other than usual at Christmas-time. You can lean out of a car
window when you 're stopped at the traffic lights and say \Christmas\and people will smile and respond. You probably wouldn't think of doing that at any other time of the year. Perhaps it's because most people are on holiday or because everyone knows that they are sharing a similar experience. Giving presents can be very satisfying, too, if you plan far enough in advance and really think of the right present for the right person.
Indeed, whatever shopkeepers gain out of Christmas, it is still a \day\the words from which
\is derived, and it gives people time to pause and concentrate for a moment on non-commercial values.
From Your Valentine
Considering the number of ethnic groups that make up the U.S. population, it is not surprising that
Americans have a variety of different holidays. From Thanksgiving to Cinco de Mayo, from Chanukah to the Chinese New Year, they are seldom at a loss for a reason to celebrate. Some of these holidays are rather unusual. Some examples follow.
Groundhog Day, February 2:
The groundhog, a small burrowing animal also known as a woodchuck, is supposed to come out of his
hole to look for his shadow on this day. As the legend goes, if he fails to see his shadow it means spring has come; if he sees it he returns to his hole to sleep, for winter will continue for another six weeks.
April Fool 's Day, April 1:
Don't believe anything you hear on this day of tricks and jokes designed to make you an \ Halloween, October 31:
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After dark, children dressed like ghosts and witches go from house to house shouting, \
The people they visit must fill their bags with candy and other treats or else the children will play tricks on them.
Sadie Hawkins Day, the first Saturday after November 11:
Traditionally, it is the boys who chase the girls, but on Sadie Hawkins Day a girl can keep any boy she
can catch.
On February 14 Americans celebrate another unusual holiday, St. Valentine 's Day, a special day for
lovers. Valentines are cards—usually red and shaped like hearts—with messages of love written on them. Lovers send these cards to each other, often anonymously, on St. Valentine 's Day.
The origins of this holiday are uncertain, but according to one legend, it gets its name from a Christian
priest named Valentine who lived in Rome during the third century after Christ. His job was to perform marriages. for Christian couples. Unfortunately, the Emperor of Rome, Claudius II, did not allow Christian marriages? so they had to be performed in secret. Eventually Valentine was arrested and put into prison. While in prison he fell in love with the daughter of the prison guard.
After one year, the Emperor offered to release Valentine if he would agree to stop performing these
secret marriages. Valentine refused, so the Emperor sentenced him to death. Valentine was executed in 270 A. D. on February 14, the same day the Romans worshiped their goddess of marriage, Juno. Before he was killed, Valentine sent a love letter to the daughter of the prison guard. He signed the letter \your Valentine.\That was the first valentine.
The next valentine was sent in 1415 A.D. Charles, Duke of Orleans sent the valentine to his wife while
he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. His valentine is now on exhibit in the British Museum. The first commercially printed valentines did not appear until 1809. Some of these valentines were not messages of love. Comic valentines, or \The \Age\of valentines began in the 1840s when valentine makers started making elaborate and expensive valentines.
Jonathan King became famous as a publisher of beautiful and unusual valentines in Britain in the
1870s. Esther Howland was the first to publish valentines in the United States, in the 1860s. She created handmade designs for valentines, which cost as much as thirty-five dollars.
Today, millions of Americans send and receive valentines on St. Valentine 's Day. Whether it is an
expensive heart-shaped box of chocolates from a secret admirer or a simple handmade card from a child, a valentine is a very special message of love.
Family Rituals
Many American families can boast of certain rituals centered around traditional occasions, usually
holidays. To family members, such small acts seem unremarkable; sometimes, talking about them, they cannot pinpoint when or why the custom began. But social scientists believe that as family life tends to become increasingly fragmented, such repeated ceremonies play a significant role in creating and strengthening our sense of emotional security. Jay Schvaneveldt, a sociologist at Utah State University who has studied hundreds of families, points out that families with the strongest ties have the most rituals. \
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