TED演讲：宏观历史(3)

 　　Let's begin by winding¹ the timeline back 13.7 billion years, to the beginning of time. 让我们把时间往回拨到137亿年前，也就是时间的开始。

　　Around us, there's nothing. There's not even time or space. 四周是什么也没有，根本没有时间与空间。

　　Imagine the darkest, emptiest thing you can and cube it a gazillion times and that's where we are. 尽你的可能想象那最黑暗、最空无的情况，然后这种情况放大无数无数倍，那就是现在我们处在的时间点。

　　And then suddenly, bang! A universe appears, an entire universe. And we've crossed our first threshold. 然后突然，轰！宇宙出现了，一整个的宇宙。我们就这样穿过了我们第一个起始点。

　　The universe is tiny; it's smaller than an atom. It's incredibly hot. 这时候的宇宙是微小的，比一个原子还小。它极度的炽热。

　　It contains everything that's in today's universe, so you can imagine, it's busting². 它包含了今天这个宇宙的所有，但是你也知道，它是混沌的。

　　And it's expanding at incredible speed. And at first, it's just a blur³, but very quickly distinct things begin to appear in that blur. 并且它以一种难以置信的速度膨胀。一开始它只是一团混沌，但是十分迅速而且各不相同的事发生在这片混沌。

　　Within the first second, energy itself shatters into distinct forces including electromagnetism and gravity. 就在那第一秒，能量本生粉碎进入不同的力场当中，包括电磁场以及重力场。

　　And energy does something else quite magical: 而且能量也产生一些其它奇妙的现象，

　　it congeals⁴ to form matter -- quarks that will create protons and leptons that include electrons. 它凝固从而形成物质--夸克，这种可以形成质子和轻子，包括电子。

　　And all of that happens in the first second. 所有的一切发生在第一秒。

　　Now we move forward 380,000 years. That's twice as long as humans have been on this planet. 再往前拨38万年。这是人类在这个星球存在时间的两倍。

　　And now simple atoms appear of hydrogen and helium. 现在氢，氦这些普通原子出现了。

　　Now I want to pause for a moment, 380,000 years after the origins of the universe, 现在我想暂停一会儿，在宇宙起源之后的38万年里，

　　because we actually know quite a lot about the universe at this stage. 就目前为止我们对这段宇宙历史知道的是相当多的。

　　We know above all that it was extremely simple. 我们知道，首先它是一个极度简单的宇宙。

　　It consisted of huge clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms, and they have no structure. 有着庞大云雾般的氢与氦原子，而且它们没有结构。

　　They're really a sort of cosmic mush. But that's not completely true. 它们确实是某种宇宙混沌。但是这不是完全正确的。

　　Recent studies by satellites such as the WMAP satellite have shown that, in fact, there are just tiny differences in that background. 根据WMAP卫星的最新研究显示，实际上，在那个背景下有一点点不同。

　　What you see here, the blue areas are about a thousandth of a degree cooler than the red areas. 你现在看到的蓝色的区域相比于红色的区域要冷上大约一千度。

　　These are tiny differences, but it was enough for the universe to move on to the next stage of building complexity⁵. 这是个微小的差别，但是这足够让宇宙继续演变到下一个阶段创造的复杂性。

1 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

2 busting   

打破，打碎( bust的现在分词 )； 突击搜查（或搜捕）； （使）降级，降低军阶

参考例句：

• Jim and his wife were busting up again yesterday. 吉姆和他的妻子昨天又吵架了。
• He figured she was busting his chops, but it was all true. 他以为她在捉弄他，其实完全是真的。

3 blur   

n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚

参考例句：

• The houses appeared as a blur in the mist.房子在薄雾中隐隐约约看不清。
• If you move your eyes and your head,the picture will blur.如果你的眼睛或头动了，图像就会变得模糊不清。

4 congeals   

v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的第三人称单数 )；（指血）凝结

参考例句：

• Water congeals to ice. 水凝结成冰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Blood congeals to form a clot. 血凝结成块。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。