【英语时差8,16】自由落体运动（下）

If you got this one wrong, don’t worry: almost everybody does. For some reason the out-and-then-down scenario¹ seems more sensible to us. But let’s look at it again. Gravity is always pulling your car downward, even when it’s sitting still on the road. Send the car over a cliff and gravity doesn’t need any time to start acting². It’s already pulling, just as it was before you left the road. But in this case, the car also has a forward velocity³. That velocity will indeed send it flying outward — but not at the expense of falling downward. The result is that your free-falling car will make a graceful⁴ arc in the air, moving both downward and outward at the same time. By the way, you had a parachute and dove out just in time. Close one.

1 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

2 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

3 velocity   

n.速度，速率

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory links energy with mass and velocity of light.爱因斯坦的理论把能量同质量和光速联系起来。
• The velocity of light is about 300000 kilometres per second.光速约为每秒300000公里。

4 graceful   

adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的

参考例句：

• His movements on the parallel bars were very graceful.他的双杠动作可帅了!
• The ballet dancer is so graceful.芭蕾舞演员的姿态是如此的优美。