新奇事件簿 僵尸可在100天内消灭人类

Everyone knows that zombies only exist in horror movies. Or do they? A new article in the University of Leicester's 'Journal of Physics Special Topics' predicts that zombies would kill almost everyone on Earth in just 100 days. Students predicted there would only be 273 survivors¹ after three months of a zombie apocalypse. The students were not, of course, using real zombies found in fiction. Instead, they pretended that a deadly virus had infected someone and then spread around the world. They decided² that one person with the virus would have a 90 per cent chance of infecting another person every day. They calculated that at that rate, the human population would fall to just 273 people by day 100.

大家都知道，僵尸只存在于恐怖电影中。僵尸真的存在吗？莱斯特大学《物理学特别话题期刊》上一篇新的文章预测，僵尸可以在100天的时间内把地球上所有人消灭殆尽。学生们预测，僵尸进行三个月的毁灭行动后，地球上可能只有273名幸存者。当然，学生们使用的并不是科幻小说中真正的僵尸。他们假设一种致命病毒感染了某个人，然后在世界上迅速传播。他们假设，感染了这种病毒的人每天感染另外一人的几率为90%。按照这个比率，他们计算出，100天之后，全世界人口总数将下降到273人。

A professor at the university, Mervin Roy, explained why students did research into a zombie apocalypse, even though zombies do not exist. He said: "Every year we ask students to write short papers for the Journal of Physics Special Topics. It lets the students show off their creative side and apply some of the physics they know to the weird³, the wonderful, or the everyday." He also said it gives students valuable practice in writing and reviewing academic papers. He added that the annual research tested the ability of students to apply their understanding of physics to hypothetical scenarios⁴ (imaginary situations). This could help in the future to prepare us for real-life disasters.

这所大学一位教授Mervin Roy解释了为何学生们研究僵尸毁灭地球的问题，尽管僵尸并不存在。他说：“每年我们都要求学生为《物理学特别话题期刊》写一篇简短的论文。要求学生们展示出有创意的一面，使用他们知道的物理学知识来解释一些怪异的，精彩的或者日常的话题。”他还表示，这让学生有了书写和审查学术论文的珍贵的体验。他补充说，这种一年一度的调查研究检验了学生们应用对物理学知识的理解来假设情景的能力。这可以帮助我们应对未来真实生活中的灾难。

1 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

4 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓