2020年经济学人 物理学家弗里曼·戴森(2)

Despite a lack of credentials¹ (he never got round to earning his PHD; friends joked that he was the world's most accomplished² graduate student), he was plainly clever. By the age of five, growing up in Berkshire, he had tried to calculate how many atoms there were in the sun. His leisure reading as a teenager was Piaggio's "Differential Equations"; and he had solved that quantum electrodynamics puzzle, without pen or paper, while riding in a Greyhound bus.

尽管弗里曼缺乏资格证书（弗里曼从未有时间取得博士学位；朋友们开玩笑说他是世界上最有成就的研究生），但是他显然很聪明。弗里曼在伯克希尔长大，5岁时曾试图计算太阳中有多少原子。他十几岁时的闲暇读物是皮亚乔的《微分方程》；他在乘坐灰狗巴士时，不用纸笔就解开了量子电动力学难题。

His very cleverness, his vivid language and his faith in the potential of science—which marked him as it marked the century—meant that, even when his schemes were wildly bizarre, they were not dismissed. Colleagues respected him too much. And the schemes came thick and fast. He proposed using genetically³ altered trees to turn comets into places where humans could resume an "arboreal⁴ existence"; these trees would grow hundreds of miles high, until the comet would look like a sprouting⁵ potato.

弗里曼的聪慧，他生动的语言和他对科学潜力的信心——这是他的标志，也是这个世纪的标志——意味着，即使在他的图式非常怪异的时候，它们也没有被驳回。同事们太尊重他了。而且图式又来得又快又密。他建议用基因改造过的树把彗星变成人类可以恢复“树栖生活”的地方；这些树会长到几百英里高，直到彗星看起来像一个发芽的土豆。 

He also popularised a wild thought called the Dyson sphere, a gigantic shell made of pulverised asteroids⁶ that might be spread by a very advanced civilisation⁷ round its parent star to capture all its energy. (Looking for such structures and their infrared⁸ glow elsewhere in the galaxy⁹, he argued, might be a good way to detect super-advanced aliens.) He imagined plants that could grow greenhouses round themselves, and genetically altered microbes that could harvest minerals and clear up plastic litter from space.

弗里曼还推广了一种叫做戴森球的疯狂思想 戴森球是一个由粉碎的小行星组成的巨大外壳，可能由围绕其母星的一种非常先进的文明传播，以获取它所有的能量。（他认为，在银河系的其他地方寻找这样的结构和它们的红外线，可能是探测超级先进外星人的好方法。）弗里曼设想过可以在自己周围形成温室效应的植物，还有转基因微生物，它们可以收集矿物质，清除太空中的塑料垃圾。

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1 credentials   

n.证明，资格，证明书，证件

参考例句：

• He has long credentials of diplomatic service.他的外交工作资历很深。
• Both candidates for the job have excellent credentials.此项工作的两个求职者都非常符合资格。

2 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

3 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

4 arboreal   

adj.树栖的；树的

参考例句：

• Man was evolved from an ancestor that was probably arboreal.人大概是从住在树上的祖先进化而来的。
• Koala is an arboreal Australian marsupial.考拉是一种澳大利亚树栖有袋动物。

5 sprouting   

v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• new leaves sprouting from the trees 树上长出的新叶
• They were putting fresh earth around sprouting potato stalks. 他们在往绽出新芽的土豆秧周围培新土。 来自名作英译部分

6 asteroids   

n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 )；海盘车，海星

参考例句：

• Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星，亦称为“小型行星”，在外太空中不计其数。
• Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。

7 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

8 infrared   

adj./n.红外线(的)

参考例句：

• Infrared is widely used in industry and medical science.红外线广泛应用于工业和医学科学。
• Infrared radiation has wavelengths longer than those of visible light.红外辐射的波长比可见光的波长长。

9 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。