原文朗读+词汇复习【时间简史 A Brief History of Time 02B】

Questions:

1. Before the discovery, was the question of the beginning of theuniverse in the realm of science?
2. If there were any events earlier than the big bang, why can they be ignored?
3. Can the discovery of the expanding universe preclude the creator God?

Whenmost people believed in an essentially static and unchanging universe, thequestion of whether or not it had a beginning was really one of metaphysics ortheology. One could account for what was observed equally well on the theorythat the universe had existed forever or on the theory that it was set inmotion at some finite time in such a manner as to look as though it had existedforever. But in 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that whereveryou look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us. In other words, theuniverse is expanding. This means that at earlier times objects would have beencloser together. In fact, it seemed that there was a time, about ten or twentythousand million years ago, when they were all at exactly the same place andwhen, therefore, the density of the universe was infinite. This discoveryfinally brought the question of the beginning of the universe into the realm ofscience.

Hubble'sobservations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when theuniverse was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. Under such conditionsall the laws of science, and therefore all ability to predict the future, wouldbreak down. If there were events earlier than this time, then they could notaffect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored becauseit would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had abeginning at the big bang, in the sense that earlier times simply would not bedefined. It should be emphasized that this beginning in time is very differentfrom those that had been considered previously. In an unchanging universe abeginning in time is something that has to be imposed by some being outside theuniverse; there is no physical necessity for a beginning. One can imagine thatGod created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand,if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to bea beginning. One could still imagine that God created the universe at theinstant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make itlook as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless tosuppose that it was created before the bang. An expanding universe does notpreclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried outhis job!

KeyWords & Phrases
1) static adj. 静止的not moving
2) metaphysics n. 形而上学
3) theology n. 神学，宗教信仰
4) account for 解释，说明
5) set in motion 启动
6) landmark n. 地标，里程碑；有重大意义的
7) realm n. 领域
8) infinitesimally adv. 微不足道地，足够小地
9) impose v. 强加
10) some being outside the universe 宇宙外的存在
11) necessity n. 必要性
12) at the instant 一…就
e.g. At the instant I saw him I knew he was the man the police were lookingfor.
我一看到他就认出他正是警方在寻找的那个人。
13) preclude v. 排除，杜绝

根据今天课程讲解翻译以下句子段落.

One could account for what was observed equally well on the theory thatthe universe had existed forever or on the theory that it was set in motion atsome finite time in such a manner as to look as though it had existed forever.

一个理论是说宇宙一直存在，另一个理论时是说宇宙在某个特点时间点开始，这种开始方式让人感觉就跟宇宙一直存在一样，人们用这两个理论都能很好地解释观察到的现象。