原文朗读+词汇复习【A Brief History of Time: 时间简史03B】

原文朗读+词汇复习【A Brief History of Time: 时间简史03B】

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Questions:

1.Did Newton accept lack of absolute space?
2.Did Aristotle believe in lack of absolute space?
3.Did they believe in absolute time?


The lack of an absolute standard of rest meant that one could not determine whether two events that took place at different times occurred in the same position in space. For example, suppose our Ping-Pong ball on the train bounces straight up and down, hitting the table twice on the same spot one second apart. To someone on the track, the two bounces would seem to take place about 100 meters apart, because the train would have traveled that far down the track between the bounces. The nonexistence of absolute rest therefore meant that one could not give an event an absolute position in space, as Aristotle had believed. The positions of events and the distances between them would be different for a person on the train and one on the track, and there would be no reason to prefer one person's position to the other's.


Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even though it was implied by his laws. He was severely criticized for this irrational belief by many people, most notably by Bishop Berkeley, a philosopher who believed that all material objects and space and time are an illusion. When the famous Dr.Johnson was told of Berkeley's opinion, he cried, “I refute it thus!” and stubbed his toe on a large stone.


BothAristotle and Newton believed in absolute time. That is, they believed that one could unambiguously measure the interval of time between two events, and that this time would be the same whoever measured it, provided they used a good clock. Time was completely separate from and independent of space. This is what most people would take to be the commonsense view. However, we have had to change our ideas about space and time. Although our apparently commonsense notions work well when dealing with things like apples, or planets that travel comparatively slowly, they don't work at all for things moving at or near the speed of light.


KeyWords & Phrases
1) bounce v./n. 跳,反弹
2) one second apart 每隔一秒
3) accord with 与…相一致,与…相符合
e.g. What he has just said does not accord with the views of the majority.
他刚才所说的话与大多数人所持的观点不一致。
4) irrational adj. 不理性的
5) notably adv. 显著地
6) illusion n. 幻觉
7) stub v. 使(脚趾)碰到某物,stub one’s toe against/on sth
8) unambiguously adv.明白地,不含糊地
9) interval n. 间隔,区间
10) commonsense view 常识看法
11) commonsense notions 常识性概念

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