英语学习 精读(45) Roaming the Cosmos

A victim of an incurable disease, Stephen Hawking is almost completely paralysed, confined to a wheelchair, and unable to speak. Yet, he has overcome every obstacle and achieved far more than most able-bodied people ever dream of accomplishing and become one of the greatest physicists of our time.

Roaming the Cosmos
by Le0on Jaroff

    Darkness has fallen on Cambridge, England, and on a damp and chilly evening king's Parade is filled with students and faculty. Then, down the crowded thoroughfare comes the University of Cambridge's most distinctive vehicle, bearing its most distinguished citizen. In the motorized wheelchair, boyish face dimly illuminated by a glowing computer screen attached to the left armrest, is Stephen William Hawking, 46, one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists. As he skillfully maneuvers through the crowd, motorists slow down, some honking their horns in greeting. People wave and shout hello.
    A huge smile lights up Hawking's bespectacled face, but he cannot wave or shout back. Since his early 20s, he has suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive deterioration of the central nervous system that usually causes death within three or four years. Hawking's illness has advanced more slowly, and now seems almost to have stabilized. Still, it has robbed him of virtually all movement. He has no control over most of his muscles, cannot dress or eat by himself and has lost his voice. Now he "speaks" only by using the slight voluntary movement left in his hands and fingers to operate his wheelchair's built-in computer and voice synthesizer.
    While ALS has made Hawking a virtual prisoner in his own body, it has left his courage and humor intact, his intellect free to roam. And roam it does, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, from the subatomic realm to the far reaches of the universe. In the course of these mental expeditions, Hawking has conceived startling new theories about black holes and the disorderly events that immediately followed the Big Bang from which the universe sprang. More recently, he has shaken both physicists and theologians by suggesting that the universe has no boundaries, was not created and will not be destroyed.
    Most of Stephen Hawking's innovative thinking occurs at Cambridge, where he is Lucasian professor of mathematics, a seat once occupied by Isaac Newton. There, in the Department of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, he benevolently reigns over the relativity group, 15 overachieving graduate students from nine countries. On his office door is a small plaque irreverently reading QUIET, PLEASE. THE BOSS IS ASLEEP.
    Hardly. From midmorning until he departs for dinner around 7 p. m., Hawking follows a routine that would tax the most able-bodied, working in his book-lined office, amid photographs of his wife Jane and their three children. When he rolled into the department's common room one morning last month, his students were talking shop around low tables. Maneuvering to one of the tables, Hawking clicked his control switch, evoking tiny beeps from his computer and selecting words from lists displayed on his screen. These words, assembled in sequence at the bottom of the screen, finally issued from the voice synthesizer: "Good morning. Can I have coffee?" Then, for the benefit of a visitor: "I am sorry about my American accent." (The synthesizer is produced by a California company.)
    When the conversation shifted to creativity and how mathematicians seem to reach a creative peak in their early 20s, Hawking's computer beeped. "I'm over the hill," he said, to a chorus of laughter.
    Hawking was born on Jan. 8, 1942-300 years to the day, he often notes, after the death of Galileo. As a small boy, he was slow to learn to read but liked to take things apart though he confesses that he was never very good at putting things back together. When he was twelve, he recalls humorously, "one of my friends bet another friend a bag of sweets that I would never come to anything. I don't know if this bet was ever settled and, if so, who won.
    Fascinated by physics, Stephen concentrated in the subject at Oxford's University College, but did not distinguish himself. He partied, took a great interest in rowing and studied only an hour or so a day. Moving on to Cambridge for graduate work in relativity, he found the going rough, party because of some puzzling physical problems; he stumbled frequently and seemed to be getting clumsy.
    Doctors soon gave him the bad news: he had ALS, it would only get worse, and there was no cure. Hawking was overwhelmed. Before long, he needed a cane to walk, was drinking heavily and ignoring his studies. "There didn't seem to be much point in completing my Ph. D.," he says.
    Then Hawking's luck turned. The progress of the disease slowed, and Einsteinian space-time suddenly seemed less formidable. But what really made the difference, he says, "was that I got engaged to Jane," who was studying modern languages at Cambridge. "This gave me something to liver for." As he explains, "if we were to get married, I had to get a job. And to get a job, I had to finish my Ph. D. I started, working hard for the first time in my life. To my surprise, I found I liked it."
   What particularly interested Stephen was singularities, strange beasts predicted by general relativity. Einstein's equations indicated that when a star several times larger than the sun exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses, its matter crushes together at its center with such force that it forms a singularity, an infinitely dense point with no dimensions and irresistible gravity. A voluminous region surrounding the singularity becomes a "black hole," from which -- because of that immense gravity -- nothing, not even light, can escape.
    Scientists years ago found compelling evidence that black holes exist, but they were uncomfortable with singularities, because all scientific laws break down at these points. Most physicists believed that in the real universe the object at the heart of a black hole would be small (but not dimensionless) and extremely dense (but not infinitely so). Enter Hawking. While still a graduate student, he and Mathematician Roger Penrose developed new techniques proving mathematically that if general relativity is correct, singularities must exist. Hawking went on to demonstrate - again if general relativity is correct - that the entire universe must have sprung from a singularity. As he wrote in his 1966 Ph. D. thesis, "There is a singularity in our past."
    Stephen later discerned several new characteristics of black holes and demonstrated that the amazing forces of the Big Bang would have created mini-black holes, each with a mass about that of a terrestrial mountain, but no larger than the subatomic proton. Then, applying the quantum theory (which accurately describes the random, uncertain subatomic world) instead of general relativity (which, it turns out, falters in that tiny realm), Hawking was startled to find that the mini-black holes must emit particles and radiation. Even more remarkable, the little holes would gradually evaporate and, 10 billion years or so after their creation, explode with the energy or millions of H-bombs.
    Hawking has visited the U. S. 30 times, made seven trips to Moscow, taken a round-the-word journey, and piloted his wheelchair on the Great Wall of China. On the road, the activities occasionally deviate somewhat from physics. One night Stephen accompanied a group to a Chicago discotheque, where he joined in the festivities by wheeling onto the dance floor and spinning his chair in circles.
    Recently, Hawking, who has no qualms about recanting his own work if he decides he was wrong, may have transcended his famous proof that singularities exist. With Physicist James Hartle. He has derived a quantum wave describing a self-contained universe that, like the earth's surface, has no edge or boundary. If that is the case, says Hawking, Einstein's general theory of relativity would have to be modified, and there would be no singularities. "The universe would not be created, not be destroyed; it would simply be," he concludes, adding challengingly, "What place, then, for a Creator?" 

NEW WORDS

    roam
v.  go from one place to another without a goal or purpose; wander 漫游
    cosmos
n.  the whole universe considered as an ordered system 宇宙
    cosmic
a. 
    damp
a.  slightly wet; moist
    chilly
a.  rather cold; unpleasantly cold
    chill
n. 
    faculty
n.  all the teachers of a school or college
    thoroughfare
n.  a busy main road 通衢
    distinguished
a.  showing remarkable qualities 杰出的
    boyish
a.  of or like a boy
    dimly
ad. faintly; unclearly 黯淡地
    glow
vi. give off a steady light; shine 发光
    armrest
n.  a support for the arm, esp. one on the chair or couch 扶手
    motorist
n.  a person who drives or rides in an automobile
    physicist
n.  a person who studies or works in physics
    honk
n.  the sound made by a wild goose or an automobile horn
    greeting
n.  an act or expression of welcome or salutation 欢迎;致意
    bespectacled
a.  wearing glasses
    amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
    肌萎缩性脊髓侧索硬化
    deterioration
n.  the act or process of deteriorating 恶化
    deteriorate
vi. become worse
    rob
vt. take from unlawfully, esp. by force 抢劫;使丧失
    voluntary
a.  controlled by the will; made, done, or a given of one's own free will 随意的;自愿的;志愿的
    built-in
a.  forming a part of sth. that cannot be separated from it
    synthesizer
n.  an electrical instrument that can produce many different sorts of sound 音响合成器
    voice synthesizer
    语音合成器
    synthesis
n.  the combining of separate things, ideas, etc., into a complete whole 合成
    humor
n.  the quality of being amusing or funny; the ability to see or express what is funny  幽默(感)
    intellect
n.  the ability to think, reason, and learn; intelligence
    infinitesimal
n. a. 无穷小(的)
    subatomic
a.  smaller than an atom 亚原子的
    expedition
n.  a long trip for exploring or studying sth. 远征;探险;考察
    disorderly
a.  combining lacking organization or order; untidy
    theologian
n.  a person who has studied theology 神学家
    boundary
n.  a dividing line between one place or thing and another; border
    innovative
a.  tending or liking to introduce new ideas or methods; different from, and esp. better than previous ones 创新的
    innovation
n. 
    benevolently
ad. in a kindly manner 仁慈地
    reign
v.  rule, esp. as a monarch  统治
    relativity
n.  相对论
    overachieve
v.  do or perform better than expected
    graduate
n.  one who has graduated, esp. from a college or university, holding a bachelor's degree
    graduate student
    研究生
    plaque
n.  a flat decorative metal or stone plate, that is fixed to a wall, statue, etc. 饰板，匾
    irreverently
ad. in a disrespectful manner 不敬地
    midmorning
n.  the middle of the morning
    able-bodied
a.  strong and healthy; physically fit
    book-lined
a.  lined with books
    amid
prep. in the middle of; among
    common room
    a room in a school or college for the use of teachers and / or students when they are not teaching or studying  公共休息室
    click
vt. strike or move with a sight short sound
    evoke
vt. produce; call up 产生；唤起
    beep
n.  a sharp, short sound
    chorus
n.  sth. said or shouted by many people together
    confess
v.  say that sth. is true; say that one has committed a crime or done sth. wrong 承认；坦白
    fascinate
vt. attract or interest very strongly 强烈地吸引；迷住
    party
vt. enjoy oneself, esp. at a party or parties
    overwhelm
vt. overcome completely; overpower 征服，制服
    cane
n.  a stick used to help in walking  手杖
    formidable
a.  difficult to defeat or deal with; frightening 难对付的；可怕的
    engaged
a.  having agreed to get married 已订婚的
    singularity
n.  a hypothetical point in space at which an object becomes compressed to infinite density and infinitesimal volume 奇点
    beast
n.  any (four-footed) animal; a person or thing felt to be hateful or offensive
    nuclear
a.  of a nucleus, esp. of an atom 核的，原子核的
    crush
vt. squeeze together violently so as to break
vi. become crushed
    infinitely
ad. without limits of any kind; having no end
    dense
a.  packed closely together; thick
    dimension
n.  the measurement of the length, width, or height of sth. 尺寸
    dimensionless
a. 
    irresistible
a.  that cannot be resisted; too great to be withstood
    voluminous
a.  very large
    compelling
a.  strongly convincing or persuasive
    thesis
n.  a long piece of writing on a particular subject, based on original work and written for a higher degree 论文
    amazing
a.  causing great surprise or wonder, esp. because of quantity or quality
    amaze
vt.
    mini-
prefix. very small compared with others of its kind
    terrestrial
a.  of the planet earth
    proton
n.  a tiny particle of an atom that has a positive electric charge 质子
    quantum
n.  the basic unit of radiant energy; the smallest amount of energy capable of existing independently 量子
    accurately
ad. precisely; exactly
    accurate
a.
    random
a.  without plan, purpose, or pattern 任意的，随机的
    uncertain
a.  not certain; likely to change
    falter
vi. move or speak in an unsteady way; lose strength or effectiveness; fail
    radiation
n.  the process of sending out rays of energy, such as heat or light; sth. that is radiated 辐射；放射物
    radiate
v. 
    evaporate
v.  change from a liquid into a vapor or gas 蒸发
    explode
vi. burst with a loud noise; blow up
    H-bomb
n.  a hydrogen bomb
    pilot
vt. act as a pilot; guide; lead 驾驶（飞行器等）；指引；引导
    deviate
vi. move away from a usual or accepted standard of behavior 偏离
    accompany
vt. go along with
    discotheque
n.  (formal for disco) a club where people dance to recorded music 迪斯科舞厅
    festivity
n.  the act of rejoicing; merriment; gaiety 欢庆（活动）
    spin
v.  (cause to) turn quickly about an axis
    recant
vt. say publicly that one no longer holds (a former belief)
    self-contained
a.  complete in itself; independent
    creator
n.  a person who creates; (C) God

PHRASES & EXPRESSIONS

light up
    make or become bright, cheerful, etc.
rob of
    take the property of, esp. using violence; prevent from enjoying
reign over
    rule as the king or queen
talk shop
    (inf.) talk about things in one's work or trade
in sequence
    one following another; in succession
over the hill
    past one's prime, unable to function as one used to
put together
    form by combining parts or members; assemble
come to anything
    end in success / failure
something / nothing
distinguish oneself
behave or perform noticeably well
(be) engaged to
having agreed to marry
to sb's surprise
in a way that surprises sb.
break down
become unusable; fall
deviate from
    move away from