英语科技类阅读系列第4篇 奇怪的宇宙（下）

存眷 头条+西瓜+抖音号: “杨老师STEAM教诲” 通过英语学科普

Category: Cosmology 宇宙学

Text: 2579 words （正文英语单词为2579个，分上下篇颁发）

Title: Einstein’s theory of general relativity unveiled a dynamic

and bizarre cosmos

爱因斯坦的广义相对论展现了一个动态而奇怪的宇宙

The predictions were right about black holes, gravitational waves and universe expansion

关于黑洞、引力波和宇宙膨胀的猜测是精确的

Black holes stand out among other cosmic beasts for how extreme they are. The largest are many billion times the mass of the sun, and when they rip a star apart, they can spit out particles with 200 trillion electron volts of energy. That’s some 30 times the energy of the protons that race around the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.

黑洞因其极度水平而在其他宇宙野兽中脱颖而出。最大的质量是太阳的数十亿倍，当它们扯破一颗恒星时，它们可以喷出具有 200 万亿电子伏特能量的粒子。这约莫是围绕天下上最大、最壮大的粒子加快器大型强子对撞机的质子能量的30倍。

As evidence built into the 1990s and up to today, scientists realized these great beasts not only exist, but also help shape the cosmos. “These objects that general relativity predicted, that were mathematical curiosities, became real, then they were marginal. Now they’ve become central,” says Natarajan.

作为1990年月和今日的证据，科学家们意识到这些庞大的野兽不但存在，并且有助于塑造宇宙。“广义相对论猜测的这些数学异景的物体酿成了真实的，然后它们就变得微不敷道了。Natarajan说，“如今它们已成为焦点，”。

We now know supermassive black holes reside at the centers of most if not all galaxies, where they generate outflows of energy that affect how and where stars form. “At the center of the galaxy, they define everything,” she says.

我们如今知道超大质量黑洞位于大多数（假如不是全部）星系的中间，在那边它们会孕育发生能量外流，影响恒星的形成方法和位置。她说，“在银河系的中间，它们界说了统统，”。

Though visual confirmation is recent, it feels as though black holes have long been familiar. They are a go-to metaphor for any unknowable space, any deep abyss, any endeavor that consumes all our efforts while giving little in return.

固然近来才通过视觉确认，但黑洞给人觉得早就对它很熟习了。它们是一种隐喻，是任何不行知空间、任何深渊、任何斲丧我们全部高兴而险些没有回报的。

Real black holes, of course, have given plenty back: answers about our cosmos plus new questions to ponder, wonder and entertainment for space fanatics, a lost album from Weezer, numerous episodes of Doctor Who, the Hollywood blockbuster Interstellar.

固然，真正的黑洞已经回馈了许多：关于我们的宇宙的答案，以及供太空狂热者思索、惊异和娱乐的新题目，一张丢失的Weezer专辑，很多集的《神奇博士》，好莱坞大片《星际穿越》。

For physicist Nicolas Yunes of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, black holes and other cosmic behemoths continue to amaze. “Just thinking about the dimensions of these objects, how large they are, how heavy they are, how dense they are,” he says, “it’s really breathtaking.”

对付伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的物理学家Nicolas Yunes来说，黑洞和其他宇宙庞然大物会陆续令人惊讶。“只要想想这些物体的尺寸，它们有多大，它们有多重，它们的密度有多大，”他说，“这真的令人叹为观止。”

Spacetime waves 时空波

When general relativity’s behemoths collide, they disrupt the cosmic fabric. Ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves emanate outward, a calling card of a tumultuous and most energetic tango.

当广义相对论的庞然大物产生碰撞时，它们会粉碎宇宙布局。 称为引力波的时空荡漾向外散发，这是动荡和最有活力的探戈的手刺。

Einstein’s math predicted such waves could be created, not only by gigantic collisions but also by explosions and other accelerating bodies. But for a long time, spotting any kind of spacetime ripple was a dream beyond measure. Only the most dramatic cosmic doings would create signals that were large enough for direct detection. Einstein, who called the waves gravitationswellen, was unaware that any such big events existed in the cosmos.

爱因斯坦的数学猜测，这种波不但可以由庞大的碰撞孕育发生，还可以由爆炸和其他加快物体孕育发生。但恒久以来，发觉任何一种时空荡漾都是遥不行及的幻想。只有最具戏剧性的宇宙举动才气孕育发生充足大的信号以供直接检测。爱因斯坦将这种波称为引力波，他不知道任何如许的大变乱存在于宇宙中。

在归并之前，引力波会从两个相互围绕的黑洞中荡漾开来（在此模仿中表现）。归并的黑洞制造了一个新的黑洞。

Beginning in the 1950s, when others were still arguing whether gravitational waves existed in reality, physicist Joseph Weber sunk his career into trying to detect them. After a decade-plus effort, he claimed detection in 1969, identifying an apparent signal perhaps from a supernova or from a newly discovered type of rapidly spinning star called a pulsar. In the few years after reporting the initial find, Science News published more than a dozen stories on what it began calling the “Weber problem”. Study after study could not confirm the results. What’s more, no sources of the waves could be found. A 1973 headline read, “The deepening doubt about Weber’s waves”.

从1950年月开始，当其他人仍在争辩引力波是否存在于实际中时，物理学家约瑟夫·韦伯（Joseph Weber）将本身的职业生活投入到探测引力波中。颠末十多年的高兴，他于 1969 年公布探测到，辨认出大概来自超新星或新发觉的一种称为脉冲星的快速扭转恒星的显着信号。在报道了最初的发觉后的几年里，《科学消息》颁发了十多篇关于它开始称之为“韦伯题目”的故事。一项又一项的研究无法证明效果。更紧张的是，找不到波的泉源。 1973 年的标题是“对韦伯波的猜疑加深”。

Weber stuck by his claim until his death in 2000, but his waves were never verified. Nonetheless, scientists increasingly believed gravitational waves would be found. In 1974, radio astronomers Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor spotted a neutron star orbiting a dense companion. Over the following years, the neutron star and its companion appeared to be getting closer together by the distance that would be expected if they were losing energy to gravitational waves. Scientists soon spoke not of the Weber problem, but of what equipment could possibly pick up the waves. “Now, although they have not yet seen, physicists believe,” Dietrick E. Thomsen wrote in Science News in 1984.

韦伯对峙本身的主见直到2000年去世，但他的波从未得到证明。只管云云，科学家们越来越信赖会发觉引力波。1974年，射电天文学家罗素·赫尔斯和约瑟夫·泰勒发觉了一颗围绕麋集伴星运行的中子星。在接下来的几年里，这颗中子星和它的伴星彷佛越来越靠近，假如它们因引力波失去能量，那么它们的间隔是可以预期的。很快，科学家们不再评论辩论韦伯题目，而是评论辩论哪些设置装备摆设大概会吸收到波。 “如今，固然他们还没有看到，但物理学家信赖，”Dietrick E.Thomsen在1984年的《科学消息》中写道。

It was a different detection strategy, decades in the making, that would provide the needed sensitivity. The Advanced Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, which reported the first confirmed gravitational waves in 2016, relies on two detectors, one in Hanford, Wash., and one in Livingston, La. Each detector splits the beam of a powerful laser in two, with each beam traveling down one of the detector’s two arms. In the absence of gravitational waves, the two beams recombine and cancel each other out. But if gravitational waves stretch one arm of the detector while squeezing the other, the laser light no longer matches up.

这是一种差别的检测计谋，颠末数十年的酝酿，可以提供所需的敏锐度。先辈激光干预干与引力波天文台（LIGO)于2016年陈诉了第一个确认的引力波，它依靠两个探测器，一个位于华盛顿州汉福德，一个位于路易斯安那州利文斯顿。每个探测器都将壮大的激光束离开一分为二，每束光束沿着探测器的两个臂的此中一个流传。在没有引力波的情形下，两束光会重新联合并相互抵消。但是，假如引力波拉伸探测器的一个臂同时挤压另一臂，则激光不再立室。

The machines are an incredible feat of engineering. Even spacetime ripples detected from colliding black holes might stretch an arm of the LIGO detector by as little as one ten-thousandth of the width of a proton.

这些呆板是一项令人难以置信的工程壮举。纵然是从碰撞黑洞检测到的时空荡漾，也大概会将 LIGO 探测器的臂拉伸至质子宽度的万分之一。

When the first detection, from two colliding black holes, was announced, the discovery was heralded as the beginning of a new era in astronomy. It was Science News’ story of the year in 2016, and such a big hit that the pioneers of the LIGO detector won the Nobel Prize in physics the following year.

当两个碰撞黑洞的初次探测被公布时，这一发觉预示着天文学新期间的开始。这是《科学消息》2016年的年度故事，惊动临时，LIGO探测器的先驱们在次年得到了诺贝尔物理学奖。

Scientists with LIGO and another gravitational wave detector, Virgo, based in Italy, have by now logged dozens more detections. Most of the waves have emanated from mergers of black holes, though a few events have featured neutron stars. Smashups so far have revealed the previously unknown birthplaces of some heavy elements and pointed to a bright jet of charged subatomic particles that could offer clues to mysterious flashes of high-energy light known as gamma-ray bursts. The waves also have revealed that midsize black holes, between 100 and 100,000 times the sun’s mass, do in fact exist — along with reconfirming that Einstein was right, at least so far.

LIGO和另一个位于意大利的引力波探测器Virgo的科学家如今已经记载了数十次探测。大多数波都来自黑洞的归并，只管有一些变乱以中子星为特性。到现在为止，破坏已经展现了一些曩昔未知的重元素的诞生地，并指出了光明的带电亚原子粒子射流，可认为被称为伽马射线发作的神奇高能光闪光提供线索。这些波还评释，质量在太阳质量100到100,000倍之间的中等巨细的黑洞的确存在——同时再次确认爱因斯坦是对的，至少到现在为止是如许。

美国的LIGO和意大利的 Virgo这两个引力波的研究职员陈诉了已往五年中对黑洞破坏和中子星归并的数十次探测。

Just five years in, some scientists are already eager for something even more exotic. In a Science News article about detecting black holes orbiting wormholes via gravitational waves, physicist Vítor Cardoso of Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, suggested a coming shift to more unusual phenomena: “We need to look for strange but exciting signals,” he said.

仅仅过了五年，一些科学家就已经盼望得到更奇怪的工具。在一篇关于通过引力波探测围绕虫洞运行的黑洞的科学消息文章中，葡萄牙里斯本高级技能研究所的物理学家Vítor Cardoso发起接下来转向研究更不平常的征象：他说“我们必要查找惊奇但令人愉快的信号，”。

Gravitational wave astronomy is truly only at its beginnings. Improved sensitivity at existing Earth-based detectors will turn up the volume on gravitational waves, allowing detections from less energetic and more distant sources. Future detectors, including the space-based LISA, planned for launch in the 2030s, will get around the troublesome noise that interferes when Earth’s surface shakes.

引力波天文学才真正处于起步阶段。现有地球探测器敏锐度地进步将进步引力波的音量，从而许可从能量较低和间隔更远的波源举行探测。将来的探测器，包罗打算于2030年放射的天基LISA，将避开地球外貌震惊时滋扰的、引起贫苦的噪音。

“Perhaps the most exciting thing would be to observe a small black hole falling into a big black hole, an extreme mass ratio inspiraling,” Yunes says. In such an event, the small black hole would zoom back and forth, back and forth, swirling in different directions as it followed wildly eccentric orbits, perhaps for years. That could offer the ultimate test of Einstein’s equations, revealing whether we truly understand how spacetime is warped in the extreme.

Yunes 说，“或许最令人愉快的事变是观看一个小黑洞落入一个大黑洞，这种极度的质量比令人振作，”。在这种情形下，这个小黑洞会来回放大，来回放大，向差别的偏向扭转，由于它大概会沿着特别偏爱的轨道运行多年。这可以提供对爱因斯坦方程的终极查验，展现我们是否真正相识时空是怎样在极度情形下扭曲的。