专业学位硕士研究生英语教程14Word下载.docx

1、 imaginations about the same questions. The exploration will never stop its steps until our human can get the truth one day.Text ReadingWarm-up,.1） Match the words in Column A for the proper day in Column B. A world-known Christian story, Genesis, has explained who created the world and why it shoul

2、d be. In this famous story, God spent 7 days in creating the world. Now yourtask is to match the proper day for each item. A B A. beast, cattle and insect 1. the first day B. fishes and birds 2. the second day C. light and darkness 3. the third day D. grass and tree 4. the forth day E. day and night

3、 5. the fifth day F. arch and water 6. the sixth day G. sun and moon 7. the seventh day H. land and sea I. human J. star and season K. restIIMythology and science Mythology and science can never be isolated from each other. They are closely related to each other. There are different ways to know the

4、 nature of the world. Now please choose the names here from the table. Some are scientists and the other are mythological figures. Please put the names in the proper circles.BrahmaNewtonEinsteinGalileoPoseidonHalleyPtolemyOdinLaplaceJesus ChristCurie MarieRaKeplerZeusHubbleAllahCupidSakyamuniCoperni

5、cusGaia Mythological Figures ScientistsIII. Discussions. 1. There are hundreds of versions about how the world comes into being. And can you tell one?2. Einstein once has said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination

6、 embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. How do you think about it?3. What do your think about the relationship between religion and science?4. We have already entered the the space era, and as you know, how far can we go in this domain?TextSpace and Time Stephe

7、n Hawking 1 We find ourselves in a bewildering （confusing） world. We want to make sense of （understand） what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature （the basic qualities of a thing） of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? 2 To try

8、to answer these questions we adopt （use） some world picture. Just as an infinite tower of tortoises supporting the flat earth is such a picture, so is the theory of superstrings. Both are theories of the universe, though the latter is much more mathematical and precise than the former. Both theories

9、 lack observational （noticeable） evidence: no one has ever seen a giant （huge） tortoise with the earth on its back, but then, no one has seen a superstring either. However, the tortoise theory fails to be a good scientific theory because it predicts that people should be able to fall off （fall to th

10、e ground） the edge of the world. This has not been found to agree with （to be the same as sth） experience, unless that turns out to be the explanation for the people who are supposed to have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle! 3 The earliest theoretical attempts to describe and explain the universe

11、 involved the idea that events and natural phenomena were controlled by spirits with human emotions who acted in a very humanlike and unpredictable manner （way）. These spirits inhabited （lived in a particular place） natural objects, like rivers and mountains, including celestial （heavenly） bodies, l

12、ike the sun and moon. They had to be placated （to be made sb feel less angry about sth） and their favor （seek-） sought in order to ensure （to make sure that sth happens or is definite） the fertility （the state of being fertile） of the soil and the rotation of the seasons. Gradually, however, it must

13、 have been noticed that there were certain regularities （patterns or rules）: the sun always rose in the east and set in the west, whether or not a sacrifice （n animal, etc. that is offered to gods） had been made to the sun god. Further, the sun, the moon, and the planets followed precise paths acros

14、s the sky that could be predicted in advance （beforehand） with considerable （great） accuracy （correctness）. The sun and the moon might still be gods, but they were gods who obeyed strict laws, apparently （obviously） without any exceptions, if one discounts （dismiss） stories like that of the sun stop

15、ping for （waiting for） Joshua.4 At first, these regularities and laws were obvious only in astronomy （the scientific study of the sun, moon, stars, planets, etc.） and a few other situations. However, as civilization developed, and particularly in the last 300 years, more and more regularities and la

16、ws were discovered. The success of these laws led Laplace （法国哲学家Pierre-Simon Laplace 皮埃尔西蒙拉普拉斯） at the beginning of the nineteenth century to postulate （to suggest or accept that sth is true so that it can be used as the basis for a theory, etc.） scientific determinism （the belief that people are no

17、t free to choose what they are like or how they behave, because these things are decided by their surroundings and other things over which they have no control）; that is, he suggested that there would be a set of laws that would determine the evolution of the universe precisely, given its configurat

18、ion （an arrangement of the parts of sth or a group of things; the form or shape that this arrangement produces构造，配置） at one time. 5 Laplaces determinism was incomplete in two ways. It did not say how the laws should be chosen and it did not specify （to state sth, especially by giving an exact measur

19、ement, time, exact instructions, etc） the initial （happening at the beginning; first） configuration of the universe. These were left to God. God would choose how the universe began and what laws it obeyed, but he would not intervene （interrupt） in the universe once it had started. In effect, God was

20、 confined to （limited to） the areas that nineteenth-century science did not understand. 6 In effect （In fact）, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principles. The question remains, however: ho

21、w or why were the laws and the initial state of the universe chosen? 7 Einstein once asked the question: How much choice did God have in constructing the universe? If the no boundary proposal is correct, he had no freedom at all to choose initial conditions. He would, of course, still have had the f

22、reedom to choose the laws that the universe obeyed. This, however, may not really have been all that （so） much of a choice; there may well be only one, or a small number, of complete unified （统一的,） theories, such as the heterotic string theory, that are self-consistent and allow the existence of str

23、uctures as complicated as human beings who can investigate the laws of the universe and ask about the nature of God. 8 Up to now （So far）, most scientists have been too occupied with （busy with） the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other

24、hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance （progress, development） of scientific theories. In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed quest

25、ions such as: did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists （experts）. Philosophers reduced （narrowed） the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittge

26、nstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, The sole （only） remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language. What a comedown （failure） from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant! 9 However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time （finally） b

27、e understandable （comprehensive） in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it wou

28、ld be the ultimate （final） triumph （victory） of human reasonfor then we would know the mind of God.Notes This text comes from A Brief History of Time. It attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the non-speciali

29、st reader. Stephen Hawking: Stephen William Hawking, （born 8 January 1942） is a British theoretical physicist. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. Why is it the way it is: it means The reason that the universe is

30、 like the way that it is. （为何它就应该是这个样子的?） Here the first it is a formal subject, and the second is used to refer to the word universe. an infinite tower of tortoises: it is universally accepted in the early time that the world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise. superst

31、ring theory: 超弦理论属于弦理论的一种，也指狭义的弦理论。这里的“超”有超对称性的意思。为了将玻色子（bosons）和费米子（fermions）统一，科学家预言了这种粒子，由于实验条件的限制，人们很难找到这种能够证明弦理论的粒子。 the Bermuda Triangle: also known as the Devils Triangle, it is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels are alleged t