1、大学英语5 第8课大学英语精读第五册08 大耳朵英语 2005-09-30 00:40:22 【打印】 UNIT 8TEXTA 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 accompli
2、shing and become one of the greatest physicists of our time.Roaming the Cosmosby Le0on JaroffDarkness has fallen on Cambridge, England, and on a damp and chilly evening kings Parade is filled with students and faculty. Then, down the crowded thoroughfare comes the University of Cambridges most disti
3、nctive 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 worlds greatest theoretical physicists. As he skillfully maneuvers through the crow
4、d, motorists slow down, some honking their horns in greeting. People wave and shout hello.A huge smile lights up Hawkings 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 ner
5、vous system that usually causes death within three or four years. Hawkings 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.
6、 Now he speaks only by using the slight voluntary movement left in his hands and fingers to operate his wheelchairs 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
7、 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 univer
8、se 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 Hawkings innovative thinking occurs at Cambridge, where he is Lucasian professor of mathematics, a seat once occupied b
9、y 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 midmorni
10、ng 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 departments common room one morning last month, his students were talkin
11、g 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
12、 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, Hawkings computer beeped. I
13、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 toge
14、ther. 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 dont know if this bet was ever settled and, if so, who won.Fascinated by physics, Stephen concentrated in the subject at Oxfords University College, but did no
15、t 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
16、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 didnt seem to be much point in completing my Ph. D., he says.Then Hawkings luck turned. The pro
17、gress 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
18、 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. Einsteins equations indicated that when a star
19、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 hol
20、e, 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 u
21、niverse 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,
22、 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
23、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 o
24、f 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
25、 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 Chicag
26、o 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 Hart
27、le. He has derived a quantum wave describing a self-contained universe that, like the earths surface, has no edge or boundary. If that is the case, says Hawking, Einsteins general theory of relativity would have to be modified, and there would be no singularities. The universe would not be created,
28、not be destroyed; it would simply be, he concludes, adding challengingly, What place, then, for a Creator?NEW WORDSroamv. go from one place to another without a goal or purpose; wander 漫游cosmosn. the whole universe considered as an ordered system 宇宙cosmica.dampa. slightly wet; moistchillya. rather c
29、old; unpleasantly coldchilln.facultyn. all the teachers of a school or collegethoroughfaren. a busy main road 通衢，大道distinguisheda. showing remarkable qualities 杰出的boyisha. of or like a boydimlyad. faintly; unclearly 黯淡地glowvi. give off a steady light; shine 发光armrestn. a support for the arm, esp. on
30、e on the chair or couch 扶手motoristn. a person who drives or rides in an automobilephysicistn. a person who studies or works in physicshonkn. the sound made by a wild goose or an automobile horngreetingn. an act or expression of welcome or salutation 欢迎；致意bespectacleda. wearing glassesamyotrophic lat
31、eral sclerosis肌萎缩性脊髓侧索硬化deteriorationn. the act or process of deteriorating 恶化deterioratevi. become worserobvt. take from unlawfully, esp. by force 抢劫；使丧失voluntarya. controlled by the will; made, done, or a given of ones own free will 随意的；自愿的；志愿的built-ina. forming a part of sth. that cannot be separ
32、ated from itsynthesizern. an electrical instrument that can produce many different sorts of sound 音响合成器voice synthesizer语音合成器synthesisn. the combining of separate things, ideas, etc., into a complete whole 合成humorn. the quality of being amusing or funny; the ability to see or express what is funny 幽默（感）intellectn. the ability to think, reason, and learn; intelligenceinfinitesimaln. a.
