万物简史 第17期:如何营造一个宇宙(9)

The eventual result was the inflation theory, whichholds that a fraction of a moment after the dawn ofcreation, the universe underwent a suddendramatic expansion. It inflated—in effect ran awaywith itself, doubling in size every 10-34seconds. Thewhole episode may have lasted no more than 10-30seconds—that's one million million million millionmillionths of a second—but it changed the universefrom something you could hold in your hand tosomething at least10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger.Inflation theory explains the ripples and eddies that make our universe possible. Without it,there would be no clumps of matter and thus no stars, just drifting gas and everlastingdarkness.

最后，他提出了膨胀理论。该理论认为，在爆炸后的刹那间，宇宙突然经历了戏剧性的扩大。它不停地膨胀--实际上是带着自身逃跑，每10^-34秒它的大小就翻一番。整个过程也许只持续了不到10^-30秒--也就是一百万亿亿亿分之一秒--但是，宇宙从手都拿得住的东西变成了至少10亿亿亿倍大的东西。膨胀理论解释了使我们的宇宙成为可能的脉动和旋转。要是没有这种脉动和旋转的话，就不会有物质团块，因此也就没有星星，而只有飘浮的气体和永恒的黑暗。

According to Guth's theory, at one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of asecond, gravity emerged. After another ludicrously brief interval it was joined byelectromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces—the stuff of physics. These werejoined an instant later by swarms of elementary particles—the stuff of stuff. From nothing atall, suddenly there were swarms of photons, protons, electrons, neutrons, and much else—between 1079and 1089of each, according to the standard Big Bang theory.

根据古思的理论，在一千亿亿亿亿亿分之一秒之内产生了引力。又过了极其短暂的时刻，又产生了电磁以及强核力和弱核力--物理学的材料。之后，又很快出现了大批基本粒子--材料的材料。从无到有，突然有了大批光子、质子、电子、中子和许多别的东西--根据标准的大爆炸理论，每种达10^79-1089个之多。

Such quantities are of course ungraspable. It is enough to know that in a single cracking instantwe were endowed with a universe that was vast—at least a hundred billion light-years across,according to the theory, but possibly any size up to infinite—and perfectly arrayed for thecreation of stars, galaxies, and other complex systems.

这么大的数量当然是难以理解的。我们只要知道，刹那间，我们有了一个巨大的宇宙，这就够了--根据该理论，这个宇宙是如此之大，直径至少有1000亿光年，但有可能是从任何大小直至无穷大--安排得非常完美，为恒星、星系和其他复杂体系的创建准备了条件。