英语听力文摘757 关于计数的知识

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2018年11月30日

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News That Counts

A new number was discovered by a team of German mathematicians in January of this year. The previously unknown integer lies in the relatively unexplored region between the numbers 88,000,002,999 and 88,000,003,000. This unexpected integer has been provisionally named “S,” for “Surprise,” until the mathematical community has determined its exact location and value.

The existence of undiscovered whole numbers in the space between known integers has long been recognized as a possibility, according to theoretical mathematician and team leader Angela Zifferling at the Institute for Polynomial Advance in Töttingen, Germany.

Crunching Numbers

It is largely because we are only used to counting up to a thousand or so in our everyday lives that we fail to notice the presence of so-called “inter-integral” numbers and other strange phenomena that lie in the incredibly distant regions of the number line.

As Zifferling explains: “It’s as if you only made observations from here to the moon, and concluded that there isn’t anything much in outer space. We really have no idea what may exist in the remoter regions of the number line, because the simple fact is that the area beyond around one hundred billion is still almost completely unexplored.”

If confirmed, the existence of number S would make calculations involving numbers in its region much more difficult, as it will probably be found to be exerting a kind of pressure on the whole numbers on either side of it in order to fit in. Mathematicians refer to this pressure as “integral crowding,” and say that it may increasingly be a problem as we move farther and farther from zero.

mathematician n. 数学家

integer n. [数] 整数;整体;完整的事物

theoretical adj. 理论的;理论上的;假设的;推理的

【被动语态的处理】

科技用于中被动语态运用的极其广泛，恰好与汉语中少用被动语态的惯用法相反。为了使汉语译文符合汉语的表达方式，根据译文的上下文，一般采用三种译法。 1) 译作汉语主动语态;

例如： It should be reflected in the early design phase giving an opportunity to predict new possibilities.

译为：它应体现为在初期设计阶段有预测新的可能性的机会。就避免了出现类似“它应被反映在”这种在汉语中别扭的说法。

1) 译作汉语被动语态;

这时，汉语译文中运用“被”、“由”、“受”、“为”、“给”、“予以”、“是…的”等虚词。

例如，The end-gas knock is determined mainly by the temperature of unburned mixture

译为：终端气体爆震主要是由未燃混合气的温度决定的。

比起“终端气体爆震主要是被未燃混合气的温度所决定的。”更为精准，简练，不易引起歧义。