時差N小時:長久等待 A long wait

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本期《科學(xué)一刻》將和您聊聊長久等待。

You might have heard the old adage that glass is aliquid,

你可能聽老話講玻璃是一種液體,

and if you go over to Europe and look at the stainedglass windows in the cathedrals, you'll find themthicker on the bottom than the top because they aregradually spilling out. Is this true?

如果你看過歐洲教堂的彩色玻璃窗,你會發(fā)現(xiàn)底部的玻璃要比頂部厚,因為它們正在逐漸變形。這是真的嗎?

Before we answer that one, let's take a second to think about what a cool image that is.

在回答這個問題之前,讓我們首先花幾秒鐘時間思考一個很酷的情景。

Maybe if you lived for centuries instead of years, you could sit around and watch glass pour theway we watch molasses ooze out of a jar.

也許如果你生活了幾個世紀(jì),而不是幾年,那樣的話你就可以坐在那里,看玻璃就像我們看糖蜜從罐子里灑出來一樣。

Well, sometimes little factoids like this get passed around that may or may not be accurate.

嗯,有時這樣的小趣聞會傳達(dá)亦真亦假的信息。

So, to set the record straight, glass is indeed a very slow-moving liquid-yep!

所以，正確來講,玻璃的確是一種流動非常緩慢的液體—是的!

given the standard definition of aliquid, which is something that takes the shape of its container.

再考慮到液體是能盛下容器的形狀的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)定義。

If you could wait a really, really long time, you might be able to watch a seemingly-solid pieceof glass do this.

如果你可以等上非常非常長的時間,你可以看到片狀固體的玻璃。

But it would take a lot more than a few centuries.

但需要超過幾個世紀(jì)的時間。

In fact, a recent study by Edgar Zanotto in the American Journal of Physics showed that theamount of time you'd have to wait to see glass change its shape with the naked eye would belonger than the age of the universe!

事實上,埃德加·贊諾托最近發(fā)表在《美國物理學(xué)雜志》的一項研究表示你用肉眼等待玻璃改變其形狀的時間會超過宇宙的年齡!

Those cathedral windows are probably thicker in some places just because of the crudemethods used to form them.

那些在某些地方教堂的窗戶可能會很厚，只是因為早先是用原油制成。

So, yes, technically glass is a liquid, but no, you can't ever see it move.

所以,是的,技術(shù)上講玻璃是一種液體,但你卻看不到它流動。

Unless you have a few billion years.

除非你愿意花上幾十億年時間。