60秒科学:"世界末日"-1999年加速器

在最近举行的美国科学促进会会议上，石溪大学的Robert Crease¹谈到了世界末日的恐慌，涉及《科学美国人》和RHIC。

At the recent AAAS meeting, Stony² Brook³ University’s Robert Crease talked about a doomsday scare involving Scientific American and Brookhaven National Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC:

“As the accelerator neared completion in 1999, Scientific American ran an article about RHIC, called ‘A Little Big Bang,’ with the title referring to the machine’s ambition to study forms of matter in the early universe.”

A reader wrote in wondering if black holes might be created. Sci Am printed the letter with a considered response from physicist⁴ Frank Wilczek.

“Wilzcek said that the black hole scenario⁵ was incredible. But he also said that there’s a more likely possibility that it might create strangelets, which would swallow ordinary matter and described that as [merely] not plausible⁶. That then prompted a series of headlines including this from the Sunday Times of London, entitled ‘Big Bang Machine Could Destroy Earth’.”

Scientific American, Brookhaven and the Earth survived. Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for his earlier work.

—Steve Mirsky

在最近举行的美国科学促进会会议上，石溪大学的Robert Crease谈到了世界末日的恐慌，涉及《科学美国人》和RHIC。

“1999年加速器接近完工，《科学美国人》发表了一篇关于RHIC的文章《小型大爆炸》，标题指出RHIC是用来研究早期宇宙物质形式的。”

一位读者写信询问是否会产生黑洞。《科学美国人》刊发了这封信，并附带了物理学家弗兰克维尔泽克深思熟虑的一封回信。

Wilzcek说，产生黑洞的说法不可信。但healso说可能性更大的是可能会产生奇异夸克物质，它将吞下普通物质，他认为黑洞是不可能的。之后《伦敦星期日时报》发表一系列含有此类内容的的新闻摘要，标题为《大爆炸机会摧毁地球》。

科学美国人，美国国立brookhaven（布鲁克海文）国家实验室和地球还活着。维尔泽克由于早期的工作在2004年赢得了诺贝尔奖
 

1 crease   

n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱

参考例句：

• Does artificial silk crease more easily than natural silk?人造丝比天然丝更易起皱吗？
• Please don't crease the blouse when you pack it.包装时请不要将衬衫弄皱了。

2 stony   

adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的

参考例句：

• The ground is too dry and stony.这块地太干，而且布满了石头。
• He listened to her story with a stony expression.他带着冷漠的表情听她讲经历。

3 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

4 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

5 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

6 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。