TED演讲:抬头看一看平时忽视的变化(4)

Now, like I said, I'm a big fan of technology.

正如我所说的，我是个大科技迷。

Obviously, I use technology every day; I'm a scientist.

作为一个科学家，显然每天我都使用高科技。

And there's this tendency to say that it's progress that -- you know, I'm not suggesting we're going to all go live by candlelight.

大家倾向于认为这是进步--我并非建议大家在烛光下生活。

Indeed, technology is allowing us to access the sky in ways that are impossible otherwise.

确实，科技使我们能够接近天空。

One of the greatest examples of this is, of course, the Hubble Space Telescope.

用一种只有科技能够做到的方式，当然，最伟大的例子就是哈勃太空望远镜。

The Hubble went up into space, it returns pictures daily,

哈勃望远镜被发射进入太空，每天都传回大量照片，

and it allows us to see things that we are incapable¹ of seeing with our naked eye,

让我们看到太空的事物，这些都是我们肉眼所看不到的，

in ways that we've never been able to do before in all of human history.

在人类历史的任何阶段，我们都从没这么做过。

Other examples of this would be planetarium² shows.

其它类似的例子当然还有天体展示。

In the past couple of years, planetarium shows have become more high-tech³ with these great visualizations,

在过去的几年里，借助这些超棒的可视化信息，天体展示变得越来越高科技化，

and even though this isn't access directly to the sky, it's at least access to our knowledge about the sky.

即使这并不是直接亲身接触天空，但至少让我们获得了关于天空的知识。

And indeed, we can experience the sky in a planetarium in a way that is impossible for us to do just sitting out and looking in the dark.

的确，我们可以在天文馆体验那种坐在室外、望向漆黑的夜空所体验不到的感觉。

All of you have heard of the Hubble Space Telescope and of planetariums⁴.

你们大概都听说过哈勃太空望远镜和天文馆。

But there are also ways for technology to enable participation⁵ in people's experience of the sky that you may not be familiar with.

但是也有一些技术可以让人们参与到关于天空的、你可能不熟悉的体验中。

These are called "citizen science projects."

这就是所谓的“平民科学项目”。

Citizen science is when large research projects put their data online, teach ordinary people, like you, to go and interact with that data

平民科学是一个大的项目，他们把数据放到互联网上，教像在座各位这样的普通人去与数据进行交互，

and actually contribute to the research by making interesting or necessary characterizations about it.

通过给数据添加有趣或必要的特征，进而对研究做出贡献。

1 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

2 planetarium   

n.天文馆；天象仪

参考例句：

• The planetarium staff also prepared talks for radio broadcast.天文馆的工作人员还要准备讲稿给电台广播。
• It landed in a shallow basin fifty yards from the planetarium.它降落在离天文馆五十码处的一个浅盆地中。

3 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

4 planetariums   

n.天文馆( planetarium的名词复数 )；天象仪

参考例句：

5 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。