时差N小时 绒线的颜色

You go to the local laundromat to do your wash.

想象一下你带着换洗衣物到附近洗衣店清洗，

In the spinningbarrel full of sudsy water you load clothes of all colors:

呈现眼前的是一个装满了肥皂泡水的大滚筒，这时你把所有要洗的衣服扔下去:

a brightred tee-shirt, blue jeans, a green bandanna¹.

鲜红色的T恤,牛仔裤，绿色围巾。

The original mix ofclothing is as multi-colored as a rainbow.

这套服饰搭配就像是多姿多彩的彩虹。

Why, then, does thelint that collects in the lint² tray always come out the same color—a bland³ gray?

那究竟是为什么在洗衣机过滤器中收集起来的绒线呈现出来的是不变的浅灰色？

The answer lies in the way color perception works.

答案就在人体的色觉是如何工作的。

Lint is acollection of tiny, loose fibers⁴ that come off your clothes due to normal wear and tear.

绒线是一些小小的散纤维，他们通常在洗涤过程或者是撕扯中产生。

As no cloth,and indeed no single strand⁵ of cloth, is perfectly⁶ wound, these tiny threads will always be breaking away.

因为没有任何一块布是纺织得十分的完美，所以这些小线头就会到处乱窜。

Thus were you to load the washer with clothes of only one color—say a uniform purple—thelint would indeed be of that color.

因此如果在洗衣机里搁置的是一种颜色的衣物，例如紫色，那绒线就是紫色。

In most cases, however, a wash-load is a mixture of hues⁸.

但大多数情况下，洗衣机里面会混合多种颜色。

The eye, upon examining a closely-knitcombination of colors, merges⁹ them into a single, generalized sensation.

当眼睛检视那多种色彩的混合物之时，显现出来的是他们共同普遍的色觉感受。

This phenomenon isexploited by painters, who sometimes put tiny dots of different primary colors right next to eachother on a canvas to create the illusion of a rich, single hue⁷ when viewed all together.

这种现象常被画家利用，他们经常在一张画布上把不同的原色挨着绘在一起，而造就出一种整体看来是浓郁单色的景象。

If you pullapart a piece of lint carefully you will see that it is indeed composed of multiple colored threads;

如果你小心的扯开一团棉绒，你会发现他实际上是由多种颜色的线头组成。

but as soon as you back away from it, the gray sensation returns.

但你把它揉回去之后，看见的又是灰色。

In an idealized situation, where the threads contained all the primary colors in equal amounts, and were not obscured by dirt and other residues¹⁰, the lint would appear to be white, not gray.

在所有原色的线头数量相等，并且没有被灰尘抑或其他的残渣遮盖的理想情况之下，那些绒线应该是白色的而不是灰色。

But then, if your lint were clean enough to see that effect clearly, you’d never need to wash yourclothes.

但是如果你的衣物已经能呈现出那样的效果，就再也没有必要洗衣服啦！

1 bandanna   

n.大手帕

参考例句：

• He knotted the bandanna around his neck.他在脖子上系了一条印花大围巾。
• He wiped his forehead with a blue bandanna and smiled again.他用一条蓝色的大手帕擦擦前额，又笑了笑。

2 lint   

n.线头；绷带用麻布，皮棉

参考例句：

• Flicked the lint off the coat.把大衣上的棉绒弹掉。
• There are a few problems of air pollution by chemicals,lint,etc.,but these are minor.化学品、棉花等也造成一些空气污染问题，但这是次要的。

3 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

4 fibers   

光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质

参考例句：

• Thesolution of collagen-PVA was wet spined with the sodium sulfate as coagulant and collagen-PVA composite fibers were prepared. 在此基础上，以硫酸钠为凝固剂，对胶原-PVA共混溶液进行湿法纺丝，制备了胶原-PVA复合纤维。
• Sympathetic fibers are distributed to all regions of the heart. 交感神经纤维分布于心脏的所有部分。

5 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 hue   

n.色度；色调；样子

参考例句：

• The diamond shone with every hue under the sun.金刚石在阳光下放出五颜六色的光芒。
• The same hue will look different in different light.同一颜色在不同的光线下看起来会有所不同。

8 hues   

色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点

参考例句：

• When the sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it. 太阳一出，更把它映得千变万化、异彩缤纷。
• Where maple trees grow, the leaves are often several brilliant hues of red. 在枫树生长的地方，枫叶常常呈现出数种光彩夺目的红色。

9 merges   

（使）混合( merge的第三人称单数 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Mo Yan"who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". 2012年诺贝尔文学奖得主为莫言，他“很好地将魔幻现实与民间故事、历史与当代结合在一起”。
• A device that collates, merges, or matches sets of punched cards or other documents. 一种整理、合并或比较一组穿孔卡片或其它文档的设备。

10 residues   

n.剩余，余渣( residue的名词复数 )；剩余财产；剩数

参考例句：

• pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables 残留在水果和蔬菜中的杀虫剂
• All organic and metallic residues on the wafers must be removed. 片子上所有的有机和金属残留物均必须清除。 来自辞典例句