托福听力TPO02精听讲义 | 讲座4: Bode's Law

Part I

Professor: OK. Let's get going. Today I'm going to talk about how the asteroid belt was discovered. And... I'm gonna start by writing some numbers on the board. Here they are: We'll start with zero, then 3, 6, 12. Uh, tell me what I'm doing.

Student: Multiplying by 2?

Professor: Right. I'm doubling the number, so 2 times 12 is 24, and the next one I'm going to write after 24 would be...

Student: 48.

Professor: 48. Then 96. We'll stop there for now. Uh, now I'll write another row of numbers under that. Tell me what I'm doing. 4, 7, 10... How am I getting the second row?

1. star 恒星, planet行星, asteroid 小行星, satellite 卫星, meteor 流星, meteorolite 陨石, galaxy 星系, constellation 星座

2. plus 加, add 加, minus 减, multiply 乘, divide 除, square 平方, square root 平方根, equation 方程, formula 公式, quadratic equation 二次方程, cubic equation 三次方程

Part II

Student: Adding 4 to the numbers in the first row.

Professor: I'm adding 4 to each number in the first row to give you a second row. So the last two will be 52, 100, and now tell me what I'm doing.

Student: Putting in a decimal?

Professor: Yes, I divided all those numbers by 10 by putting in a decimal point. Now I'm going to write the names of the planets under the numbers. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars... So, what do the numbers mean? Do you remember from the reading?

Student: Is it the distance of the planets from the Sun?

对，通过添加小数点我将所有这些数字除以了10。

1. decimal 小数, fraction 分数, ordinal 序数, odd / even number 奇/偶数, rational / irrationalnumber 有理 / 无理数

2. Mercury 水星, Venus金星, Earth地球, Mars 火星, Jupiter 木星, Saturn 土星, Uranus 天王星, Neptune 海王星

3. reading |ˈri:dɪŋ|

noun. books, articles, etc. that are intended to be read 读本；读物；阅读材料

E.g.: The article is not exactly light reading (= it is not easy to read) .

       这篇文章读起来并不轻松。

Part III

Professor: Right. In astronomical units—not perfect, but tantalizingly close. The value for Mars is off by 6 or 7 percent or so. It's... but it's within 10 percent of the average distance to Mars from the Sun. But I kind of have to skip the one after Mars for now. Then Jupiter's right there at 5-point something, and then Saturn is about 10 astronomical units from the Sun. Um, well, this pattern is known as Bode's Law.

Um, it isn't really a scientific law, not in the sense of predicting gravitation mathematically or something, but it's attempting a pattern in the spacing of the planets, and it was noticed by Bode hundreds of years ago.

呃，它并不是真正意义上的科学定律，起码在像通过用数学预测引力或者其他的什么意义上它不是科学定律，但它试图在行星的间距当中找到一种模式，并且这个模式在数百年前就被 Bode 注意到了。

1. astronomical unit

 (astronomy) a unit of measurement equal to 149.6 million kilometres, which is the distance from the centre of the earth to the sun 天文单位（即地球中心与太阳的距离，约合1.496亿公里）

2. tantalizingly|ˈtæntəlaɪzɪŋli|

adv. to make a person or an animal want sth that they cannot have or do （以可望而不可即之物）逗引地，招惹地，使干着急地 

E.g.: The branch was tantalizingly out of reach.

       够不到那树枝，让人干着急。

3. off|ɒf|

adj.not correct: wrong不正确的；错误的 

E.g.: I must be off in my calculations.

 我应该是算错了。

4. pattern |ˈpætn|

noun. the regular way in which sth happens or is done 模式；方式

E.g.: The murders all seem to follow a (similar) pattern (= happen in the same way) .

       这些凶杀案似乎同出一辙。

5. attempt|ˈpætn|

verb. to make an effort or try to do sth, especially sth difficult 努力；尝试；试图

E.g.: The prisoners attempted an escape, but failed.

       囚犯企图逃跑，但失败了。

Part IV

Well, you can imagine that there was some interest in why the 2.8 spot in the pattern was skipped, and um... but there wasn't anything obvious there, in the early telescopes. Then what happened in the late 1700s? The discovery of... ?

Student: Another planet?

Professor: The next planet out, Uranus—after Saturn. And look, Uranus fits in the next spot in the pattern pretty nicely, um, not perfectly, but close. And so then people got really excited about the validity of this thing and finding the missing object between Mars and Jupiter. And telescopes, remember, were getting better. So people went to work on finding objects that would be at that missing distance from the Sun, and then in 1801, the object Ceres was discovered.

嗯，你可以想象大家会关注为什么这个模式里2.8 的那个点被跳过了，起码通过早期的望远镜观测，那个点上没有什么明显的东西。

1. interest |ˈɪntrəst|

noun. the feeling that you have when you want to know or learn more about sb/sth 兴趣；关注

E.g.: Just out of interest , how much did it cost?

       我只是好奇问问，这个花了你多少钱？

2. validity|vəˈlɪdəti|

noun. the state of being logical and true 符合逻辑；正当；正确

E.g.: We had doubts about the validity of their argument.

 我们对他们的论点的正确性有过怀疑。

Part V

And Ceres was in the right place—the missing spot. Uh, but it was way too faint to be a planet. It looked like a little star. Uh, and because of its starlike appearance, um, it was called an “asteroid”. OK? “Aster” is Greek for “star” as in “astronomy.” Um, and so, Ceres was the first and is the largest of what became many objects discovered at that same distance. Not just one thing, but all the objects found at that distance from the asteroid belt. So the asteroid belt is the most famous success of this Bode's Law. That's how the asteroid belt was discovered.

“Aster”在希腊语中是“星星”的意思，就像在“天文学(astronomy)”这个词里一样的意思。

谷神星是第一个，也是在相同距离发现的众多天体中最大的一个。

1. way |weɪ|

adv. very far; by a large amount 很远；大量 

E.g.: The price is way above what we can afford.

       这价格大大超过了我们的支付能力。

2. what become of sb/sth

used to ask what has happened or what will happen to sb/sth （遭遇）如何；（结果）怎么样 

E.g.: I dread to think what will become of them if they lose their home.

 我不敢设想他们如果无家可归将会怎么样。