The science book - big ideas

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Vocabulary

1.reinforce

to strengthen with some added piece, support, or material:

eg. to reinforce a wall.

2. peer review

evaluation of a person's work or performance by a group of people in the same occupation, profession, or industry.

3. spot

verb (used without object), spotted, spotting.

to make a spot; cause a stain:

Ink spots badly.

to become spotted, as some fabrics when spattered with water.

Idioms

on the spot
1.without delay; at once; instantly.
2.at the very place in question.
3.in a difficult or embarrassing position.
4.in a position of being expected to act or to respond in some way.

4. speculative

theoretical, rather than practical:

speculative conclusions

He has written a speculative biography of Christopher Marlowe.

他写了一篇关于克里斯托弗·马洛的推测性传记。

5. deflect

verb (used with or without object)

to bend or turn aside; turn from a true course or straight line; swerve.

Over the past couple of years, as the new reality has settled in, there was a great deal of denial and deflection.

6. phlogiston

a nonexistent chemical that, prior to the discovery of oxygen, was thought to be released during combustion.

It was phlogiston and that only which occasioned the electric current.

7. in some measure

to some extent

"a thorough , determined dislike of me - a dislike which i cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy"

无非是决心要跟我结成不解的怨恨，人认为他这种结怨是出于某种程度上的嫉妒。

8. apparatus

a group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc., having a particular function or intended for a specific use:

Our town has excellent fire-fighting apparatus.

9. LHC (Large Hedron Collider )

欧洲大型强子对撞机是现在世界上最大、能量最高的粒子加速器，是一种将质子加速对撞的高能物理设备，英文名称为LHC(Large Hadron Collider)

The LHC's primary control center is used to monitor and run the particle accelerator.

在LHC的主要控制中心是用于监测和运行的粒子加速器

10. cathode ray

阴极射线

A cathode ray is a beam of electrons in a vacuum tube traveling from the negatively charged electrode (cathode) at one end to the positively charged electrode (anode) at the other, across a voltage difference between the electrodes. The are also called electron beams.

And if I evacuate it, I have a cathode ray

如果我对其抽真空，我会得到一根阴极射线管。

11.eclipse

Astronomy

the obscuration of the light of the moon by the intervention of the earth between it and the sun (lunar eclipse) or the obscuration of the light of the sun by the intervention of the moon between it and a point on the earth (solar eclipse).

a similar phenomenon with respect to any other planet and either its satellite or the sun.

the partial or complete interception of the light of one component of a binary star by the other.

12. BCE

以前在英语里“纪元前”是用“BC”来代表,“纪元后”是用“AD”代表；“BC”是“Before Christ”（“基督前”）的首字母缩写；而“AD”则是拉丁文“Anno Domini”（“主的年份”）的缩写.

现代由于西历纪元的通用和标准化,为避免非西方、非基督徒的反感,英语的“纪元前”和“纪元后”常分别用“BCE”和“CE”来代表；“CE”是“Common Era”的缩写,意为“公元”,而“BCE”是“Before the Common Era”的缩写,意为“公元前”.

13. supernova

the explosion of a star, possibly caused by gravitational collapse, during which the star's luminosity increases by as much as 20 magnitudes and most of the star's mass is blown away at very high velocity, sometimes leaving behind an extremely dense core.

the star undergoing such an explosion.

I know that gold, for example, is made from the death of a star—a supernova.

14. caliphate

the rank, jurisdiction, or government of a caliph.

And these three particular teens also might have been encouraged to see a trip to the caliphate as a way to rebel.

15. anatomy

the science dealing with the structure of animals and plants.

the structure of an animal or plant, or of any of its parts.

He draws evidence from genetics, geography, paleontology, anatomy, and elsewhere.

16. dissection

Dissection (from Latin dissecare "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization), is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure.

17. distillation

Distillation is a process of separating the component or substances from a liquid mixture by selective evaporation and condensation.

These two compounds are gases and are formed in the distillation of wood and bones.

18. numeral

noun

a word, letter, symbol, or figure, etc., expressing a number; number:

the Roman numerals

Number、Numeral 、Digit和Figure

Number、numeral、digit和figure都和数字有关，有的人把它们当作同义词来用，但事实上它们含义并不一样。那么具体区别是什么呢？Number、Numeral wbr、Digit和Figure区别X Number是个抽象的数量概念（idea），看不见摸不着。其表达形式（token/sign/symbol/name/mark/figure）用来计数（counting）和测量（measurement），则可以看得到。通常用numeral来表达number，当然还可以用手势、声音等其它方式。

Numeral是代表（represent）数量概念的符号，有不同的书写体系（writing system），例如罗马数字（Roman numerals）【numeral XVII代表17】和印度阿拉伯数字（Hind-Arabic numerals）【即阿拉伯数字】。简单说，numeral就是把number写出来的方法。例如，三的抽象数量概念（threeness）可以具体表达为‘three’、‘3’、‘III’、‘11’【二进制（binary）】、‘三’和其它形式。Numeral广义上指任何代表数字的符号，但狭义上就指阿拉伯数字。

Digit是用来表达numeral的单独符号（single symbol）。日常生活中用0、1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8与9十个digit来表达number。例如，numeral 153由三个digit【1、5和3】来组成；numeral 9由一个digit【9】组成。

所以，digit组成numeral，而numeral代表number。可以用单词和字母来打比方。Letter组成word，而word代表idea。例如，dog有三个字母【d、o和g】组成，而dog表达‘狗’的概念。也可以用人和名字打比方，number类似一个人，而numeral则是他的名字；名字并不是人 ，但代表那个人。一个人可能有几个名字【学名、小名、外号、英文名】，但都指同一个人。

严格地讲，特指数字符号时用numeral或figure；特指单个数字时用digit；其它情况则用number。日常用语无须如此计较number和numeral的区别，通常可以用number来代替numeral。

Number 在日常使用中既可指文字形式也可指数字形式的数量概念，所以如果强调文字形式用spell out或word；反之则用figure、digit或numeral。而write out则似乎两者皆可。Number、Numeral wbr、Digit和Figure区别例如：

l The small numbers, such as whole numbers smaller than ten, should be spelled out.

l Some experts say that any one-word number should be written out.

l Two-word numbers should be expressed in figures.

l With everyday writing and recipes you can use digits, like “4% of the children” or “Add 2 cups of brown rice.”

l You should use numerals, not words, when the number is a key value, an exact measurement value, or both. For example, in the sentence “Our computer backup system uses 4 mm tape” the numeral is in order.

l Rounded numbers over a million are written as a numeral plus a word. Use “About 400 million people speak Spanish natively,” instead of “About 400,000,000 people speak Spanish natively.” If you’re using the exact number, you’d write it out, of course.【这里write out 应该指用数字表示准确数量，而非文字】Number、Numeral wbr、Digit和Figure区别

19. combustion

the act or process of burning.

Chemistry

rapid oxidation accompanied by heat and, usually, light.

chemical combination attended by production of heat and light.

slow oxidation not accompanied by high temperature and light.

If combustion occurs within a battery, says Boeing, it would be snuffed out in a microsecond for lack of oxygen.

20. genome

a full set of chromosomes; all the inheritable traits of an organism.

In modern molecular biology and genetics, a genome is the genetic material of an organism. It consists of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses).

The scientists tracked the words in the "Iliad" the way they would track genes in a genome.

Review

   This article，without too much new words, still confuses me a lot when I read it through for the first time. For one reason, limited knowledge of the scientific fields such as physics and chemistry blocks my understanding of the details, which affects the overall comprehension of the text. However, the titles ahead of each part gives me a hand in grasping the main idea of each  part. In other words, I could march on in a more logical  way.

   Scientists are different from common people in many aspects especially their attitude towards truth. Just as the saying goes, "if you are a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." It may seems exaggerated at first glance. But from a ideal perspective, it is the pure state where science could live and grow. I recalled the moments which are close to this situation. What I could remember are only the questions I once asked myself such as "where did I come from and where will I go". In most time, I seem to take everything,I mean the material things, for granted. A lack of criticism makes me far away from those scientists, especially those who denied the longheld belief.