萬物簡史 第17期:如何營造一個宇宙(9)

The eventual result was the inflation theory, whichholds that a fraction of a moment after the dawn ofcreation, the universe underwent a suddendramatic expansion. It inflated—in effect ran awaywith itself, doubling in size every 10-34seconds. Thewhole episode may have lasted no more than 10-30seconds—that's one million million million millionmillionths of a second—but it changed the universefrom something you could hold in your hand tosomething at least10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger.Inflation theory explains the ripples and eddies that make our universe possible. Without it,there would be no clumps of matter and thus no stars, just drifting gas and everlastingdarkness.

最后，他提出了膨脹理論。該理論認為，在爆炸后的剎那間，宇宙突然經(jīng)歷了戲劇性的擴大。它不停地膨脹--實際上是帶著自身逃跑，每10^-34秒它的大小就翻一番。整個過程也許只持續(xù)了不到10^-30秒--也就是一百萬億億億分之一秒--但是，宇宙從手都拿得住的東西變成了至少10億億億倍大的東西。膨脹理論解釋了使我們的宇宙成為可能的脈動和旋轉(zhuǎn)。要是沒有這種脈動和旋轉(zhuǎn)的話，就不會有物質(zhì)團塊，因此也就沒有星星，而只有飄浮的氣體和永恒的黑暗。

According to Guth's theory, at one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of asecond, gravity emerged. After another ludicrously brief interval it was joined byelectromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces—the stuff of physics. These werejoined an instant later by swarms of elementary particles—the stuff of stuff. From nothing atall, suddenly there were swarms of photons, protons, electrons, neutrons, and much else—between 1079and 1089of each, according to the standard Big Bang theory.

根據(jù)古思的理論，在一千億億億億億分之一秒之內(nèi)產(chǎn)生了引力。又過了極其短暫的時刻，又產(chǎn)生了電磁以及強核力和弱核力--物理學的材料。之后，又很快出現(xiàn)了大批基本粒子--材料的材料。從無到有，突然有了大批光子、質(zhì)子、電子、中子和許多別的東西--根據(jù)標準的大爆炸理論，每種達10^79-1089個之多。

Such quantities are of course ungraspable. It is enough to know that in a single cracking instantwe were endowed with a universe that was vast—at least a hundred billion light-years across,according to the theory, but possibly any size up to infinite—and perfectly arrayed for thecreation of stars, galaxies, and other complex systems.

這么大的數(shù)量當然是難以理解的。我們只要知道，剎那間，我們有了一個巨大的宇宙，這就夠了--根據(jù)該理論，這個宇宙是如此之大，直徑至少有1000億光年，但有可能是從任何大小直至無窮大--安排得非常完美，為恒星、星系和其他復雜體系的創(chuàng)建準備了條件。