文、译 / 林巍

Gravitational waves, which scientists around the world have been fondly dreaming of for a hundred years,were finally found by United States researchers on 11th February 2016. This significant scientific progress actually marks a victory for theory.

[2] In science, theory is drawn from practice—the discovery and study of the facts. However, facts by themselves are not science, just as a house is built with bricks, but a pile of bricks can hardly be called a house.

[3] Science also involves imagination and creative thinking so as to establish scientific theories, explaining the past,designing the present and predicting the future. In this regard, Einstein is one of the most outstanding scientists.

[4] As early as in 1916, Einstein broke through the Newtonian theory of gravitation (gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which postulates that physical interactions propagate at infinite speed),and predicted that gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation on the basis of his theory of general relativity. The so-called “gravitational waves” are ripples in the curvature of space-time which propagate as waves,travelling outward from the source; in other words, the fabric of space-time which can become curved by anything massive in the Universe. When cataclysmic events happen, such as black holes merging or stars exploding, these curves can ripple out elsewhere as gravitational waves, just as if someone had dropped a stone in a pond.

令科学家们魂牵梦绕2常用的译法还有 dream、dream about、haunt、obsess 等，如：① 我多年来魂牵梦绕的中国之旅, 就这样实现了。（I’ve had my “China dream” for years and I’m here to realize this dream.）② 这就是我魂牵梦绕的那所房子啊！（This is the house I’ve always dreamed about.）③ ……这让他魂牵梦绕（… which haunted and haunted him day and night）④ 那些天她正被中国画所魂牵梦绕。（She is obsessed by Chinese painting those days.）等。了一百年的引力波，终于在2016年2月11日被美国研究者发现了，这个重大的科学进步，实质上是一个理论的胜利。

[2]在科学中，理论固然来自实践——是对事实的发现和研究，但事实本身不是科学，正如房子是由砖砌成的，而砖的堆积不能称之为房子。

[3]科学还需要想象力和创造性思维，从而形成科学理论，用以解释过去、设计现在、预测未来。爱因斯坦便是这样优秀的科学家。

[4]早在1916年，爱因斯坦便突破了牛顿力学（在牛顿引力学中，假定物质互动传播是以无限速度进行的，因而引力波不可能存在），而根据广义相对论，预言引力波会作为引力放射向外传送能量。所谓引力波，是物理学上从动力源作为波浪向外传播时在时空弯曲中的一种波动3从定义角度，这里的“波动” 不宜再用 waves, 如同不能定义“ Computer is …computer”，而为“Computer is a machine whose function is to accept data and process them into information”。同时，ripple 与 wave 亦有细微区别∶ a small wave or series of gentle waves across a surface；an oscillation of small amplitude imposed on top of a steady value等。，即宇宙中的时空结构会因巨大物体而发生弯曲。当巨变发生时，如黑洞合并、行星爆炸，这些曲线便作为引力波扩散他处，正如有人在池塘里扔入了石头。

[5]然而，这些波纹传送到地球时，因体积极小(大约是原子的十亿分之一)，很难发现，故耗费了科学家们近百年时间才得以发现4为呼应前面的 fondly dreaming，这里没有用to discover等。，多亏LIGO5实验室利用激光在两根