英語四級翻譯：那些復雜到讓你困惑的簡單小事(7)

英語四級翻譯：那些復雜到讓你困惑的簡單小事(7)

7.There's No Universally Accepted Theory On How Bikes Work

關(guān)于自行車的工作原理，還沒有普遍認同的理論

Bicycles have existed for over 100 years, and since they were invented we've mastered land, sea, and air travel while making impressive headway into space. We have planes that can traverse the globe in a matter of hours, so you'd think that by now we'd have the humble bicycle just about figured out. But oddly, that's not the case.

自行車已經(jīng)有100多年的歷史了，并且自從自行車發(fā)明后，我們又掌握了水陸空交通，而且在太空探索方面也取得了令人印象深刻的進展。我們的飛機可以在若干小時內(nèi)飛遍全球，因此，也許你會認為時至今日，我們差不多已經(jīng)弄明白了毫不起眼的自行車的工作原理。但奇怪地是，事實并非如此。

As mentioned in this article, scientists have been arguing about how exactly they work, or more specifically, how they stay upright, almost since they were first invented. For a long time, the major theory was that the gyroscopic force of the wheels spinning kept bikes upright, but when scientists built a special bicycle with contraptions attached to it designed to counteract any gyroscopic forces produced by the wheels, it stayed upright and no one could explain how.

正如《我們?nèi)圆恢雷孕熊嚨墓ぷ髟怼?We still don't really know how bicycles work)一文中提到的那樣，自從人類發(fā)明自行車之初，科學家們就一直為自行車確切的工作原理，更具體地說-它們是如何保持平衡的而爭論不休。很長時間以來，一種主要的理論是車輪旋轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)出的回轉(zhuǎn)力使得自行車保持平衡。但是后來科學家們制造了一輛特殊的自行車，在車上安裝了奇妙的裝置來抵消輪子所產(chǎn)生的回轉(zhuǎn)力，自行車仍能保持平衡，沒有人能解釋這是為什么。

There are theories that the bike's design allows it to steer into a fall and thus correct itself, but they're still just theories. And because bicycle dynamics isn't exactly an area of science into which researchers like to invest their time, it's highly unlikely that we'll know for sure anytime soon.

還有理論稱自行車的設計使其能夠引導車子傾斜的方向2，進而作出調(diào)整，不過這些也只是理論。而且由于研究者們不太愿意將他們的時間花在自行車動力學這一科學領(lǐng)域，在未來很短的時間內(nèi)，我們是不大可能知道自行車確切的工作原理的。

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