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As physicists built bigger and more ambitious machines,
隨著物理學(xué)家建造越來越大、越來越雄心勃勃的機(jī)器，
they began to find or postulate particles or particle families seemingly without number:
他們開始或推斷出似乎永無窮盡的粒子或粒子族：
muons, pions, hyperons, mesons, K-mesons, Higgs bosons, intermediate vector bosons, baryons, tachyons.
π介子、μ介子、超子、介子、K介子、希格斯玻色子、中間矢量玻色子、重子、超光速粒子。
Even physicists began to grow a little uncomfortable.
連物理學(xué)家都開始覺得不大舒服。
"Young man," Enrico Fermi replied when a student asked him the name of a particular particle,
“年輕人，”當(dāng)有個學(xué)生問恩里科·費(fèi)米某個粒子的名字的時候，他回答說，
"if I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist."
“要是我記得清這些粒子的名字，那我就成了植物學(xué)家了。”
Today accelerators have names that sound like something Flash Gordon would use in battle:
今天，加速器的名字聽上去有點(diǎn)像是弗萊什·戈登用于打仗的武器：
the Super Proton Synchrotron, the Large Electron-Positron Collider, the Large Hadron Collider, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
超級質(zhì)子同步加速器呀，大型正負(fù)電子對撞機(jī)呀，大型強(qiáng)子對撞機(jī)呀，相對論性重離子對撞機(jī)呀。
Using huge amounts of energy
使用的能量是如此之大
(some operate only at night so that people in neighboring towns don't have to witness their lights fading when the apparatus is fired up),
（有的只能在夜間操作，這樣，設(shè)備點(diǎn)火時鄰近城鎮(zhèn)的居民才不至于注意到自己的燈光暗淡下去），
they can whip particles into such a state of liveliness that a single electron can do forty-seven thousand laps around a four-mile tunnel in a second.
它們可以把粒子激活到這樣的狀態(tài)：一個電子在不到1秒的時間里能沿著7公里長的隧道擊打47000圈。
Fears have been raised that in their enthusiasm scientists might inadvertently create a black hole or even something called "strange quarks,"
人們擔(dān)心，科學(xué)家們在頭腦發(fā)熱的時候會在無意之中創(chuàng)建一個黑洞，甚至所謂的“奇異夸克”。
which could, theoretically, interact with other subatomic particles and propagate uncontrollably.
從理論上說，這些粒子可以與別的亞原子粒子相互作用，產(chǎn)生連鎖反應(yīng)，完全失去控制。
If you are reading this, that hasn't happened.
要是你現(xiàn)在還活著在看這本書的話，說明那種情況沒有發(fā)生。
Finding particles takes a certain amount of concentration.
尋找粒子需要集中一定精力。
They are not just tiny and swift but also often tantalizingly evanescent.
粒子不但個兒很小，速度很快，而且轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝。
