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18 The Bounding Main
第十八章 浩瀚的海洋
Imagine trying to live in a world dominated by dihydrogen oxide, a compound that has no taste or smell and is so variable in its properties that it is generally benign but at other times swiftly lethal. Depending on its state, it can scald you or freeze you. In the presence of certain organic molecules it can form carbonic acids so nasty that they can strip the leaves from trees and eat the faces off statuary. In bulk, when agitated, it can strike with a fury that no human edifice could withstand. Even for those who have learned to live with it, it is an often murderous substance. We call it water.
請你想像一下，你能不能生活在一個由一氧化二氫主宰的世界里。那是一種無色無味的化合物，性質極為多變，一般情況下比較溫和，但有時候一下子可以致命。它可以灼傷你，也可以凍壞你，這取決于它處于什么狀態。要是存在某種有機分子，它可以形成碳酸。碳酸簡直可惡之極，會使樹葉掉個精光，會侵蝕雕像的表面。要是數量很大，而且受到剌激，它就會發起猛烈的襲擊，人類的任何建筑物都不是它的對手。即使對于那些已經學會與它一起過日子的人來說，它也往往充滿危險。我們把這東西稱之為水。
Water is everywhere. A potato is 80 percent water, a cow 74 percent, a bacterium 75 percent. A tomato, at 95 percent, is little but water. Even humans are 65 percent water, making us more liquid than solid by a margin of almost two to one. Water is strange stuff. It is formless and transparent, and yet we long to be beside it. It has no taste and yet we love the taste of it. We will travel great distances and pay small fortunes to see it in sunshine. And even though we know it is dangerous and drowns tens of thousands of people every year, we can't wait to frolic in it.
哪里都有水。一個馬鈴薯80%是水，一頭牛74%是水，一個細菌75%是水。一個西紅柿95%是水，幾乎全是水。連人也65%是水，因此我們身上的液體和固體之比差不多是2:1。水是一種古怪的東西。它沒有形狀，晶瑩透明，然而，我們渴望待在它的身邊。它沒有味道，我們卻愛嘗嘗它的味道。我們千里迢迢，花上好多的錢，就是為了去看一眼它在陽光下閃耀的情景。盡管我們知道它很危險，每年要淹死成千上萬個人，我們還是迫不及待地要去水里泡一泡。
Because water is so ubiquitous we tend to overlook what an extraordinary substance it is.
由于水是無處不在的，因此我們往往不在意它是一種極不尋常的物質。
