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As I should have shown this earlier, it will not be humans who witness the end point of the sun; it will be creatures as different from us as we are from bacteria.
我前面曾指出的一點(diǎn)是，人類將不能見證太陽的最后生命時(shí)刻，那時(shí)的生物與我們的差別將和我們現(xiàn)在與細(xì)菌間的差別一樣懸殊。
When Einstein died in 1955, one striking tribute to his global status was this cartoon by Herblock in the Washington Post.
當(dāng)愛因斯坦在1955年去世時(shí)，一部漫畫被用來表達(dá)對他全球地位的特別敬意，漫畫作者是華盛頓郵報(bào)的赫布洛克。
The plaque reads, "Albert Einstein lived here." And I'd like to end with a vignette, as it were, inspired by this image.
漫畫中的文字是：“愛因斯坦曾生活在這里”。受這張漫畫的啟發(fā)，我用下面的文字來結(jié)束我的發(fā)言。
We've been familiar for 40 years with this image: the fragile beauty of land, ocean and clouds, contrasted with the sterile moonscape on which the astronauts left their footprints.
四十年來我們已熟悉了這幅圖片：柔美的陸地，海洋和云層與貧瘠的月面形成對比，而宇航員已在月面留下了足跡。
But let's suppose some aliens had been watching our pale blue dot in the cosmos from afar, not just for 40 years, but for the entire 4.5 billion-year history of our Earth.
讓我們假想某些外星生物一直在觀察著我們的暗藍(lán)小點(diǎn)（地球），它們在遙遠(yuǎn)的某處，不只觀察了四十年，而是歷經(jīng)地球發(fā)展史的整個(gè)45億年。
What would they have seen? Over nearly all that immense time, Earth's appearance would have changed very gradually.
它們會(huì)看到過哪些景象呢？在幾乎整個(gè)漫長的時(shí)間流逝中，地球表面的景象變化非常緩慢。
The only abrupt worldwide change would have been major asteroid impacts or volcanic super-eruptions. Apart from those brief traumas, nothing happens suddenly.
僅有的全球范圍的劇烈變動(dòng)，不過是由大的隕石撞擊或超級火山噴發(fā)所引起。除去這些劇烈變動(dòng)，一切都發(fā)生的較為平緩。
The continental landmasses drifted around. Ice cover waxed and waned.
大陸板塊緩慢地漂移。冰蓋交替覆蓋和消融。
Successions of new species emerged, evolved and became extinct.
新的物種交替產(chǎn)生，進(jìn)化直至滅絕。
But in just a tiny sliver of the Earth's history, the last one-millionth part, a few thousand years, the patterns of vegetation altered much faster than before.
但在地球歷史的短短一瞬，其百萬分之一的時(shí)間部分，也就不過是近幾千年里，植被產(chǎn)生了比以往快得多的變化。
This signaled the start of agriculture. Change has accelerated as human populations rose.
這標(biāo)志著人類農(nóng)業(yè)的開端。變化隨著人類人口數(shù)量的增加而加快了速度。
Then other things happened even more abruptly. Within just 50 years -- that's one hundredth of one millionth of the Earth's age--
接下來某些更加顯著的變化發(fā)生了。在短短的50年時(shí)間里 - 那不過是地球年紀(jì)的一億分之一 -
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to rise, and ominously fast.
大氣中的二氧化碳含量開始升高，而且是噩兆般的快速。
