關於 fraction意思 ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

【基礎力量訓練的動作有哪些？】

在我的觀念裡，力量訓練可分為「基礎力量」和「專項力量」。前者是每一種運動項目都要練的，後者跟運動項目有關，例如游泳、自行車、足球和跑步的「專項力量」都會有差別。但「基礎力量」會大同小異，這個大同中就一定有蹲舉……等動作。但除了蹲舉還有哪些？《The System》這本談論基礎力量的專書已經明確回答了這個問題，下面引用原文書第34頁分享如下：
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#以下為譯文

帕列托法則（Pareto’s Principle），是一項著名的經濟學法則，又稱為「80/20法則」，它也適用於力量訓練動作的選擇。它所要表達的意思很簡單：把80%資源花在能產出最大效益的20%關鍵事情上，而這20%的關鍵又將為你帶來80%的效益。從訓練的目的來看，我們可以把這個法則的內容改寫成：從所有的力量動作中選出最關鍵的20%，而這關鍵的20%訓練動作將為運動員的力量與爆發力帶來80%的訓練效果。

這關鍵的20%訓練動作，作者選列如下：
●蹲舉及其變化式：背蹲舉、前蹲舉、單腿蹲
●爆發力動作：上膊、抓舉、挺舉、推舉
●推與拉：臥推、肩推、上膊與抓舉的拉槓動作、划船及其變化式
●下背與後側動力鏈：羅馬尼亞式硬舉 (RDL)、背挺舉、反向背挺舉、早安動作

以上這份清單很短，但這些動作就是我們認為基礎力量動作中關鍵的20%。雖然我們所設計的力量課表中，不會只有這些動作，但80%的訓練效果無疑都是由它們產生，在跟我們合作過的運動員中只要是認真熟練這幾個動作，進步的效果都很明顯。

簡而言之，把你的重心放在學習與優化這幾種動作的教學上，會比學習眾多「複雜的」和「全面式的」課表，更能有效幫助運動員提升力量和爆發力。

除了上述20%關鍵動作之外，任何其他的舉重與訓練動作都應當作輔助、平衡弱點或滿足專項運動需求的訓練手段。這些動作應只占總體訓練的一小段時間，只是在填補訓練空隙，換句話說，它們只是輔助。有很多教練在動作選擇上太過追求創造力，不斷地學習與搜集那些無法顯著提升力量的訓練動作。

運動的基礎元素是蹲、跳、跑、彎(腰)/屈(膝)、(旋)轉、推、拉。只要你在這些基礎元素中奠定良好的基礎，練就更好的動作品質、穩定度與力量，並逐步提升動作的速度，我們幾乎就能為每一種運動提供所需的專項力量。重要的事先做，把大量的時間反覆花在關鍵動作的技術優化與力量強化上。

#原文如下
We ascribe to the 80/20 rule—attributed as Pareto’s Principle, an economic principle. It states that for many events, 20 percent of the work yields 80 percent of the effects. Adapted for our purposes, 20 percent of all the exercise and movement choices yield 80 percent of the gains in strength and power development.

●SQUAT VARIATIONS—back squat, front squat, single-leg squat
●EXPLOSIVE MOVEMENTS—clean, snatch, jerk, push-press
●PUSHING AND PULLING—bench press, military press, pulls (clean and snatch), row variants
●LOW BACK AND POSTERIOR CHAIN—Romanian deadlift (RDL), hyperextension and reverse hyperextension, good morning

That very short list of fundamental lifts compromises our particular 20 percent. Although we dedicate much more than 20 percent of our programming to these basic lifts, there is no doubt that well over 80 percent of the results we have seen in our athletes can be attributed to mastering this handful of movements and lifts.

Made even simpler, placing the primary focus of your coaching on learning and refining your teaching of the fundamental lifts will yield far greater and more sustained gains in your athletes’ strength and power than many more complex and “comprehensive” programs.

Any additional lifts or movements should be considered assistance or accessory work, which serve to address specific needs or deficits. Those exercises make up just a fraction of our time, as they fill gaps, rather than form the base of training—in other words, to provide assistance. Too many coaches try to be creative in exercise selection and end up with a collection of movements and lifts that improve nothing to any significant level.

The fundamental movements of sport are squatting, jumping, running, bending, twisting, pushing, and pulling. By building proficiency in the quality, the stability and strength, and then the speed of those movements, we provide almost all of the sport specificity we need. This is how we put first things first, and spend the greatest amount of time and repetition on refining and strengthening movements.
(以上原文出自《The System》第34頁)
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若有發現翻譯不到位或有問題的地方，非常歡迎也希望各界指正！

[時事英文] 死亡率（mortality rate）*、壓平曲線（flattening the curve）、活動限制 （lockdown）：如何理解這些術語？
　
Language goes beyond a sealed system governed by a rigid set of rules. To fully understand the meaning of a word, one must look further than connotation and denotation, and also take context into consideration. In this case, one needs to examine the social, political, economic, and even statistical contexts of the terms.
　
語言並非只是受嚴密規則所約束的封閉系統。為了充分理解一個單詞的意涵，我們不僅要瞭解其本義與引申義，同時還要考慮整個語境。在此一情況下，應要考察社會、政治、經濟甚至統計上的語境。
　
Does “confirmed cases,” for example, mean the same thing in every country before and during the coronavirus outbreak? What about “lockdowns”? Does it mean that the government is advising people to stay home or is someone nailing your door shut? Some food for thought when reading about the coronavirus outbreak.
　
例如，在冠狀病毒爆發前以及爆發期間，「確診病例」在各國是否具有相同的含義？那麼，封鎖呢？這是否意味著政府正建議人們留在家中，抑或有人正把你家大門釘上？以上是在閱讀疫情的相關資訊時所引人深思的一些事情。
　
*同學好心的補充說明：「mortality rate」通常指的是死亡率，而「fatality rate」則是（因罹患某疾病）致死率。兩者都是重要的死亡指標，但計算公式不相同。
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
《紐約時報》報導：
　
Making sense of the coronavirus pandemic requires getting up to speed on semantics as much as epidemiology. Government officials and health care professionals toss off mentions of mortality rates, flattening the curve and lockdowns, assuming that we know what they mean. But the terms mean different things from country to country, state to state, even city to city and person to person. Officials use the same phrases about mass testing, caseloads and deaths to describe very different situations. That makes it hard to give clear answers to vital questions: How bad are things? Where are they headed?
　
1. make sense of… 理解……
2. get up to speed on 了解最新情況；跟上進度
3. toss off 輕而易舉地處理*
　
弄懂新型冠狀病毒大流行，既需要了解流行病學的最新情況，也需要在語義學上跟上形勢。「死亡率」、「壓平曲線」和「活動限制」等說法從政府官員和公共衛生專業人士的嘴裡脫口而出，他們假設大家都知道這些詞的意思。但對不同的國家、不同的州，甚至不同的城市和個人來說，這些術語有著不同的含義。 官員們使用「大規模檢測」、「病例數」和「死亡病例數」等相同的措辭，來描繪非常不同的情況。這令一些重要的問題難以得到明確的回答：情況有多糟糕？正在向什麼方向發展？
　
toss off: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toss%20off
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
People search for insight by comparing their countries to those that are further along in the epidemic. But if the terms are misleading or used in differing ways, the comparisons are flawed. Also, the statistics and vocabulary offer a false sense of precision while in reality, the information we have shows only a fraction of what’s going on. “The new cases or deaths each day are given as exact numbers, and we’re trained to take that at face value,” said Mark N. Lurie, an epidemiologist at Brown University’s School of Public Health. “But those are far from exact, they’re deeply flawed, and their meaning varies from place to place and from time period to time period.”
　
4. be further along in 在……上走得更深遠
5. at face value 根據外表；從表面上看
　
人們將自己的國家與那些經歷了疫情更多階段的國家進行比較，以求了解情況。但是，如果這些詞語使人產生誤解，或在使用方式上存在差異的話，這種比較就是錯誤的。此外，這些統計數據和詞彙給人以精準的假象，而現實是，我們所掌握的信息僅代表冰山一角。「每天的新增病例數或死亡人數都是以精準數字的形式通報的，我們被訓練成只看這些表面數字。」布朗大學公共衛生學院流行病學家馬克・盧裡說。「但這些數字遠非精準，而且有嚴重缺陷，它們的含義因不同的時間和地點而不同。」
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
I. Confirmed Cases 確診病例
　
Countries vary wildly in testing for the virus and how they report the numbers, and experts say most infections are going undetected. So the publicized national tallies are rough, incomplete pictures that may not be all that comparable. And that’s if countries are forthcoming about their data.
　
6. vary wildly in 在……上有極大的差異*
7. publicize 公布；宣傳
8. national tallies 國家的統計數據
9. incomplete pictures 不完整的狀況
10. forthcoming 樂於幫助的
　
各國在病毒檢測以及通報數字的方式上有很大差異，而且專家們說，大多數感染都沒有被發現。因此，各國公布的只是粗略的數據，這些並不完整的描繪也許沒有多少可比性。這還是在假設各國願意提供數據的情況下。

wildly: https://bit.ly/2wkgPjo
　
⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹
　
Officials in the United States say that China, which has reported more than 82,000 infections, has understated its epidemic. Until this week, the Chinese government excluded those patients who tested positive for the virus but had no symptoms. China also doesn’t say how many tests it has conducted, and doubts have been raised about whether it has tested extensively in Xinjiang, the province where it holds hundreds of thousands of Muslims in indoctrination camps. The Covid Tracking Project, run by The Atlantic, has tried to compile all the numbers in the United States and reports more than 1.2 million tests so far, over 3,600 per million people.
　
11. understate 未如實陳述；避重就輕地說
12. exclude 把……排除在外
13. indoctrination camps 再教育營
14. run by 由……經營
　
中國通報的累計確診病例超過８萬２千例，美國官員說，中國淡化了國內的疫情。直到本週前，中國政府一直把病毒檢測呈陽性但沒有癥狀的感染者不納入確診病例。中國也未公開接受檢測的人數，而且外界已對中國是否在新疆進行了大規模檢測表示懷疑，中國在那裡把數十萬穆斯林關進了拘禁營。《大西洋月刊》的新冠肺炎追蹤計劃試圖匯總美國的所有數據，它統計到的數字是，美國迄今為止進行了逾１２０萬例檢測，平均每百萬人超過３６００例。
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
II. Widespread Testing 大規模檢測

It matters not only how many people are tested, but also when, and who they are. Once again, countries differ, shaping what the numbers mean. A few countries, like South Korea, Australia and Singapore, got serious about mass testing early on. They used the information to do ambitious contact-tracing — finding and testing those who had recently been near infected people, even if they had no symptoms.
　
15. it matters 重要的是
16. not only……, but also…… 不僅……，而且……
17. get serious about 認真對待某事
18. early on 在早期
　
重要的不只是多少人做了檢測，檢測時間和檢測對象也很重要。各國在檢測時間和對象上也有不同，這讓數字的含義也有所不同。韓國、澳洲和新加坡等少數國家很早就開始認真地進行大規模檢測。他們利用這些信息嚴格追蹤接觸者，也就是找到並檢測那些親密接觸者，即使他們沒有癥狀。
　
⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹
　
But most nations with large numbers of cases have done less testing, waited longer to do it in bulk, and made little attempt at contact tracing. They find themselves playing catch-up with the virus, ramping up testing after their outbreaks had already mushroomed. They detect more cases, but by then it’s hard to tell how much of that growth is the expanding epidemic and how much is expanding surveillance. Unable to meet the demand, they often limit testing to the sickest patients and health workers.
　
19. in bulk 大量
20. make little attempt 幾乎未做嘗試
21. ramp up 增加*
22. mushroom (v.) 迅速增長；迅速發展*
23. meet the demand 滿足需求
24. limit……to 將……限制在……
　
但大多數存在大量確診病例的國家進行的檢測數量都比較少，都是等了更長時間後才開始進行大規模檢測，而且對追蹤接觸者的工作幾乎未做嘗試。這些國家發現自己在拚命追趕病毒的傳播，在疫情迅速蔓延後才加大了檢測力度。這些國家都檢測到了更多的病例，但此時已很難判斷新增病例中有多少是疫情不斷擴大的結果，有多少是擴大疫情監測的結果。由於無法滿足檢測需求，這些國家通常只能對病情最嚴重的患者以及衛生工作者做檢測。
　
ramp up: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ramp-up
mushroom: https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/mushroom
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
III. Fatality Rates 致死率
　
It has been stated time and again: Italy and Spain have high mortality rates among coronavirus patients, Germany’s is low, and China’s is somewhere between. It may not be that simple. Counting the dead is as flawed and inconsistent as counting the infected. Recent reports say that mortuaries in Wuhan, China, where the disease was first discovered, have ordered thousands more urns than usual, suggesting a much higher death toll than the city’s official count, 2,535. The outbreaks in Wuhan, and parts of Italy and Spain, overwhelmed hospitals, forcing many sick people to ride it out at home. No one knows how many people have recovered or died without ever being tested. And if only the sickest patients are tested, then the number of infections will appear smaller and the percentage who die will seem higher.
　
25. time and again 屢次；一再
26. as flawed and inconsistent as 像……一樣存在缺陷與不一致
27. mortuary 停屍間（太平間）
28. urn 骨灰罈
29. suggest 暗示*
30. death toll 死亡人數
31. to ride it out 安然渡過（難關）*
　
一個反覆提及的說法是：義大利和西班牙的新冠病毒肺炎患者死亡率高，德國的低，中國的居中。情況也許並不那麼簡單。統計死亡人數和統計感染人數一樣存在缺陷和不一致的地方。最近有報導稱，武漢的殯儀館訂購的骨灰盒數比該市官方統計的２５３５例死亡高出好幾千，表明死亡人數遠高於官方公布的數字。新冠病毒最早就是在這座城市發現的。武漢以及義大利和西班牙部分地區的疫情使醫院不堪重負，許多患者被迫在家中渡過難關。沒人知道究竟有多少人在從未做檢測的情況下康復或死亡。如果只對病情最嚴重的患者做檢測的話，感染人數看上去會更低，而死亡率看起來將更高。
　
suggest: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/suggest
ride sth out: https://bit.ly/2Rd6Tj6
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
IV. The Peak 疫情高峰
　
Officials often talk about when the epidemic peaks or plateaus — when a country “flattens the curve.” But they rarely specify, the peak of what? And how can we be sure we’re past it? When an outbreak is growing unchecked, more people become infected and more die each day than the day before. On a graph, the curve showing the daily count of new cases has gone from rising sharply to moving sideways — the curve has flattened — and even begun to move downward. That is one corner being turned: The rate of the spread of the virus has slowed down. It takes longer to turn another: the rate of people dying.
　
32. from rising sharply to moving sideways 從急劇上升到橫向移動
33. turn the corner 好轉；度過難關*
　
官員們經常提疫情何時達到高峰或進入平台期，也就是一個國家「壓平曲線」的時候。但他們很少具體說明是什麼達到了高峰，以及我們怎麼能確定高峰已過？當疫情不受控制地發展時，每天的感染和死亡人數都比前一天多。曲線圖上顯示的每天新增病例數從急劇上升變得趨於平緩——曲線已被壓平——甚至開始下降。這是一個轉折點：病毒的傳播速度已經放緩。度過死亡人數的轉折點則需要更長的時間。
　
turn the corner: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turn%20the%20corner
　
⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹
　
But even when those curves flatten, the epidemic still has not “peaked” by another crucial measure: the number of active cases. That figure continues to rise until the number of patients who either die or recover each day is larger than the number of new infections. To ease the staggering load on health care systems, the active cases curve must also flatten and then fall.
　
34. peak (v.) 使……達到頂峰
35. either……or…… 不是……就是……
36. staggering 沉重的；巨大的
　
但是，即使這些曲線已趨於平緩，疫情的另一個重要衡量指標——現存確診病例數——仍未達到「峰值」。在每天的死亡或康復患者人數超過新增感染人數之前，這個數字還將繼續上升。為緩解衛生系統的沉重負擔，現存確診病例數的曲線也必須先趨平，然後下降。
　
peak: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/peak_2
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
V. Lockdowns 封鎖（活動限制）
　
More than two billion people, including most Americans, are living under something usually called a lockdown. But there is no set definition of that word — or related terms like stay-at-home mandates and social distancing — so the details differ from place to place. The biggest differences may be in enforcement. Some places, like those in the United States with lockdowns, mostly rely on people to follow the rules without coercion. But Italy and others have deployed soldiers to ensure compliance, and French police have fined hundreds of thousands of people for violating restrictions. China, in addition to using security forces, mobilized an army of volunteers, ratcheting up social pressure to obey.
　
37. set definition 固定的定義
38. enforcement 實施；執行
39. rely on 仰賴；依靠
40. deploy 部署
41. compliance 服從
42. fine 處……以罰款（或罰金）
43. in addition to 除了……之外
44. mobilize 動員
45. ratchet sth up/down 逐步增加／減少
　
全球有２０多億人，包括大多數美國人正生活在一般被稱為「活動限制」的狀態下。但這個詞沒有固定的定義，其他的相關說法，比如政府的「待在家裡」和「保持社交距離」令也沒有明確的定義，所以各地的具體做法也不一樣。最大的不同可能在執行方面。有些地方，比如美國有限制令的地方，主要依靠人們自覺遵守，而非強制。但義大利等國為確保限制令的落實而動用了軍隊，法國警方還對數已十萬計的違反禁令者處以罰款。中國除了使用安全部隊外，還動員了一支志願者大軍來加大服從封鎖隔離措施的社會壓力。
　
⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹
　
Italy’s experience shows the looseness of the term. It has gone through several phases of restrictions, applying them to more people, making them stricter and increasing enforcement. A few weeks ago, a person could travel around Italy for a valid work or family reason. Now, people are fined for nonessential walking too far from their homes. But each stage was widely called by the same name: lockdown.
　
46. looseness 鬆散
47. valid 確鑿的；合理的；有根據的；讓人信服的
　
義大利的經歷表明了這個詞語解釋上的自由。義大利的封鎖令經歷了幾個階段，適用範圍擴大到越來越多的人，封鎖及其執行也變得越來越嚴格。幾週前，人們還可以因為正當的工作或家庭原因在義大利旅行。現在，人們會因不必要的離家太遠的走動而被罰款。但禁令的每個階段用的都是同一個泛泛的名稱：活動限制。
　
《紐約時報》完整報導：https://nyti.ms/2XcCUeT

圖片出處：https://fxn.ws/34gwSeH
　
★★★★★★★★★★★★
　
時事英文大全：http://bit.ly/2WtAqop
　
如何使用「時事英文」：https://bit.ly/3a9rr38
　
＃疫情英文

神奇的翻譯幻想魔力

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True?
什麼才是真的？：真實世界的神奇魔力
作者： Richard Dawkins
譯者： 黃煜文
繪者： 戴夫．麥金
出版社：大塊文化
出版日期：2012/05/29

這位譯者譯了幾本我感興趣的書，幾年前揭露過他翻譯另一本書（《是邏輯還是鬼扯？》）時的一些誤譯，有些頗爲好笑。著名無神論者、倡導演化論的英國科學家道金斯這本科普好書的翻譯，看來也一樣的不用心（還是無能爲力？），這裡略舉例幾段。

博客來試讀第1-2頁（原文第一章第14-16頁、中譯第12-14頁）

// Back to those dinosaurs. How do we know that they once roamed the Earth? We have never seen them or heard them or had to run away from them. Alas, we don’t have a time machine to show them to us directly. But here we have a different kind of aid to our senses: we have fossils, and we can see them with the naked eye. Fossils don’t run and jump but, because we understand how fossils are formed, they can tell us something of what happened millions of years ago. We understand how water, with minerals dissolved in it, seeps into corpses buried in layers of mud and rock. We understand how the minerals crystallize out of the water and replace the 【materials】 of the corpse, 【atom by atom,】 leaving some trace of the original animal’s form imprinted on the stone. So, although we can’t see dinosaurs directly with our senses, we can work out that they must have existed, using indirect evidence that still ultimately reaches us through our senses: we see and touch the stony traces of ancient life.

讓我們回頭來談談恐龍。我們怎麼知道牠們曾經一度漫遊在這片大地上？我們從未看過或聽過恐龍，也從未因為恐龍出現而四處逃竄。真可惜，我們沒有時光機能讓我們直接看到恐龍。但我們有不同的方法可以協助我們的感官：我們有化石，所以我們可以用肉眼看見「它們」。化石不會跑也不會跳，但我們了解化石是怎麼形成的，我們可以從化石得知數百萬年前發生的事。我們知道溶有礦物質的水分會以什麼方式滲透到埋在泥土與岩石層裡的殘骸中。我們也知道這些礦物質在水分蒸發後會留下結晶，然後取代原來存在於殘骸裡的【礦物質】。它們會【一個原子接著一個原子】把動物原本的形體痕跡滲印在石頭上。所以，雖然我們無法直接用我們的感官看見恐龍，但我們可以推斷恐龍真的存在，這些間接的證據最終還是能被我們的感官感知到：我們可以看到與摸到古代生物留在石頭上的痕跡。//

1a. //We understand how the minerals crystallize out of the water and replace the materials of the corpse, atom by atom, leaving some trace of the original animal’s form imprinted on the stone.
我們也知道這些礦物質在水分蒸發後會留下結晶，然後取代原來存在於殘骸裡的礦物質。它們會一個原子接著一個原子把動物原本的形體痕跡滲印在石頭上。//

「礦物質」取代「礦物質」？原譯把materials看成minerals。

改：這些礦物質在水分蒸發後會留下結晶，取代殘骸裡的物質。

（後記：感謝讀者 @ Michelle Wen〔小說譯者兼資深校稿人〕指出materials的誤譯。）

1b. Atom by atom，從英文的寫法看，應當修飾前句的「取代」(replace)，不是修飾後句的「leave some trace」。

改：這些礦物質在水分蒸發後會留下結晶，一個原子接著一個原子取代殘骸裡的物質，把動物原本形體的些許痕跡滲印在石頭上。

這些錯誤如果看來沒什麼，好戲還在後頭！

// In a different sense, a telescope can work like a kind of time machine. What we see when we look at anything is actually light, and 【light takes time to travel.】 Even when you look at a friend’s face you are seeing them in the past, because the light from their face takes a tiny fraction of a second to travel to your eye. Sound travels much more slowly, which is why you see a firework burst in the sky noticeably earlier than you hear the bang. When you watch a man chopping down a tree in the distance, there is an odd delay in the sound of his axe hitting the tree.

從不同的角度來看，望遠鏡就像時光機。我們看到景物時，我們實際上看到的是光，而【光可以帶著時間旅行。】即使我們看著朋友的臉，我們看見的也是他們以前的臉，因為光從他們臉上到達我們的眼睛需要時間，儘管那是極其短暫的時間。聲音的速度比光慢得多，這是為什麼你會先看到煙火在天空炸開，然後過一陣子才聽到爆炸的聲音。你從遠處看人砍樹，你會發現斧頭砍在樹幹的景象與實際上聽到聲響有一種奇妙的時間差。//

2. 這個錯誤不必多解釋，很爆笑，但非提出來不可：

「光可以帶著時間旅行」，正確意思應該是「光的旅行（穿越空間）需要時間」。takes time （花時間）想像成擬人化的「攜帶時間」，真的很有趣。同一段下一兩句譯者卻又恢復神智，寫出「光從他們臉上到達我們的眼睛需要時間」。

「帶著X旅行」也是一本書名：Umberto Eco有本趣味散文集「帶著鮭魚去旅行」，張定綺譯，好像是從義大利文的英譯版再轉譯成中文。艾柯愛玩語言，那本書翻譯的挑戰很大。

// Are there really aliens in outer space? We’ve never seen or heard them. Are they a part of reality? Nobody knows; 【but we do know what kind of things could one day tell us if they are.】 If ever we got near to an alien, our sense organs 【could tell us about it.】 Perhaps somebody will one day invent a telescope powerful enough to detect life on other planets from here. Or perhaps our radio telescopes will pick up messages that could only have come from an alien intelligence. For reality doesn’t just consist of the things we already know about: it also includes things that exist but that we don’t know about yet - and won’t know about until some future time, perhaps when we have built better instruments to assist our five senses.

外太空真的有外星人嗎？我們從未見過外星人的樣子，也從未聽過外星人的聲音。外星人是現實的一部分嗎？沒有人知道；【可以確定的是，如果外星人真的存在，那麼總有一天我們會知道他們的長相。】如果我們靠近外星人，我們的感官會讓我們知道【外星人長什麼樣子。】或許有一天，人類會發明性能強大的望遠鏡，使我們能從地球觀測到其他行星上的生命。或許我們的電波望遠鏡會偵測到唯有具有智能的外星人才能發出的訊息。現實不只包括我們已經知道的事物：現實也包括已經存在，但我們尚未得知的事物──我們可能要等到未來某個時候才能知道這些事物，屆時我們可能已經造出更好的設備使我們的五官能知覺到這些事物。//

3. 真是鬼扯的翻譯！

// But we do know what kind of things could one day tell us if they are.
可以確定的是，如果外星人真的存在，那麼總有一天我們會知道他們的長相。//

「長相」是從英文的哪一個地方憑空妄想出來的啊？〔請想像這裡插入三萬個黑人問號！〕

But we do know 但我們確知：
what kind of things could one day tell us 什麼東西可以在未來的某一天告訴我們
if they are. 外星人是否存在
(=if they are a part of reality.外星人是否是現實的一部分)

英文完全沒有關於「長相、外貌」的痕跡！

4. 下一句也一模一樣，完全未提外星人的長相，爲何譯者那麼執念於外星人的長相？

// If ever we got near to an alien, our sense organs could tell us about it.
如果我們靠近外星人，我們的感官會讓我們知道外星人長什麼樣子。//

這裡，got near 是與現實相反的虛擬語氣，表示作者認爲我們距離認識、看到外星人還很遙遠。單單譯成「如果」也不夠力，可以說「萬一、萬一真的」。

5. 更基本的英文理解失能，是這個：it 指的是「our getting near to an alien」即條件句的內容，翻譯怎麼會瞎扯為「外星人的長相」呢？

改譯：萬一我們真的與外星人接近了，我們的感官會讓我們知道（這件事）。

// Atoms have always existed, but it was only rather recently that we became sure of their existence, and it is likely that our descendants will know about 【many more things that, for now, we do not.】 That is the wonder and the joy of science: it goes on and on uncovering new things. This doesn’t mean we should believe just anything that anybody might dream up: there are a million things we can imagine but which are highly unlikely to be real - fairies and hobgoblins, leprechauns and hippogriffs. We should always be open-minded, but 【the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does.】

原子一直都存在著，但我們知道有原子這個東西卻是相當晚近的事。很可能到了我們子孫的時代，人類【對原子的了解會比現在更深入。】 而這正是科學奇特與令人雀躍之處：科學總是能不斷揭露新的事物。但這不表示任何人夢想的任何事物我們都應該深信不疑：我們可以想像出一百萬件事物，但這些事物卻有可能極不真實，例如仙女與妖精，矮精靈與駿鷹。我們的心胸應該保持開放，【但我們必須要有真憑實據才能相信事物真的存在。 】//

6. 才一下段，又是一個基本英文句的誤解：

// it is likely that our descendants will know about many more things that, for now, we do not.
很可能到了我們子孫的時代，人類對原子的了解會比現在更深入。 //

know about many more things that, for now, we do not 指的不再是原子了，前句的原子只是舉例，告訴我們：很多存在的事物，人類會需要一段時間才知道存在。

改：很可能到了我們子孫的時代，人類才會認識許多目前不知道（已存在）的事物。

7. // the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does.
但我們必須要有真憑實據才能相信事物真的存在//

這句意思雖大致沒錯，卻失去原文的強調，「唯一」的好理由：

改：有真憑實據證明事物存在，是相信事物存在的唯一好理由。

以這種每段幾乎都有莫名其妙的誤譯的進度來看，整本書細究下來，問題恐怕是罄竹難書的「天文數字」！