2012年 地球還不至於毀滅

2012年 地球還不至於毀滅
Is the Apocalypse Coming? Maybe, but Not in 2012

● apocalypse
n.1.【宗教上】啟示;天啟 2.(the A-)《啟示錄》
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2012年 地球還不至於毀滅
Is the Apocalypse Coming? Maybe, but Not in 2012

【DENNIS OVERBYE／ESSAY／夏嘉玲譯】

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said recently that the world was not ending — at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually nervous.
美國太空總署（NASA）最近表示，世界末日尚未到來，至少短期內不會。歐洲核子研究中心（CERN）去年也這麼說。我猜這對我們這些緊張成性的人而言是好消息。

On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last spending spree.
話又說回來了，要是你正期望把準備繳房貸的錢挪去做最後一次大採購，這消息可真有點令人喪氣。

CERN’s pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.
CERN有此宣示，旨在讓大眾不必擔心CERN新的大強子對撞機實驗會撞出黑洞，吞噬地球。

The announcements by NASA, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on December 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close. The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich.
NASA在幾個網站貼文，並在影片分享網站YouTube上傳影片公告周知，以此回應擔心世界會在2012年12月21日終結的人。這天是馬雅長計曆5125年一輪的大周期告終的日子。羅蘭艾默里克執導的新片「2012」上片後，這個世界末日將屆的傳言也達到了最高峰。

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on December 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash. Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.
根據該片情節，太陽和銀河中心會在2012年12月21日排成一直線，導致太陽表面產生巨大風暴，釋出大量稱為微中子的次原子粒子。微中子變成其他粒子，讓地球地核溫度升高，地殼失去繫留作用，開始變弱，四處滑動。洛杉磯沒入海中，黃石公園爆發熔岩，美洲大陸黑灰如雨下，海嘯淹沒喜馬拉雅山。各國政府在喜馬拉雅山秘密建造方舟船隊，中選的40萬人可進入方舟度過風暴。

But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet crashes into us or the Earth’s magnetic field flips.
這只是地球毀滅的版本之一。其他版本包括，行星撞地球，地球磁場反轉。

All of it, astronomers say, is nonsense.
天文學家說，這些全是一派胡言。

“Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ” Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.
洛杉磯葛瑞菲斯天文台台長艾德‧克魯普在11月號《天空和望遠鏡》雜誌撰文指出：「2012世界末日論大半出自妄想、荒誕的偽科學愚見、對天文學的無知，以及程度不遜於（1968年恐怖片）《活死人之夜》的偏執。」

Scaring the public has been pretty much the name of the game ever since Orson Welles broadcast “War of the Worlds,” a fake newscast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, in 1938.
自從1938年奧森威爾斯播出訛稱火星人入侵美國新澤西州的廣播劇「世界大戰」後，嚇唬大眾幾乎一直是王道。

But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency’s point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom. “I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money,” Dr. Morrison said.
但加州摩菲特菲爾NASA艾姆斯研究中心天文學家大衛‧莫瑞森說，這股趨勢已經「太超過了」。NASA上傳到YouTube的影片是莫瑞森製作的，他也是該署研究馬雅曆預告世界末日問題的核心人物之一。莫瑞森說：「操弄、嚇唬大眾以牟利的行徑教我生氣。」

If you want to worry, most scientists say, you should think about climate change, rogue asteroids or nuclear war. But if ancient prophecies get you going, here are some things Dr. Morrison and the others think you should know.
大多數科學家說，若要操心，氣候變遷、行跡難料的小行星或核戰才是該傷腦筋的問題。但要是古老的預言讓你放不下心，以下是莫瑞森等專家認為你該知道的事。

To begin with, astronomers agree, there is nothing special about the Sun and galactic center aligning in the sky. It happens every December with no physical consequences.
首先，天文學家都認為，太陽和銀河中心排成一線不足為奇，每年12月都會發生，未導致物理方面的負面效應。

If there were another planet out there heading our way, everybody could see it by now. As for those fierce solar storms, the next sunspot maximum will not happen until 2013, and will be on the mild side, astronomers now say.
要是有另一個行星朝地球移動，大家早就看得到了。天文學家說，至於猛烈的太陽風暴，太陽黑子下一次要到2013年才到活動高峰期，且還算溫和。

Geological apocalypse is a better bet. A big earthquake in California could destroy Los Angeles, as shown in the movie, and Yellowstone could erupt again with cataclysmic force sooner or later. But “sooner or later” means hundreds of millions of years.
地質上的末日毀滅還比較有可能。一如電影情節，加州的大地震可能毀了洛杉磯，黃石公園可能遲早會以造成災難的力道再度爆發。但所謂「遲早」指的是幾億年後。

The Mayans, who could predict Venus’s position 500 years in the future, deserve better than this. Mayan time was cyclic, and experts like Dr. Krupp say there is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything special would happen when this Long Count ends in 2012.
能預言500年後金星位置的馬雅人不該背這黑鍋。馬雅曆法周而復始，克魯普等專家說，沒有證據顯示馬雅人認為2012年大周期告終會有特異事件發生。

So keep up those mortgage payments.
所以，房貸繼續繳下去吧。

【2009-12-01/聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS】