2023年剑阅读真题isthereanybodyoutthere.doc

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Is There Anybody Out There?
The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence

The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has haunted humanity for centuries, but we may now stand poised on the brink of the answer to that question, as we search for radio signals from other intelligent civilizations. This search, often known by the acronym SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), is a difficult one. Although groups around the world have been searching intermittently for three decades, it is only now that we have reached the level of technology where we can make a determined attempt to search all nearby stars for any sign of life.

1. haunted adj. 闹鬼，鬼魂常出没，受到困扰。
haunt n 常到地方，vt，缠住，常到，出没（像鬼魂似）
2. poised. adj.泰然自若，蓄势待发，保持平衡，有充足准备。
3. Brink n. 边缘，边缘，界线。
4. Acronym n.首字母缩略词
Acro 与否是一种前缀，而nym 和name意义靠近。
5 civilisation (E)=civilization (A)发音同样，英为S，美国为Z。文明，文化，教化。
6 extra-terrestrial n .外星人，adj.地球（大气圈）外，人，行星际。
Terra n.土，土地，地球
Terra alba 石膏粉，白土
Terra cotta 赤土制成陶器
Terra incognita 【拉】未发现地区，未知知识领域
Terrace n . 平台，阳台，梯田
Terraced house 排屋中一栋房屋，联排别墅
Terracing 梯田，阶地，阶梯看台区。
7 intermittently adv 间歇地
intermit v 临时停止，中断，（使）间断

A
The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity – the same curiosity about the natural world that drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe. We want to know whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there is something very special about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that we see around us on the planet. The simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to answer this most basic of all questions. In this sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery of pure science which is continually pushing out the horizon of our knowledge. However, there are other reasons for being interested in whether life exists elsewhere. For example, we have had civilization on Earth for perhaps only a few thousand years, and the threats of nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have told us that our survival may be tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe ourselves out? Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that, if other civilizations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. Thus any other civilization that we hear from is likely to be far older, on average, than ourselves. The mere existence of such a civilization will tell us that the older civilization may pass on the benefits of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and other threats that we haven't yet discovered.
8 evolve v . (使)逐渐形成，使逐渐演变，进化
The American constitution was planned; the British constitution evolved.
美国宪法是精心制定，英国宪法是约定俗成。
He has evolved a new theory after many years of research.
她通过数年研究，逐渐总结出了新理论。
evolve基础意思是“演变”“进化”,表达某物〔事物〕自身发展成果,也可表达某物〔事物〕逐渐地、循序地显现、展开,强调其缓慢、复杂演变过程。
evolve既可用作不及物动词,也可用作及物动词。用作及物动词时,接名词或代词作宾语; 用作不及物动词时,常和介词from, into等连用。

9 foster v.领养，培养，增进，抱有期望等 adj 收养
10 sufficient adj 足够 充足，~ to ,足够
11 11 cog n. 轮齿；从属地位人或物；诈骗；雄榫 v. 用雄榫连接；欺骗
12 tenuous adj. 脆弱；稀薄；贫乏；纤细；空洞
13 lifetime n. 毕生；终身寿命；有效期限
14 optimism n .乐观；乐观主义
15

B
In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are generally ignored since most scientists don’t consider the evidence for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration (although it is also important to keep an open mind in case any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we make a very conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like us, since if it differs radically from us we may well not recognize it as a life form, quite apart from whether we are able to communicate with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows, be interested in the Universe, live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and perhaps most restrictively, have a chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.

16 ground rules n.程序；场地临时规则；基础规则
17 merge vi.出现；(由某种状态)脱出；(事实)显现出来
18 conservative adj.保守；守旧 n.保守派(党)；保守人

18 radically adv.根当地；完全地；过激地
19 uite apart from 更何况, 更不用说
21 evertheless resemble adv.尽管如此；不过；仍然conj.然而/不过 像，相似
22 orbit n.势力范围；眼眶；轨迹vt.绕轨道而行；进入轨道 vi.回旋

C
Ever when we make these assumptions, our understanding of other life forms is still severely limited. We do not even know, for example, how many stars have planets, and we certainly do not know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions. However, when we look at the 100 billion stars in our galaxy (the Milky Way), and 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, it seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life form on it; in fact, the best educated guess we can make, using the little that we do know about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting it. That means that our nearest neighbours are perhaps 100 light years away, which is almost next door in astronomical terms.
23 estimate n.估价；估计 v.估计；估价；评价

24 astronomical adj.天文学；巨大

D
An alien civilization could choose many different ways of sending information across the galaxy, but many of these either require too much energy, or else are severely attenuated while traversing the vast distances across the galaxy. It turns out that, for a given amount of transmitted power, radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance, and so all searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. So far there have been a number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales. Until now there have not been any detections from the few hundred stars which have been searched. The scale of the searches has been increased dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this project is being spent on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies at once. The project has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world’s largest radio telescopes, the American-operated telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and the French telescope in Nancy in France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with high sensitivity for signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other part of the project is an undirected search which is monitoring all of space with a lower sensitivity, using the smaller antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network.
25 lien n.外侨；外国人；外星人 adj.外国；陌生；相异
26 attenuated v.变细；稀释；变弱 adj.细；薄；减少
27 traversing n.横渡；横越 动词traverse目前分词.
28 vast adj.巨大；广阔
29 turn out v.成果是；生产；出现；关闭；翻转；证明是
30 transmitted adj.传播；传送；传达
31 thorough adj.主线；完全；详尽；细致深入
32 antennas 英 [æn'tenəz 天线

E
There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien civilization. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart form the impracticality of sending a reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host of ethical questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any reply could be sent. Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior and much older civilisaiton? Luckily, there is not urgency about this. The stars being searched are hundreds of light years away, so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to reach us, and a further few hundred years for our reply to reach them. It’s not important, then, if there’s a delay of a few years, or decades, while the human race debates the question of whether to replay, and perhaps carefully drafts a reply.

33 impracticality 英 [ɪmˌpræktɪ'kæləti] n.不实用(不切实际；不能实行；不现实)
34 ethical  ['eθɪkl] adj.伦理；道德；凭处方发售