万物简史 第232期:马斯特-马克的夸克(4)

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　　欧洲核研究组织简直像个小城市。它地跨法国和瑞士边境，有3000名雇员，占地几平方公里。欧洲核研究组织有一排比埃菲尔铁塔还要重的磁铁，周围有一条大约26公里长的地下坑道。

　　Breaking up atoms, as James Trefil has noted¹, is easy; you do it each time you switch on a fluorescent² light. Breaking up atomic nuclei³, however, requires quite a lot of money and a generous supply of electricity. Getting down to the level of quarks—the particles that make up particles—requires still more: trillions of volts⁴ of electricity and the budget of a small Central American nation. CERN's new Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to begin operations in 2005, will achieve fourteen trillion volts of energy and cost something over $1.5 billion to construct.

　　詹姆斯·特雷菲尔说，击碎原子倒还容易，每次只要把日光灯一开。然而，击碎原子核就需要大量的金钱和大量的电力。把粒子变成夸克──即构成粒子的粒子──就需要更多的电和更多的钱：几万亿瓦电和相当于一个中美洲小国的预算。欧洲核研究组织的一台新的大强子对撞机定于2005年开始运转，它将产生14万亿瓦能量，建设费超过15亿美元。

　　奇异夸克

　　There are practical side effects to all this costly⁵ effort. The World Wide Web is a CERN offshoot. It was invented by a CERN scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, in 1989.

　　这项费用浩大的工程有一些实用的副产品。万维网就是欧洲核研究组织的一个衍生事物。它是欧洲核研究组织的科学家蒂姆-伯纳斯·李于1989年发明的

　　But these numbers are as nothing compared with what could have been achieved by, and spent upon, the vast and now unfortunately never-to-be Superconducting Supercollider, which began being constructed near Waxahachie, Texas, in the 1980s, before experiencing a supercollision of its own with the United States Congress.

　　然而，这两个数字与那台超级超导对撞机本来所能产生的能量和所需的建设费用相比，那简直是小巫见大巫。20世纪80年代，得克萨斯州附近开始建设一台超级超导对撞机，然后本身与美国国会发生了超级对撞，结果很不幸，现在永远建不成了。

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