万物简史 第265期:大地在移动(19)

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　　与此同时，澳大利亚却在渐渐倾斜、下沉。在过去的1000万年里，它一方面朝北向亚洲漂移，另一方面它的主要边缘下沉了将近200米。看来，印度尼西亚在慢慢地没入水中，而且拖着澳大利亚一起下去。构造理论根本无法解释这些现象。

　　Alfred Wegener never lived to see his ideas vindicated². On an expedition to Greenland in 1930, he set out alone, on his fiftieth birthday, to check out a supply drop. He never returned. He was found a few days later, frozen to death on the ice. He was buried on the spot and lies there yet, but about a yard closer to North America than on the day he died.

　　阿尔弗雷德·魏格纳没有活到看到自己的思想证明是正确的。1930年，他在50岁生日那天独自一人出发去格陵兰岛探险，检查空投的补给品。他再也没有回来。几天以后，有人发现他冻死在冰面上。他被埋在那里，至今还在那里长眠，只是比他死的那天离北美洲近了大约1米。

　　Earth map

　　Einstein also failed to live long enough to see that he had backed the wrong horse. In fact, he died at Princeton, New Jersey³, in 1955 before Charles Hapgood's rubbishing of continental⁴ drift theories was even published.

　　爱因斯坦也没有活着看到自己支持了错误的一方。他1955年死于新泽西州的普林斯顿，实际上是在查尔斯·哈普古德发表“胡说八道”的大陆漂移理论之前。

　　The other principal player in the emergence⁵ of tectonics theory, Harry⁶ Hess, was also at Princeton at the time, and would spend the rest of his career there. One of his students was a bright young fellow named Walter Alvarez, who would eventually change the world of science in a quite different way.

　　提出构造理论的另一个主要人物哈里·赫斯当时也在普林斯顿，将在那里度过他的余生。他的一位学生是个聪明的年轻人，名叫沃尔特·阿尔瓦雷斯，他最终将以完全不同的方式改变科学界。

　　As for geology itself, its cataclysms⁷ had only just begun, and it was young Alvarez who helped to start the process.

　　至于地质学本身，大变革还刚刚开始，年轻的阿尔瓦雷斯为启动这个过程发挥了作用。

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