万物简史 第354期:孤独的行星(19)

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　but after that the relative abundances are often surprising. 但是，其后的排列往往出乎人们的意料，

　　Who would guess, for instance, that silicon² is the second most common element on Earth or that titanium is tenth? 比如，谁想得到，在最常见的元素当中，硅在地球上占第2位或钛占第10位？

　　Abundance has little to do with their familiarity or utility to us. 元素的丰度，与我们对它们的熟悉程度，或他们对我们的有用程度毫无关系。

　　Many of the more obscure elements are actually more common than the better-known ones. 许多不大知名的元素实际上比比较知名的元素还要丰富。

　　There is more cerium on Earth than copper³, more neodymium and lanthanum than cobalt or nitrogen. 地球上的铈比铜还多，钕和镧比钴或氮还多。

　　Tin barely makes it into the top fifty, eclipsed by such relative obscurities as praseodymium, samarium, gadolinium, and dysprosium. 锡勉强进入前50名，落后于不大知名的镤、钐、钆和镝。

　　Abundance also has little to do with ease of detection. 丰度还与发现的难易程度毫无关系。

　　Aluminum⁴ is the fourth most common element on Earth, accounting for nearly a tenth of everything that's underneath⁵ your feet, 铝是地球是第四常见元素，站到你脚底下的一切的将近十分之一，

　　but its existence wasn't even suspected until it was discovered in the nineteenth century by Humphry Davy, 但直到19世纪汉弗莱·戴维才发现了它，才知道它的存在。

　　and for a long time after that it was treated as rare and precious. 在此后的很长时间里，它被作为稀有的贵重金属。

　　Congress nearly put a shiny lining⁶ of aluminum foil atop the Washington Monument to show what a classy and prosperous nation we had become, 为了显示美国是个有钱有派头的国家，国会差一点在华盛顿纪念碑的顶端装点一层闪闪发亮的铝箔。

　　and the French imperial family in the same period discarded the state silver dinner service and replaced it with an aluminum one. 同一时期，法兰西王族在国宴上不再使用银质餐具，改用铝质餐具。

　　The fashion was cutting edge even if the knives weren't. 这种时尚很解决问题，尽管刀叉却不见得。

分享到：