《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第30期:小世界(1)

8．LITTLE PLANET

小世界

Q. If an asteroid was very small butsupermassive, could you really live on it like the Little Prince?

Q．如果有一顆小行星非常小，但質量卻非常大，那麼有沒有可能像小王子那樣住在上面？

-Samantha Harper

——薩曼莎•哈珀

“Did you eat my rose?”“Maybe.”

“你把我的玫瑰吃了嗎？”“大概吧。”

A. THE LITTLE PRINCE, BY Antoine deSaint-Exupéry, is a story about a traveler from a distant asteroid. It's simpleand sad and poignant and memorable.1 It's ostensibly a children's book, butit's hard to pin down who the intended audience is. In any case, it certainlyhas found an audience; it's among the best-selling books in history.

A．《小王子》一書由安東尼•德•聖-埃克蘇佩裏寫成，講述了一個來自遙遠的小行星的旅行者的故事。整個故事簡單而又傷感，意味深長且讓人念念不忘。1這本書表面上是寫給小孩兒看的，但你卻很難說這本書到底是寫給誰看的。但不管怎樣，這本書肯定找對了讀者，它是史上銷量最多的書之一。

It was written in 1942. That's aninteresting time to write about asteroids, because in 1942 we didn't actuallyknow what asteroids looked like. Even in our best telescopes, the largestasteroids were visible only as points of light. In fact, that's where theirname comes from-the word asteroid means “starlike.”

《小王子》一書寫於1942年。在這個時間段寫關於小行星的故事挺不錯的，因爲在1942年人們甚至都不知道小行星長什麼樣子。即使是用那時最先進的望遠鏡，那些最大的小行星看起來也不過是一團亮光。事實上這就是“小行星”（asteroid）一詞的來源——意思是“像星星那樣的”。

We got our first confirmation of whatasteroids looked like in 1971, when Mariner 9 visited Mars and snapped picturesof Phobos and Deimos. These moons, believed to be captured asteroids,solidified the modern image of asteroids as cratered potatoes. Before the1970s, it was common for science fiction to assume small asteroids would beround, like planets.

直到1971年，“水手9號”探測器造訪火星並拍下了火衛一和火衛二的照片後，人們才第一次一睹小行星的真容。這些被火星俘獲的小行星也加深了人們心中“小行星就像是坑坑窪窪的土豆”的印象。在20世紀70年代之前，科幻小說中的小行星基本都是圓形的，就像行星一樣。

The Little Prince took this a step further,imagining an asteroid as a tiny planet with gravity, air, and a rose. There'sno point in trying to critique the science here, because (1) it's not a storyabout asteroids, and (2) it opens with a parable about how foolish adults arefor looking at everything too literally.

而《小王子》一書則更進一步，它設想了一個有重力、空氣和一枝玫瑰的小行星。在此不應該批評這本書一點都不科學，一是因爲它本來就不是一本講小行星的書；二是它開篇就是一個寓言，講述成年人總是從字面意思看待一切是多麼地愚蠢。

Rather than using science to chip away atthe story, let's see what strange new pieces it can add. If there really were asuperdense asteroid with enough surface gravity to walk around on, it wouldhave some pretty remarkable properties.

因此我不打算用科學去削減這個故事，相反我打算看看科學能不能加進去什麼神奇的東西。如果確實有一顆超級密實的星球，並且表面重力大到能讓人在表面上走動，那麼它肯定會有一些十分驚人的性質。