《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第7期:紐約式時間機器(2)
1,000,000 years back
A million years ago, before the most recent great episode of glaciations, the world was fairly warm. It was the middle of the Quaternary period; the great modern ice ages had begun several million years earlier, but there had been a lull in the advance and retreat of the glaciers, and the climate was relatively stable.
100萬年前，在最近一次大冰川期之前，世界還是相當溫暖的。那時正處於第四紀中期，現代大冰川期在幾百萬年前已經開始，不過在冰川進退之間存在着一段平靜時期，那期間氣候相對來說比較穩定。The predators we met earlier, the fleet-footed creatures who may have preyed on the pronghorn, were joined by another terrifying carnivore, a long-limbed hyena that resembled a modern wolf. Hyenas were mainly found in Africa and Asia, but when the sea level fell, one species crossed the Bering Strait into North America. Because it was the only hyena to do so, it was given the name Chasmaporthetes, which means “the one who saw the canyon.”
我們之前見識到了跑得飛快的以叉角羚爲食的各種獵食動物，現在馬上就會看到另一種殘暴的食肉動物，一種長得很像現代狼的長腿土狼。土狼曾經主要在非洲和亞洲活動，隨着海平面的下降，有一個種類的土狼跨過白令海峽進入了北美地區。由於它們是唯一一種跨過海峽的土狼，人們給它起了個名字叫豹鬣狗，拉丁名意爲“見過海峽的土狼”。
Next, Mark's question takes us on a great leap backward in time.
接下來馬克的問題把我們帶到了更遠的過去。1,000,000,000 years back
10億年前A billion years ago, the continental plates were pushed together into one great supercontinent. This was not the well-known supercontinent Pangea-it was Pangea's predecessor, Rodinia. The geologic record is spotty, but our best guess is that it looked something like this:
10億年前，各個大陸板塊被擠到一起，是一個超級大陸。這個超級大陸並不是人們所熟知的泛古陸，而是聯合大陸的前身：羅迪尼亞超大陸。詳細的地質記錄相當殘缺，但我們猜測它是下面這個樣子的：In the time of Rodinia, the bedrock that now lies under Manhattan had yet to form, but the deep rocks of North America were already old. The part of the continent that is now Manhattan was probably an inland region connected to what is now Angola and South Africa.
在羅迪尼亞超大陸時期，現在位於曼哈頓底部的基岩還沒有形成，不過北美地區深處的岩石已經存在很久了。現在的曼哈頓所在的那塊大陸當時可能還在內陸地區，與如今的安哥拉和南美部分相連。In this ancient world, there were no plants and no animals. The oceans were full of life, but it was simple single-cellular life. On the surface of the water were mats of blue-green algae. These unassuming critters are the deadliest killers in the history of life.
在這個古老的世界中，沒有植物也沒有動物。海洋裏孕育着大量生命，但都是簡單的單細胞生物。海洋表面漂浮着大量藍藻。這些其貌不揚的生物是生命長河中最爲致命的殺手。Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, were the first photosynthesizers. They breathed in carbon dioxide and breathed out oxygen. Oxygen is a volatile gas; it causes iron to rust (oxidation) and wood to burn (vigorous oxidation). When cyanobacteria first appeared, the oxygen they breathed out was toxic to nearly all other forms of life. The resulting extinction is called the oxygen catastrophe.
藍藻細菌是第一種進行光合作用的生物，它們吸入二氧化碳並釋放出氧氣。氧氣是一種很暴力的氣體，它會讓鐵生鏽（氧化），讓木頭燃燒（劇烈氧化）。當藍藻剛出現時，它們釋放出的氧氣對於其他幾乎所有種類的生命來說都是有毒的，隨之產生的物種大滅絕被稱爲大氧化事件。After the cyanobacteria pumped Earth's atmosphere and water full of toxic oxygen, creatures evolved that took advantage of the gas's volatile nature to enable new biological processes. We are the descendants of those first oxygen-breathers.
在藍藻使地球大氣層和海洋中充滿有毒的氧氣後，其他生物慢慢進化出了新的能力，能夠利用氧氣的化學活性進行新的生物過程。我們就是那些第一批呼吸氧氣的生物的後代。Many details of this history remain uncertain; the world of a billion years ago is difficult to reconstruct. But Mark's question now takes us into an even more uncertain domain: the future.
這段歷史有很多細節我們仍然不甚瞭解，10億年前的世界很難進行重建，不過馬克的問題現在把我們帶到了更不確定的地方：未來。1,000,000 years forward
100萬年後Eventually, humans will die out. Nobody knows when,12 but nothing lives forever. Maybe we'll spread to the stars and last for billions or trillions of years. Maybe civilization will collapse, we'll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we'll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There's no way to know.
人類終將滅亡。沒有人知道會是什麼時候13，但沒有什麼東西能夠永遠存活下去。也許我們會逃到其他星球上繼續存在百千萬億年；也許文明會崩潰，我們都會死於疾病或是饑荒，最後的人類會被貓科動物吃掉；也許我們所有人都會在讀完這個句子後的幾小時裏被納米機器人殺害。未來充滿了各種可能。A million years is a long time. It's several times longer than Homo sapiens has existed, and a hundred times longer than we've had written language. It seems reasonable to assume that however the human story plays out, in a million years it will have exited its current stage.
100萬年是很長一段時間。它是智人存在歷史的好幾倍，是我們發明書寫語言時間的幾百倍，因而我們可以很合理地推斷，無論人類的未來將會怎樣，百萬年後我們必將處在與目前完全不同的時代裏。Without us, Earth's geology will grind on. Winds and rain and blowing sand will dissolve and bury the artifacts of our civilization. Human-caused climate change will probably delay the start of the next glaciation, but we haven't ended the cycle of ice ages. Eventually, the glaciers will advance again. A million years from now, few human artifacts will remain.
沒有了人類，地質活動依然會繼續進行。風雨和呼嘯的沙子會逐漸分解並掩埋我們文明的印記，人類造成的氣候影響很有可能會延後下一次冰河期，但我們不會終結冰河期的循環。最終，冰川會繼續向前進發。幾百萬年後，沒有多少人造物體還能保存下來。Our most lasting relic will probably be the layer of plastic we've deposited across the planet. By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers, and spreading it across the Earth's surface, we've left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do.
人類存留時間最長的遺物可能是我們埋在地球各處的塑料片。我們挖掘出原油，對其進行加工生產出持久耐用的聚合物，然後把它們散佈到地表各處，由此留下的印記將會比其他任何事物留存更長的時間。Our plastic will become shredded and buried, and perhaps some microbes will learn to digest it, but in all likelihood, a million years from now, an out-of-place layer of processed hydrocarbons-transformed fragments of our shampoo bottles and shopping bags-will serve as a chemical monument to civilization.
我們留下的塑料會被撕碎並掩埋，或許一些微生物會進化出消化塑料的能力。很可能在幾百萬年後，一層無處可去的碳氫化合物處理品——包括洗髮水瓶子和購物袋轉化後形成的碎片——會成爲我們文明存在過的化學紀念碑。The far future
遙遠的未來The Sun is gradually brightening. For three billion years, a complex system of feedback loops has kept the Earth's temperature relatively stable as the Sun has grown steadily warmer.
太陽正在慢慢變亮。在過去的30億年裏，一套複雜的反饋系統使得地球的溫度能夠保持相對穩定，即使太陽在緩慢地變得越來越熱。In a billion years, these feedback loops will have given out. Our oceans, which nourished life and kept it cool, will have turned into its worst enemy. They will have boiled away in the hot Sun, surrounding the planet with a thick blanket of water vapor and causing a runaway greenhouse effect. In a billion years, Earth will become a second Venus.
但10億年後，這些反饋系統就會失效。曾經孕育生命並保持地球涼爽的海洋會成爲生命最大的敵人。在熾熱陽光的照射下，海水會煮沸，在地球表面形成一層厚厚的水蒸氣毯子，並由此引發失控的溫室效應。10億年後，地球將成爲第二顆金星。As the planet heats up, we may lose our water entirely and acquire a rock vapor atmosphere, as the crust itself begins to boil. Eventually, after several billion more years, we will be consumed by the expanding Sun.
隨着地球變得越來越熱，我們最終會失去所有的水，大氣中將充滿岩石蒸汽，因爲地殼自身也開始沸騰了。幾十億年後，我們最終將被不斷膨脹的太陽所吞沒。The Earth will be incinerated, and many of the molecules that made up Times Square will be blasted outward by the dying Sun. These dust clouds will drift through space, perhaps collapsing to form new stars and planets.
那時地球將被焚燬，而曾經組成時代廣場的許多分子都會被垂死的太陽吹走，這些粉塵雲會在太空中飄蕩，或許還會坍縮形成新的行星和恆星。If humans escape the solar system and outlive the Sun, our descendants may someday live on one of these planets. Atoms from Times Square, cycled through the heart of the Sun, will form our new bodies.
如果那時人類已經逃出太陽系，目睹太陽的死去，那麼我們的後代就將生活在這些新形成的星球上。那些曾經組成時代廣場、被太陽之心循環利用過的原子，將會形成我們新的身體。One day, either we will all be dead, or we will all be New Yorkers.
總有一天，我們要麼全都死了，要麼就都是紐約人了。Also known as the Delaware.
又名特拉華人。勒納佩語，意爲“美好家園”。Also known as cougars.
又名美洲獅（cougar）。Also known as pumas.
又名美洲虎（puma）。Also known as catamounts.
又名山貓（catamount）。Also known as panthers.
又名美洲豹（panther）。Also known as painted cats.
又名斑貓（painted cat）Although you might not see the clouds of trillions of pigeons encountered by European settlers. In his book 1491, Charles C. Mann argues that the huge flocks seen by European settlers may have been a symptom of a chaotic ecosystem perturbed by the arrival of smallpox, bluegrass, and honeybees.
雖然你可能不會看到歐洲殖民者們當初遇到的數億隻旅鴿形成的黑壓壓的旅鴿雲。查爾斯.曼恩在他的書《1491》中聲稱歐洲人帶來了天花、藍綠莖牧草和蜜蜂，攪亂了當地的生態系統，歐洲人看到的龐大的旅鴿羣其實是生態系統混亂的一個表現。That is, the current site of Yonkers. It probably wasn't called “Yonkers” then, since “Yonkers” is a Dutch-derived name for a settlement dating to the late 1600s. However, some argue that a site called “Yonkers” has always existed, and in fact predates humans and the Earth itself. I mean, I guess it's just me who argues that, but I'm very vocal.
也就是現在的楊克斯所在地。那時這個地方的名字應該還不是“楊克斯”（Yonkers），因爲“楊克斯”來源於一個意爲“安定下來”的荷蘭語單詞，而這要追溯到17世紀晚期了。不過有人聲稱叫作“楊克斯”的地區一直存在，在人類甚至地球存在之前就已經存在了。大概這麼想的只有我一個人吧，但我可是想說什麼就說什麼的哦。Though with fewer billboards.
不過沒有這麼多廣告牌。Well, had been. We're putting a stop to that.
嗯，是曾經保持穩定，現在我們要使氣候失衡了。If anyone asks, total coincidence.
如果有人問起來，就說完全是巧合。If you do, email me.
如果你知道的話，請發郵件告訴我。
