10個簡單卻無解的世界迷題(上)

With all our modern technology, it can be easy to assume that we know everything.

有了現代技術，我們幾乎無所不知。

With a few swipes of our finger, any of us can view detailed photos of the surface of Pluto or take a Google Street View tour through Antarctica's McMurdo Station. Truly, the age of mystery is over.

動一動手指，誰都可以看到展現冥王星表面細節的照片，或者通過谷歌地圖街景功能到南極洲麥克默多考察站遊覽一圈。不言而喻，世界保持神祕的時代已經結束。

Or is it? In spite of all our miraculous tech, we're still a long way from understanding even some basic things about our planet. Here are 10 intriguing mysteries still surrounding our world.

果真如此嗎？雖然科技先進，但對於地球基本情況的一些東西，我們仍不明白。下面便是10個弔詭的複雜現象。

Unmapped Regions Of Our Greatest Cities

10.大都市在地圖上的盲區

The phrase "off the map" conjures images of wild adventure in distant lands—places like the Amazon jungle or Antarctica.

說到地圖上沒有的地方，人們會想到位置偏遠的原始自然地區，比如亞馬孫雨林或者南極洲。

In reality, unmapped parts of the world could be closer than you think. Some of the world's greatest cities still have uncharted regions that no one has ever surveyed.

然而在實際生活裏，沒有在地圖上標註的地方離我們並沒有那麼遙遠。某些國際都會仍有一些區域沒有被測量過，也因此沒有呈現在地圖上。

Typically, this is because it's extremely dangerous to do so. The Neza-Chalco-Itza mega-slum in Mexico City is one such place, an extremely deprived, sprawling neighborhood with a limited police presence.

原因往往在於這樣做很危險。墨西哥城"Neza-Chalco-Itza"大貧民窟就是其中之一，這裏的生活毫無秩序，極端貧困，並且警察數量不多。

Others, such as the Orangi shantytown in Karachi, Pakistan, have been mapped in basic 2-D but lack any of the detail that we'd associate with a map of a typical neighborhood.

其他地方，比如巴基斯坦卡拉奇"Orangi"貧民區，地圖上只標明瞭它的位置，而沒有我們想得到的任何其他詳細信息。

Other times, the difficulty may come from rapid economic development. In some African and Asian cities, construction is now so fast-paced and rampant that mapping these districts with any degree of accuracy is impossible.

這一難度有時候還來自於經濟高速發展。在亞非一些城市，基礎建設迅速發展，幾乎不可能全方位展現這些區域。

When fast-paced development takes place within a dangerous slum, you might as well abandon all hope of ever actually mapping the place.

當一個充滿危險的貧民窟飛速發展起來，壓根兒不可能標出它所在的位置。

Our failure to map these regions can have consequences. In 2012, the Nigerian government demolished the historic floating slum of Makoko in Lagos.

這個問題給我們帶了一些麻煩。2012年，尼日利亞政府清除了歷史上有名的馬科科貧民窟——位於拉各斯的水上貧民窟。

Because it was unmapped, its layout, the work of over a century, has now been lost forever.

因爲地圖上沒有標註，這個區域在一百多年裏的變遷從此永遠消失了。

Mysterious Unclimbed Mountains

9.人類從未登頂的山峯

In the 160 years since mountaineering became popular, we've traversed most of the world's great peaks. Everest, K2, and Mt. Kilimanjaro have been conquered repeatedly, as have hundreds of others that most of us have never heard of.

從登山開始流行至今，已經有160多年了。這期間，人們跋山涉水，登上了世界很多雄奇的山峯。珠穆朗瑪峯、喬戈裏峯、乞力馬扎羅山不斷迎來挑戰自我的人，其他成千上百座我們連名字都不熟悉的山也同樣如此。

But we're still a long, long way from getting to the summit of every mountain on Earth. The Mount Everest Screening Committee claims that there are "infinitely" more unclimbed mountains than there are climbed ones.

但是人類還遠遠沒有登臨地球上所有山峯。珠穆朗瑪峯登山資格審查委員會稱，人們沒有去過的山頂比已經去過的"多得多"。

The only problem is, we're not 100 percent sure which ones are which.

唯一的難題在於，我們並不能十分確定地區別各個山峯。

There is no central database containing records of which mountains have and haven't been climbed. While some are obvious, others are a matter of severe contention.

沒有統一的數據庫記錄哪些山已經被人們登頂。有些山峯明顯已經有人去過，而有些則處於激烈爭論中。

In the past, bringing back evidence of a successful climb on an obscure peak was hugely impractical.

過去想要從一個隱蔽的山頭上帶回證據證明這次登山活動成功，幾乎無法實現。

As a result, we often have to rely on the word of long-dead people claiming that they'd successfully reached a summit, despite them having no compelling reason beyond "honor" to admit if they'd failed.

最終我們不得不依靠已故登山者的聲明，承認他們成功登上過某座山，而只有"名譽"可以促使他們坦白自己的失敗。

Then, there are troubles with the records themselves. Many, particularly from Japanese and Korean teams, have never been translated into English or made widely accessible. Many more have never been digitized.

此外，那些記錄本身也是有問題的。很多登山記錄，尤其是日本和韓國登山隊的記錄，都沒有翻譯成英語，大衆也無法接觸。數字化的記錄更是少之又少。

We know that there are mysterious peaks out there that have never been climbed, but their identity is just as mysterious as the mountains themselves.

我們可以確定還有很多山峯沒有人登過，但是到底是哪些山卻無法知曉了。

own Minerals

8.未知礦物質

The list of known minerals on Earth currently stands at around 5,000. That's an insane amount, and you might be forgiven for thinking we've located nearly all of them. After all, a single new mineral turning up in Western Australia made news headlines in 2014.

地球上目前已知的礦物質已有約5000種。這個數量讓人驚訝，而你可能以爲我們已經基本上掌握了它們的分佈情況。然而，澳大利亞西部在2014年就出現了一種新礦物質，這條消息一時成爲焦點。

According to an analysis last year by Robert M. Hazen at the Carnegie Institute for Science, we could still have a long way to go before we get the full set.

根據卡內基科學研究所的研究員羅伯特·海森去年的研究，發現所有礦物質還有很長的路要走。

His team used a highly sophisticated statistical modeling system to calculate the number of unknown minerals currently found on Earth. They returned with a figure of over 1,500.

這個研究團隊使用一種十分複雜的數據模擬系統計算了地球上目前未知礦物質的數量，總共有1500多種。

This isn't as unlikely as you think. The majority of Earth's mineral species are rare, with most found at five or fewer locations on the entire planet.

這沒有你想象的那樣不可思議。大部分地球礦物質都很稀少，多數種類出現的地方在整個地球上不多於5個。

Given the sheer amount of land across the globe that's still never been surveyed by experts, it stands to reason that plenty of minerals could have slipped through the gap.

還沒有被科學家研究過的陸地面積如此廣袤，很多礦物質還不被知曉也在情理之中。

What's interesting about Hazen's figure is that it only includes minerals that still exist and are likely accessible.

海森的研究結果有一點很有意思，他的研究只包括了現在仍然存在和我們能夠獲取的礦物質。

The models he and his team designed also tracked minerals that have likely been created then lost again over the centuries. The total number of these "lost" minerals could be massive.

這個模型還能追蹤過去幾百年裏出現後便消失不見的礦物質。這些已經"沒有了"的礦物質數量可能很龐大。