萬物簡史 第22期:如何營造一個宇宙(14)

For a long time the Big Bang theory had one gapinghole that troubled a lot of people—namely that itcouldn't begin to explain how we got here. Although98 percent of all the matter that exists was createdwith the Big Bang, that matter consistedexclusively of light gases: the helium, hydrogen,and lithium that we mentioned earlier.

很長時間以來，大爆炸理論有個巨大的漏洞，許多人對此感到不解--那就是，它根本無法解釋我們是怎么來到這個世界上的。雖然存在的全部物質中有98%是大爆炸創造的，但那個物質完全由輕的氣體組成：我們上面提到過的氦、氫和鋰。

Not one particle of the heavy stuff so vital to our own being—carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and allthe rest—emerged from the gaseous brew of creation. But—and here's the troubling point—toforge these heavy elements, you need the kind of heat and energy of a Big Bang. Yet there hasbeen only one Big Bang and it didn't produce them. So where did they come from?

對于我們的存在至關重要的重物質--碳、氮、氧以及其他一切，沒有一個粒子是宇宙創建過程中產生的氣體。但是--難點就在這里--若要打造這些重元素，你卻非要有大爆炸釋放出來的那種熱量和能量不可?？墒牵蟊ㄖ话l生過一次，而那次大爆炸沒有產生重元素。因此，它們是從哪兒來的?

Interestingly, the man who found the answer to that question was a cosmologist who heartilydespised the Big Bang as a theory and coined the term "Big Bang" sarcastically, as a way ofmocking it. We'll get to him shortly, but before we turn to the question of how we got here, itmight be worth taking a few minutes to consider just where exactly "here" is.

有意思的是，找到這個問題答案的人卻是一位壓根兒瞧不起大爆炸理論的宇宙學家，他還創造了大爆炸這個詞來加以諷刺挖苦。我們很快就會講到他。不過，在討論我們怎么來到這里之前，我們先花幾分鐘時間來考慮一下到底什么是"這里"，這也許是很值得的。