很多小夥伴都想讀英文原著學英語，可每次看兩頁就放棄。為了幫助大家從閱讀中找到樂趣，曉梅老師就帶大家一起讀英文原著，
看看有意思的故事，學學地道表達。先從A Short History of Nearly Everything《萬物簡史》開始。這本書從宇宙大爆炸開始講現代科學史，穿插了很多科學家的生平故事，妙趣橫生。本書作者Bill Bryson喜歡用口語化的語言敘述，因而裡面的英語要比一般的原著通俗易懂。今天讀第4章物理學家亨利·卡文迪什的片段。卡文迪什是德文郡公爵的孫子，德文郡公爵的宅邸就是位於英格蘭峰區（Peak District，離謝菲爾德不遠）的Chatsworth House，中國學生叫“達西莊園”，因為《傲慢與偏見》裡達西先生家的莊園就是這裡，英國版電影《傲慢與偏見》也在這裡取過景。亨利·卡文迪什沒在達西莊園住過，但現在裡面收藏有他的筆記和書本。家裡有這般豪宅的公子哥兒，竟然是個極度害怕社交的科學家。我們來看看他到底有多怪。
卡文迪什的成就
In the course of a long life Cavendish made a string of signal discoveries - among much else, he was the first person to isolate hydrogen and the first to combine hydrogen and oxygen to form water - but almost nothing he did was entirely divorced from strangeness.
在其漫長的一生中，卡文迪什有很多重大發現——比如，他第一個把氫分離出來，第一個把氫和氧結合形成水——但是他的每個舉動都透著古怪。
To the continuing exasperation of his fellow scientists, he often alluded in published work to the results of experiments that he had not told anyone about. In his secretiveness, he did not merely resemble Newton, but actively exceeded him. His experiments with electrical conductivity were a century ahead of their time, but unfortunately remained undiscovered until that century had passed.
他經常在發表的論文中提到只有自己知道的實驗結果，惹得同行惱怒不已。在保密研究結果這一點上，他比牛頓有過之而無不及。他關於電導率的實驗比其他人早了100年，但遺憾的是100年後才被人發現。
Indeed, the greater part of what he did wasn't known until the late nineteenth century, when the Cambridge physicist James Clerk Maxwell took on the task of editing Cavendish's papers, by which time credit for his discoveries had nearly always been given to others.
直到19世紀晚期，劍橋大學物理學家詹姆斯·克拉克·麥克斯韋編輯卡文迪什的論文時，他的大部分成就才為人所知，而那時他的發現幾乎都已經歸功於其他人。
Among much else, and without telling anyone, Cavendish discovered or anticipated the law of the conservation of energy, Ohm's Law, Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures, Richter's Law of Reciprocal Proportions, Charles's Law of Gases, and the principles of electrical conductivity. That's just some of it.
卡文迪什發現或預測了能量守恆定律、歐姆定律、道爾頓分壓定律、裡希特反比定律、查爾斯氣體定律和電導率原理，但從未告訴過別人，而這些只是他全部成就中的一部分。
According to the science historian J. G. Crowther, he also foreshadowed 'the work of Kelvin and G. H. Darwin on the effect of tidal friction on slowing the rotation of the earth, and Larmor's discovery, published in 1915, on the effect of local atmospheric cooling... the work of Pickering on freezing mixtures, and some of the work of Rooseboom on heterogeneous equilibria'.
據科學史學家詹姆斯·傑拉德·克勞瑟說，卡文迪什預見了“開爾文和喬治·霍華德·達爾文關於潮汐摩擦減慢地球自轉速度的作用的成果、1915年出版的拉莫爾關於局部大氣冷卻作用的發現……皮克林關於冷卻劑的成果，以及羅斯邦關於多相平衡的成果”。
Finally, he left clues that led directly to the discovery of the group of elements known as the noble gases, some of which are so elusive that the last of them wasn't found until 1962.
最後，他還留下了發現一組名叫惰性氣體的元素的線索，有些惰性氣體非常難以獲得，最後一種直到1962年才找到。
詞彙與短語
1. during/in/throughout/over the course of something
During the course of our conversation, it emerged that Bob had been in prison. 在我們談話的過程中發現，鮑勃曾蹲過監獄。
2. hydrogen，[ˈhaɪdrədʒən]，n. 氫氣，氫
hydrogen bomb 氫彈
3. oxygen，[ˈɒksɪdʒən]，n. 氧氣，氧
oxygen mask 氧氣面罩
4. signal achievement/success/failure etc，重要的成就/成功/失敗
The university has done me the signal honour of making me an Honorary Fellow. 這所大學授予我榮譽院士的殊榮。
5. noble gases，惰性氣體，稀有氣體
a noble gas or metal is not affected chemically by other substances 稀有氣體或金屬在化學上不受其他物質的影響
