剑雅18阅读真题Test4 Passage3原文

剑桥18一共收集了雅思真题4套，下文羊驼小编整理了剑雅18第四套阅读真题原文Test 4 Reading Passage 3，以下是阅读部分第三篇文章Passage 3的文章原文及参考译文，供各位烤鸭们复习参考。想要了解更多关于剑雅17-19听力和阅读真题答案及解析的考生可查看剑雅17-19听力阅读真题答案及解析汇总，为助力各位烤鸭们备考雅思，羊驼教育雅思APP推出剑桥雅思真题及答案解析视频，可在羊驼雅思APP课程一栏获取剑桥雅思系列的视频信息。

READING PASSAGE  3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40,which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Alfred Wegener:science,exploration and the theory of continental drift

by Mott T Greene

Introduction

    This is a book about the life and scientific work of Alfred Wegener,whose reputation   today rests with his theory of continental displacements,better known as continental drift'.Wegener proposed this theory in 1912 and developed it extensively for nearly 20 years.His book on the subject,The Originof Continents and Oceans,went through four editions and was the focus of an international controversy in his lifetime and for some years after his death.

    Wegener's basic idea was that many mysteries about the Earth's history could be solved if one supposed that the continents moved laterally,rather than supposing that they remained fixed in place.Wegener showed in great detail how such continental movements were plausible and how they worked,using evidence from a large number of  sciences  including  geology,geophysics,paleontology,and  climatology.Wegener's idea-thatthe continents move-is at the heart of the theory that guides Earth sciences today:namely plate tectonics.Plate tectonics is in many respects quite different from Wegener's proposal,in the same way that modern evolutionary theory is very diferent from the ideas Charles Darwin proposed in the 1850s about biological evolution.Yet    plate tectonics is a descendant of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift,in quite  the same way that modern evolutionary theory is a descendant of Darwin's theory of    natural selection.

    When I started writing about Wegener's life and work,one of the most intriguing things  about him for me was that,although he came up with a theory on continental drift,he    was not a geologist.He trained as an astronomer and pursued a career in atmospheric physics.When he proposed the theory of continental displacements in 1912,he was a lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Marburg,in southern Germany.However,he was not an 'unknown'.In 1906 he had set a world record (with his brother Kurt)for time aloft in a hot-air balloon:52 hours.Between 1906 and 1908  he had taken part in a highly publicized and extremely dangerous expedition to the coast of northeast Greenland.He had also made a name for himselfamongst a small circle of meteorologists and atmospheric physicists in Germany as the author of a textbook,Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere(1911),and of a number of interesting scientific papers.

    As important as Wegener's work on continental drift has turned out to be,it was largely a sideline to his interest in atmospheric physics,geophysics,and paleoclimatology,and thus I have been at great pains to put Wegener's work on continental drift in the larger context of his other scientific work,and in the even larger context of atmospheric sciences in his lifetime.This is a'continental drift book only to the extent that Wegener was interested in that topic and later became famous for it.My treatment of his other    scientific work is no less detailed,though I certainly have devoted more attention to the reception of his ideas on continental displacement,as they were much more controversial than his other work.

    Readers interested in the specific detail of Wegener's career will see that he often stopped pursuing a given line of investigation (sometimes for years on end),only to pick it up later.I have tried to provide guideposts to his rapidly shifting interests by characterizing different phases of his life as careers in different sciences,which is

reflected in the titles of the chapters.Thus,the index should be a sufficient guide for those interestedin a particular aspect of Wegener's life but perhaps not all of it.My own  feeling,however,is that the parts do not make as much sense on their own as do all of    his activities taken together.In this respect I urge readers to try to experience Wegener's life as he lived it,with all the interruptions,changes of mind,and renewed efforts this entailed.

    Wegener left behind a few published works but,as was standard practice,these reported the results of his work-not the journey he took to reach that point.Only a few hundred ofthe many thousands of letters he wrote and received in his lifetime have survived and he didn't keep notebooks or diaries that recorded his life and

activities.He was not active (with a few exceptions)in scientific societies,and did not seek to find influence or advance his ideas through professional contacts and politics, spending most of his time at home in his study reading and writing,or in the field collecting observations.

    Some famous scientists,such as Newton,Darwin,and Einstein,left mountains of written material behind,hundreds of notebooks and letters numbering in the tens of thousands.  Others,like Michael Faraday,left extensive journals of their thoughts and speculations,    parallel to their scientific notebooks.The more such material a scientist leaves behind,     the better chance a biographer has of forming an accurate picture of how a scientist's ideas took shape and evolved.

    Iam firmly of the opinion that most of us,Wegener included,are not in any real sense the authors of our own lives.We plan,think,and act,often with apparent freedom,but most of the time our lives happen tous',and we only retrospectively turn this happenstance into a coherent narrative of fulfilled intentions.This book,therefore,is a story both ofthe life and scientific work that Alfred Wegener planned and intended and of the life and scientific work that actually'happened to him’.These are,as I think you  will soon see,not always the same thing.

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剑雅18 Passage3原文翻译

阿尔弗雷德·韦格纳:科学、探索和大陆漂移理论

莫特·T·格林著

介绍

    这是一本关于阿尔弗雷德·韦格纳的生活和科学工作的书，他今天的声誉在于他的大陆位移理论，更为人所知的是大陆漂移。韦格纳于1912年提出了这一理论，并对其进行了近20年的广泛发展。他关于这一主题的书《大陆和海洋的起源》共出版了四版，在他有生之年和去世后的几年里都是国际争议的焦点。

    韦格纳的基本观点是，如果假设大陆横向移动，而不是假设它们保持不变，那么关于地球历史的许多谜团都可以得到解决。韦格纳利用地质学、地球物理学、古生物学和气候学等大量科学的证据，详细展示了这种大陆运动是如何合理的以及它们是如何运作的。韦格纳关于大陆运动的观点是指导当今地球科学的理论的核心：即板块构造。板块构造在许多方面与韦格纳的提议截然不同，就像现代进化论与查尔斯·达尔文在19世纪50年代提出的关于生物进化的观点截然不同一样。然而，板块构造是阿尔弗雷德·韦格纳大陆漂移理论的后裔，就像现代进化论是达尔文自然选择理论的后裔一样。

    当我开始写韦格纳的生活和工作时，对我来说，关于他的最有趣的事情之一是，尽管他提出了一个关于大陆漂移的理论，但他不是地质学家。他接受过天文学家的训练，并从事大气物理学的工作。1912年，当他提出大陆位移理论时，他是德国南部马尔堡大学的物理学和天文学讲师。然而，他并不是一个“无名小卒”。1906年，他（和他的兄弟库尔特）创造了热气球飞行时间的世界纪录：52小时。1906年至1908年间，他参加了一次备受关注且极其危险的格陵兰岛东北海岸探险。他还以教科书《大气热力学》（1911年）和许多有趣的科学论文的作者身份，在德国的一小群气象学家和大气物理学家中声名鹊起。

    尽管韦格纳在大陆漂移方面的工作很重要，但这在很大程度上是他对大气物理学、地球物理学和古气候学兴趣的副业，因此我一直在努力将韦格纳关于大陆漂移的工作放在他其他科学工作的更大背景下，以及他一生中更大的大气科学背景下。这是一本“大陆漂移书”，但前提是韦格纳对这一主题感兴趣，后来也因此而闻名。我对他其他科学工作的论述同样详细，尽管我当然更关注他关于大陆位移的想法的接受情况，因为它们比他的其他工作更具争议性。

    对韦格纳职业生涯的具体细节感兴趣的读者会发现，他经常停止从事某一特定领域的调查（有时会持续数年），后来才重新开始。我试图通过以下方式为他迅速转变的兴趣提供指导

将他人生的不同阶段描述为在不同科学领域的职业生涯，这反映在章节的标题中。因此，对于那些对韦格纳生活的某个特定方面感兴趣的人来说，该指数应该是一个足够的指导，但也许不是全部。然而，我自己的感觉是，这些部分本身并不像他所有活动加在一起那样有意义。在这方面，我敦促读者尝试体验韦格纳的生活，包括他所经历的所有中断、思想的改变和新的努力。

    韦格纳留下了一些已发表的作品，但按照惯例，这些作品报告的是他的工作成果，而不是他达到这一点的旅程。在他一生中写和收到的数千封信中，只有几百封幸存下来，他没有留下记录自己生活和活动的笔记本或日记。他在科学界并不活跃（除了少数例外），也不寻求通过专业联系和政治来寻求影响或推进自己的想法，他大部分时间都在家里学习阅读和写作，或者在实地收集观察结果。

    一些著名的科学家，如牛顿、达尔文和爱因斯坦，留下了堆积如山的书面材料，数百本笔记本和数以万计的信件。其他人，如迈克尔·法拉第，在他们的科学笔记本上留下了大量关于他们的想法和猜测的日记。科学家留下的材料越多，传记作者就越有可能准确地描绘出科学家的想法是如何形成和演变的。

    我坚信，我们大多数人，包括韦格纳，在任何意义上都不是我们自己生活的作者。我们计划、思考和行动，通常都有明显的自由，但大多数时候，我们的生活发生在我们身上”，我们只是回顾性地将这一事件转化为对已实现意图的连贯叙述。因此，这本书既是阿尔弗雷德·韦格纳计划和意图的生活和科学工作的故事，也是真正“吸引他”的生活和科研工作的故事。正如我想你很快就会看到的，这些并不总是一样的。