新概念英语第四册 Lesson 14：The Butterfly
Effect
The Butterfly Effect
蝴蝶效应
First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音，然后答复以下问题。
Why do small errors make it impossible to predict the weather system with a high degree of accuracy?北京平面设计培训
Beyond two or three days, the world”s best weather forecasts are speculative1, and beyond six or ven they are worthless. The Butterfly Effect is the reason. For small pieces of weather -- and to a global forecaster, small can mean thunderstorms and blizzards3 -- any prediction deteriorates5 rapidly. Errors and uncertainties6 multiply, cascading7 upward through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent-size eddies8 that only satellites can e.病人的英文
The modern weather models work with a grid9 of points of the order of sixty miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to guesd, since ground stations and satellites cannot e everywhere. But
suppo the earth could be covered with nsors11 spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals12 all the way to the top of the atmosphere. Suppo every nsor10 gives perfectly13 accurate readings of temperature, pressure, humidity, and any other quantity a meteorologist would want. Precily14 at noon an infinitely15 powerful computer takes all the data and calculates what will happen at each point at 12.01, then 1202, then
The computer will still be unable to predict whether Princeton, New Jery16, will have sun or rain on a day one month away. At noon the spaces between the nsors will hide fluctuations18 that the computer will not know about, tiny deviations20 from the average. By 12.01, tho fluctuations will already have created small errors one foot away. Soon the errors will have multiplied to the ten-foot scale, and so on up to the size of the globe.
JAMES GLEICK, Chaos21
2019考研国家线公布时间New words and expressions 生词和短语
forecast
i stilln. 预报
speculative
adj. 推想的
blizzard2
n. 暴风雪deteriorate4 v. 变坏
multiply
v. 增加cascade22
v. 瀑布似地落下turbulent adj. 狂暴的dust devil
小尘暴，尘旋风squall
n. 暴风
wonderwall歌词
mceddy23
n. 旋涡
grid
n. 坐标方格nsor
屏障的拼音>disputen. 传感器
humidity
爱与责任n. 温度
meteorologist
n. 气象学家
Princeton
n. 普林斯顿（美国城市名）
New Jery
n. 新泽西（美国州名）
fluctuation17freeskyf
n. 起伏，波动
deviation19
n. 偏差
参考译文
世界上的两三天以上的天气预报具有很强的猜想性，假如超过六七天，天气预报就没有了任何价值。
缘由是蝴蝶效应。对于小片的恶劣天气 -- 对一个全球性的气象预报员来说，“小”可以意味着雷暴雨和暴风雪 -- 任何猜测的质量会很快下降。错误和不行靠性上升，接踵而来的是一系列湍流的徵状，从小尘暴和暴风进展到只有卫星上可以看到的席卷整块大陆的旋涡。
现代气象模型以一个坐标图来显示，图中每个点大约是间隔60英里。既
使是这样，有些开头时的资料也不得不依靠推想，由于地面工作站和卫星不行能看到地球上的每一个地方。假设地球上可以布满传感器，每个相隔1英尺，并按1英尺的间隔从地面始终排列到大气层的顶端。再假定每个传感器都极极端精确地读出了温度、气压、温度和气象学家需要的任何其他数据。在正午时分，一个功能巨大的计算机搜集了全部的资料，并算出在每一个点上12：01、12：02、12：03时可能消失的状况。
计算机无法推断出1个月以后的某一天，新泽西州的普林斯顿毕竟是晴天还是雨天。正午时分，传感器之间的距离会掩盖计算机无法知道的波动、任何偏平均值的变化。到12：01时，那些波动就已经会在1英尺远的地方造成偏差。很快这种偏差会增加到尺10英的范围，如此等等，始终到全球的范围。
