1、Unit 4 Force of NatureBarbara Goldsmith1. While I was a teenager growing up in New Rochelle, New York, I had up on my bulletin board a photo of Marie Curie sitting under an elm tree, her arms wrapped around her daughters, two-year-old Eve and nine-year-old Irene. I didn't know very muchabout Cur

2、ie beyond the basics: She and her husband had discovered radioactivity. She was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. She was brilliant, single-minded, a legend. I was just a girl with little direction, more drawn to words and made-up stories than to formulas and lab experiments.2. Looking back,

3、 I think I admired that photo so much, not because of Marie Curie and what she stood for but because she seemed so exotic- or maybe because of howher arms encircled her girls. My own mother lay in the hospital, recovering froma grave injury in a car crash. I wanted her to hold me, but she couldn'

4、;t. So, instead, I idolized Marie, who in my mind became the strongest and most capable womanin the world.3. Like any girl's fantasy, mine contained at least a shred of truth. Marie Curie's own daughters grew into accomplished womenin their own right, though their mother was obsessively enga

5、ged in her research before they were born. Curie was what we might today call a super-competent multi-tasker: Her work revolutionized the study of atomic energy and radioactivity, and she's one of a pitiful few female scientists whom schoolchildren ever study. Also she was a woman driven by pass

6、ions, fighting battles much of her life with what a doctor now would probably diagnose as severe depression. In the end, her most brilliant discovery provedfatal for both her andher husband.4. WhenCurie was 10 years old, in 1878, her mother died of tuberculosis. The Polish girl then known as Manya S

7、klodowska carried on with her schoolwork as if nothing had happened, but for months she'd find places to hide so she could cry her eyes out.5. At age 18, she landed a job as governess to a wealthy family near Warsaw. She wound up falling in love with Casimir Zorawski, an accomplished student of

8、19 with whom she shared a love of nature and science. But when Casimir announced that heand Manya wanted to marry, his father threatened to disinherithim. She was beneathhis station, poor, a commonnursemaid. Definitelyno. Four years dragged by. Finally,Manya told Casimir, "If you cannot decide,

9、 I cannot decide for you." In what stillseems to me a remarkable act of courage, Manya then gathered her meager savings and took a train to Paris, where she changed her name, enrolled at the Sorbonne and walked into history.6. In 1893, she became the first womanto earn a degree in physics at th

10、e Sorbonne. If you have ever seen the 1943 film Madame Curie, you know the broad brush strokes of her early experiments to find a mysterious, hidden new element. There's a scene in which actress Greer Garson, as Marie, stirs a boiling vat, her face glistening with sweat. Late at night, Marie and

11、 her husband, Pierre, enter the lab to see atiny luminous stain congealed in a dish. "Oh, Pierre! Could it be" exclaims Marie as tears roll down her cheeks. Yes, this was it radium!7. The reality was a lot grittier- and a lot less romantic. Marie and Pierre,whomshe married in 1895, did ind

12、eed work side by side late into the night. But their lab was so shabby and dank that their daughter Irene,at age three, called it "thatsad, sad place". And one prominent scientist said that had he not seen the worktable, he would have thought he was in a stable.8. In time, the Curies becam

13、e world famous, especially after they won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity. They were the toast of the European scientific community, feted lavishly and visited at home in Paris by acolytes who came from as far away as New Zealand to pay homage.9. For the Curies, t

14、hough, their triumph contained the seeds of their tragedy.Remember, they worked around radioactivity nearly every day. Even before winningthe Nobel, Pierre was severely ill from exposure to this fierce energy. He had open sores on his hands and fingers, and increasing difficulty walking. In 1906, he

15、 fell into the path of a wagon drawn by two huge draft horses, and a wheel ran over his head. He died instantly.10. Years later, Eve Curie, scarcely a year old when her father died, wrote that Pierre's death marked the defining moment in her mother's life: "Marie Curie did not change fr

16、om a happy young wife to an inconsolable widow. The metamorphosis was less simple, more serious. A cape of solitude and secrecy fell upon her shoulders forever." Marie was just 38. The Sunday after the funeral, instead ofstaying withfamily and friends, she retreated to the lab. In her diary she

17、 wrote Pierre: "I want to talk to you in the silence of this laboratory, where I didn't think I could live without you."11. The work that Marie and Pierre had begun went on after his death. A second Nobel in chemistry went to Marie alone for isolating the elements radium and polonium.1

18、2. With the onset of World War I in 1914, she recognized that mobile X-ray8 units could save lives in battlefield hospitals, so she established a fleet of thesevehicles, known as petites Curies, or little Curies. She and Irene drove one themselves.13. Later she went back to the Radium Institute she

19、established, teaching, traveling and lecturing until her death, at age 66, on July 4, 1934. The cause was aplastic pernicious anemia, most likely due to her long, devastating exposure to radium and other radioactive elements.14. The Marie Curie that I discovered was no icon but a flesh-and-blood wom

20、an. She conquered huge professional obstacles but paid a terrible personal price. I know now how complex her life was - truly glorious and tragic.Chinese Translation of Paragraphs1 .十幾歲的時(shí)候,我生活在紐約州新羅謝爾市.我的記事牌上貼著一張瑪麗 居里的照片,她坐在一棵榆樹下面,懷里抱著女兒,兩歲的愛娃和九歲的愛蓮.對居里夫人我所知甚少,除了一些根本的東西：她和丈夫發(fā)現(xiàn)了放射性.她是榮獲兩項(xiàng)諾貝爾獎的第一人.她聰明

21、、 執(zhí)著,簡直是一個(gè)傳奇. 我當(dāng)時(shí)還是一個(gè)小姑娘, 還幾乎沒有人生的方向, 與其說對公式和 實(shí)驗(yàn)室里的實(shí)驗(yàn)好奇,還不如說對文字和編造出來的故事更有興趣.2 .回想起來,我認(rèn)為自己十分欣賞那張照片,并非由于那是瑪麗居里以及她所象征的東西,而是由于她的那種異國情調(diào),或者也許是由于她懷抱兩個(gè)女兒的模樣.我自己的母親由于車禍?zhǔn)艿街貍?躺在醫(yī)院里,正在康復(fù).我想要她抱抱我,但是她做不到.因此,取而 代之的是,我崇拜瑪麗了,在我的心目中,她成了天底下最堅(jiān)強(qiáng)、最有水平的女性.3 .像其他女孩的奇思異想一樣,我的想法里至少還有幾分真實(shí).瑪麗居里夫人的女兒們都自力更生,成長為頗有成就的婦女, 盡管她們的母親在她

22、們出生之前完全沉浸在研究工 作之中.居里是個(gè)我們今天可以稱之為超有水平的多面手：她的工作徹底改變了對原子能和放射性的研究,而且她是學(xué)生們學(xué)習(xí)的少得可憐的幾個(gè)女科學(xué)家之一.她還是一個(gè)充滿激情的女人,一輩子有很多時(shí)間要與現(xiàn)在醫(yī)生可能診斷為嚴(yán)重抑郁癥的病魔抗?fàn)?最終,她那杰出的發(fā)現(xiàn)卻讓她和丈夫?yàn)橹畣拭?4 . 1878 年,居里10歲,她母親死于肺結(jié)核.這個(gè)叫瑪利亞斯可羅多夫斯卡的波蘭小 姑娘繼續(xù)求學(xué),好似什么事情也沒有發(fā)生過.但是,連著好幾個(gè)月她得找個(gè)地方躲起來,放聲大哭.5 . 18歲那年,她在華沙附近一家有錢人家里當(dāng)上了一名家庭教師.結(jié)果,她愛上了查斯米爾佐瓦斯基,一個(gè) 19歲的學(xué)有所成的學(xué)生

23、.他們倆都熱愛自然和科學(xué).但是,當(dāng)查 斯米爾宣布他和瑪利亞想要步入婚姻殿堂時(shí),他的父親威脅要剝奪他的繼承權(quán).她與他門不當(dāng)戶不對,出身貧寒,不過是個(gè)保姆.絕對不行！拖了四年之后,終于,瑪利亞對查斯米爾 說：“如果你下不了決心,我也無法為你下決心.然后憑著現(xiàn)在對我而言是了不起的勇氣,瑪利亞帶著微薄的積蓄乘火車去了巴黎.在巴黎她改了名字,上了索邦大學(xué)一一于是走進(jìn)了歷史.6 . 1893 年,她成了在索邦大學(xué)第一個(gè)獲得物理學(xué)學(xué)位的女性.如果您看過1943年拍攝的影片?居里夫人?,就會明白她早期做實(shí)驗(yàn)的大手筆,發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)神秘的、隱藏著的新元素.有一幕,扮演瑪麗的女演員格里爾加森在一個(gè)燒鍋里攪動,滿臉汗水.晚上很遲的時(shí)候, 瑪麗和丈夫皮爾走進(jìn)實(shí)驗(yàn)室看見試盤上凝結(jié)著一小塊發(fā)光的東西.“哦,皮爾！是那個(gè)嗎瑪麗驚呼道,淚水順著面頰流淌下來.是的,就是它一一鐳！7 .現(xiàn)實(shí)卻要艱苦得多一一也沒有那么浪漫.瑪麗是在1895年嫁給皮爾的,他們確實(shí)并肩工作到深夜.然而,她們的實(shí)驗(yàn)室是那么的簡陋、潮濕,所以女兒愛蓮把那兒叫做“那個(gè)糟 糕的、糟糕透了的地方.曾經(jīng)有位聲名顯赫的科學(xué)家說過,要不是見到那張工作臺,他會 以為自己