Sex and the City《欲望城市》（精讲之七）

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影片对白

Carrie: The island of Manhattan is a cozy village populated by more than seven million fascinating individuals who all behave like they own the sidewalk. But lately it seemed as if the entire city had been magically reduced to only two people--us.Four-hour conversations flew by in a space of 15 minutes and a few days apart felt like weeks.I realize that Einstein's Law of Relativity would have to be amended to include a special set of rules--those to explain the peculiar effects of infatuation. Hello?

Miranda: Hi. I'm trying toget hold ofa Miss Carrie Bradshaw. She used to be a friend of mine.

Carrie: Good morning.

Miranda: Wait. I think I recognize that voice. 

Carrie: I can't believe it's been so long. I've been, I've beenmeaningto call you. I've just been-

Miranda: Fucking your brains out?

Carrie: Yeah, well, that's the least of it. You know what? I don't think that I have beenhitthis hard since-now, you know what, I'm not gonna compare it to anything, because everything else has always ended.

Miranda: So will I actually get to see you sometime?

Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. How about tonight?

Miranda: Yeah, tonight will work.

Carrie: All right, so I'll call Charlotte and Samantha and see if they're free, 'cause Big's got this dinner thing, so we know, we don't have any plans anyway. You know--

Miranda: God, would you listen to yourself?

Carrie: Yeah, I know. I've become one of those women we hate.

Miranda: Yes, you have. I can't talk now. I'll call you later. Okay?

Carrie: All right. Bye. As I hung up, I realized I'd committed the cardinal sin--I'd forsaken my girlfriends for my new boyfriend. That night I faced the tribunal.

Miranda: We really weren't that concerned.

Samantha: Just completely hurt and offended.

Charlotte: Actually, you missed a lot.

Miranda: I know. I am trying it-

Carrie: Miranda had worked on a big successful merger. Samantha was obsessed with the idea of a new apartment. And Charlotte--Charlotte was practically engaged. They met the day after Idropped off the edge of the earth. His name was Michael Conway. He was from a good New York family and he absolutely adored Charlotte.

Charlotte: I think this might be it. I think this might be the one.

Samantha: We've met him. He's perfect.

妙语佳句，活学活用

1. Four-hour conversations flew by in a space of 15 minutes and a few days apart felt like weeks.

这句话可是非常实用哦。"四个小时的聊天感觉就像15分钟，几天的别离感觉像几个星期"，虽然老外没有我们"一日不见，如隔三秋"的表达，这句话也足可以描述恋爱中的男女的感受，所以要赶快记下来。

2. Get hold of

这里的意思是"To communicate with, as by telephone"，例如：I tried to get hold of you but the line was busy.

Get hold of 还可以表示"拥有，找到"，例如：Where can I get hold of a copy?

3. Mean

这里的mean表示的是"To have as a purpose or an intention; intend"的意思，例如：I meant to go running this morning, but I overslept.

我们常常听到的表达I don't mean to (我不是故意的). 中，mean 也是同样的意思。

4. Hit

这里的hit 可不是"打"，Carrie 是借此表示the relationship is very momentous and important to her, and has taken her attention，她"完全陷进去了"。

5. Drop off the edge of the earth

意思差不多相当于"人间蒸发"：If you drop off the edge of the earth, it means you disappear from sight. You are no longer active in your former social circles and people you know don't see you around anymore. Maybe you move or just start doing things or something.

打个比方，当你遇到一个很久没见的朋友时，你就可以说：Hey, you've dropped off the edge of the earth lately. Where have you been?

文化面面观

Albert Einstein & The Law of Relativity爱因斯坦和他的相对论

Photographed by Oren J. Turner (1947)

Albert Einstein (born March 14, 1879, Ulm, Wurttemberg, Ger. - died April 18, 1955, Princeton, N.J., U.S.), German-Swiss-U.S. scientist. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, he grew up in Munich, and in 1894 he moved to Aarau, Switz. He attended a technical school in Zurich (graduating in 1900) and during this period renounced his German citizenship; stateless for some years, he became a Swiss citizen in 1901. Einstein became a junior examiner at the Swiss patent office in 1902 and began producing original theoretical work that laid many of the foundations for 20th-century physics. He received his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905, the same year he won international fame with the publication of three articles: one on Brownian motion, which he explained in terms of molecular kinetic energy; one on the photoelectric effect, in which he demonstrated the particle nature of light; and one on his special theory of relativity, which included his formulation of the equivalence of mass and energy (E = mc2). Einstein held several professorships before becoming director of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 1913. In 1915 he published his general theory of relativity, which was confirmed experimentally during a solar eclipse in 1919 with observations of the deviation of light passing near the Sun. He received a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect, his work on relativity still being controversial. He made important contributions to quantum field theory, and for decades he sought to discover the mathematical relationship between electromagnetism and gravitation, which he believed would be a first step toward discovering the common laws governing the behaviour of everything in the universe, but such a unified field theory eluded him. His theories of relativity and gravitation represented a profound advance over Newtonian physics and revolutionized scientific and philosophical inquiry. He resigned his position at the Prussian Academy when Adolf Hitler came to power and moved to Princeton, N.J., where he joined the Institute for Advanced study. Though a longtime pacifist, he was instrumental in persuading Pres. Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 to initiate the Manhattan Project for the production of an atomic bomb, a technology his own theories greatly furthered, though he did not work on the project himself. Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship. The most eminent scientist in the world in the postwar years, he declined an offer to become the first prime minister of Israel and became a strong advocate for nuclear disarmament.

The Special Theory of Relativity

Young Albert before the Einsteins moved from Germany to Italy.

The validity of the classical concepts of absolute and independent time and space was challenged by H. A. Lorentz and others. Since absolute motion cannot be confirmed by objective measurement, Einstein suggested that it be discarded from physical reasoning; he explained the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment by means of the special relativity theory, which he enunciated in 1905. This theory accepts the hypothesis that the laws of nature are the same in different moving systems applies also to the propagation of light, so that the measured speed of light is constant for all observers regardless of the motion of the observer or of the source of the light. Einstein deduced from these hypotheses the full logical consequences and reformulated the mathematical equations of physics, basing them in part on equations of H. A. Lorentz by which measurements made in one uniformly moving system can be correlated with measurements in another system if the velocity of one relative to the other is known.

The theory resolves the conflict between Newton's mechanics and Maxwell's electrodynamics by introducing fundamental changes in Newton's theory. In most phenomena of ordinary experience the results obtained from the application of the special theory approximate those based on Newtonian dynamics, but the results deviate greatly for phenomena occurring at velocities approaching the speed of light. In innumerable cases where the results predicted by these theories are incompatible, experimental evidence supports the Einstein theory. Among its assertions and consequences are the propositions that the maximum velocity attainable in the universe is that of light; that mass and energy are equivalent and interchangeable properties (this is spectacularly confirmed by nuclear fission, on which the atomic bomb is based); that objects appear to contract in the direction of motion; that the rate of a moving clock seems to decrease as its velocity increases; that events that appear simultaneous to an observer in one system may not appear simultaneous to an observer in another system; and that, since absolute time is excluded from physical reasoning because it cannot be measured, the results of observers in different systems are equally correct.

The General Theory of Relativity

Max Planck presents Einstein with the Max-Planck medal, Berlin June 28, 1929

Einstein expanded the special theory of relativity into a general theory (completed c.1916) that applies to systems in nonuniform (accelerated) motion as well as to systems in uniform motion. The general theory is principally concerned with the large-scale effects of gravitation and therefore is an essential ingredient in theories of the universe as a whole, or cosmology. The theory recognizes the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass. It asserts that material bodies produce curvatures in space-time that form a gravitational field and that the path of a body in the field is determined by this curvature. The geometry of a given region of space and the motion in the field can be predicted from the equations of the general theory.

Details of the motions of the planet Mercury had long puzzled astronomers; Einstein's computations explained them. He stated that the path of a ray of light is deflected by a gravitational field; observations of starlight passing near the sun, first made by A. S. Eddington during an eclipse of the sun in 1919, confirmed this. He predicted that in a gravitational field spectral lines of substances would be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This has been confirmed by observation of light from white dwarf stars. Further confirmation has been obtained in recent years from precision measurements using artificial satellites and the Viking lander on Mars, and from detailed observations of pulsars.

思想火花

女人似乎很容易为男人、为爱情而忘掉整个世界，更不用说朋友了。电视剧中这位一向标榜自由单身的专栏作家在遇到所爱之后也不能免俗，变成了自己一向痛恨的那种女人。只是要奉劝一下沉迷在爱情中的女人，无论爱有多么热烈，都别忘了家人和朋友--再热烈的爱情都可能会给你很重的伤，而他们才永远是你的坚强后盾。

考考你

将下面的句子译成汉语。

The island of Manhattan is a cozy village populated by more than seven million fascinating individuals who all behave like they own the sidewalk. But lately it seemed as if the entire city had been magically reduced to only two people--us.

Sex and the City《欲望城市》（精讲之六）考考你 参考答案

1. The thing is, she's smart, she's been incredibly sweet, and sex is great. She's just not the one I see myself with.
事实是，她很聪明，非常可爱，我们之间的性事也很和谐。她却不是我想共度一生的人。

2. She was one of the only women he'd ever met who he felt he could just be with.
她是他遇到的唯一一个当他们在一起时，他能找到自我的人。

3. I couldn't decide whether Mike was being shallow or honest but the question nagged me for days.
我不能说迈克是浅薄还是诚实，但是这个问题困扰了我好几天。