Yang Dong wanted to save herself, but she knew there was little hope.
杨冬想救自己，但她知道希望渺茫。
What sentence does it end? Hopefully only the end of physics.
是什么的句号？但愿只是物理学的。
Too frightening.
这太可怕。
She stood on the balcony of the control center’s top floor, surveying the stopped particle accelerator. From her perch, she could take in the entire twenty-kilometer circumference of the collider. Contrary to usual practice, the ring for the collider wasn’t an underground tunnel, but enclosed within an aboveground concrete tube. The facility looked like a giant full stop mark in the setting sun.1
她站在控制中心顶层的阳台上，俯W}—W—g经停止运行的加速器。加速器的周长有二十千米，从这个高度刚刚能看全。它没有按惯例建在地下的隧洞里，而是置于地面的混凝土管道中，看上去如同夕阳中一个巨大的句号。
Once, Yang Dong had held a basic belief: Life and the world were perhaps ugly, but at the limits of the micro and macro scales, everything was harmonious and beautiful. The world of our everyday life was only froth floating on the perfect ocean of deep reality. But now, it appeared that the everyday world was a beautiful shell: The micro realities it enclosed and the macro realities that enclosed it were far more ugly and chaotic than the shell itself.
以前，杨冬有一个基本信念：生活和世界也许是丑陋的，但在微观和宏观的尽头却是和谐完美的，日常世界只是浮在这完美海洋上的泡沫。现在看来，日常世界反而成了美丽的外表，它所包容的微观和包容它的宏观可能更加混乱和丑陋。
It would have been better if she could just stop thinking about such things. She could choose a career that had nothing to do with physics, get married, have children, and live a peaceful, contented life like countless others. Of course, for her, such a life would be only half a life.
其实不想这些就是了，没有物理学她是能活下去的，她可以选择一个与理论物理无关的行业，结婚生子，像每个女人那样平静地过完一生。然，对她来说，这也只有半条命了。
Something else also bothered Yang Dong: her mother, Ye Wenjie. By accident, she’d discovered on her mother’s computer some heavily encrypted messages that she had received. This aroused an intense curiosity in Yang.
另一件事是关于母亲。杨冬有一次意外地发现，母亲电脑中收到的信息有极高的加密级别，这引起了她很强的好奇心。但解密后的信息没有放进文件粉碎机，只是删除。
For the first time in her life, Yang Dong kept a secret from her mother, and recovered the information in the deleted documents. It took her several days to read through the recovered information, during which she learned a shocking amount about the world of Trisolaris and the secret shared by the extraterrestrials and her mother.
杨冬做了有生以来第一件背着妈妈的事：把部分删除的信息恢复了。信息量很大，她读了好几天，知道了母亲和三体世界的秘密。
Like many elderly people, Yang’s mother wasn’t familiar with the details of the web and her own computer, so she had only deleted the decrypted documents instead of digitally shredding them. She didn’t realize that even if she had reformatted the hard drive, the data would still have been easily recoverable.
同所有上年纪的人一样，母亲对电脑和网络都不熟悉，不知道即使把硬盘格式化，上面的信息也可轻松恢复。
Yang Dong was utterly stunned. The mother she had depended on for most of her life turned out to be someone she didn’t know at all, someone she couldn’t even have believed existed in this world. She didn’t dare to confront her mother, never would, because the moment she asked about it, her mother’s transformation in her mind would be complete, irrevocable. It was better to pretend that her mother was still the person she had always known and continue life as before. Of course, for Yang, such a life would be only half a life.
杨冬几乎被震惊所击倒，相依为命的妈妈原来是另一个人。而且是她之前甚至不敢相信这世界上可能存在的那种人。她不敢去问母亲永远不敢，因为一问，母亲就真的永远变成另一个人了。让母亲保留自己的秘密，杨冬则假装妈妈仍是原来的妈妈，生活也能继续下去。当然，这生活对杨冬来说，也只剩半条命了。
Yang Dong leaned against the banister and stared at the abyss beneath her, terrified as well as enticed. She felt the banister shake as it bore more of her weight, and she stepped back as though shocked by electricity. She dared not stay here any longer. She turned to walk back into the terminal room.
杨冬扶着阳台的栏杆，看着楼下的深渊，恐惧伴随着诱惑。她感觉承受着自身重量的栏杆突然摇晃了一下，立刻触电似的后退了一步。她不敢在这里再待下去，就返身走进了终端大厅。
Was it really so bad to live only half a life? As far as she could see, a considerable number of the people around her lived only half lives. As long as one was good at forgetting and adjusting, half a life could be lived in contentment, even happiness.
用半条命生活其实也没什么，据她观察，周围的人相当一部分都是生活在半条命之中，只要善于忘却和适应，半条命也可以活得很平静。甚至很幸福。
But between the end of physics and her mother’s secret, Yang had lost two such half lives, which added up to a whole life. What did she have left?
但这两件事加起来，就是一条命了。她还剩下什么？
This was where the center kept the terminals for the supercomputer used to analyze the data generated by the collider. A few days ago, all of the terminals had been shut down, but now a few were lit. This gave Yang Dong a bit of comfort, but she knew that they no longer had anything to do with the particle accelerator — other projects had taken over the supercomputer.
这里分布着巨型机的终端，这台主机没与加速器连接，只用于结果的离线处理。几天前弓经全部关闭的终端现在又有几台亮着，这让杨冬有一丝宽慰，但她知道，现在这里与加速器已经没有关系，主机已经被其他的项目占用。
Yang Dong felt the breath of nature seeping into this place that had once been dominated by abstract numbers and theories. She felt as if she were being released from confinement.
杨冬感到大自然的气息正在渗透到这曾经被抽象数据和理论完全占据的地方，这感觉竟使她有一种从幽闭中走出的解脱。
It was a mathematical model of the Earth. Unlike similar projects in the past, this model combined factors from biology, geology, astronomy, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, and other fields of study to simulate the evolution of the Earth’s surface from past to future.
这是一个地球演化数学模型，用以模拟地球表面形态在过去和未来的演化。与以前类似的项目不同，这个模型综合了生物、地质、大气、海洋和天文等多种因素。
Green Glasses directed her attention to a few large-screen displays. These did not show scrolling columns of numbers or crawling curves on a chart; instead, they showed bright, colorful pictures, as though one were viewing the continents and oceans from high above. Green Glasses manipulated the mouse and zoomed in on a few places to show close-up views of a river or a copse of trees.
绿眼镜还打开了几个大屏幕让杨冬看，她看到上面显示着与以前的数据表和曲线完金杏同的东西，都是色彩鲜活的图形，好像是从高空俯瞰的大陆和海洋。绿眼镜灵活地拖动鼠标，演示把图形中的几部分拉近，细化成一片树林或一条河流。
There was only one young man in the room, who stood up as Yang Dong came in. He wore glasses with thick, bright green frames, a distinct look. Yang explained that she was here only to retrieve a few personal items, but after Green Glasses heard her name, he became enthusiastic and explained the program running on the terminals to her.
大厅中只有一个年轻人，见到杨冬后站了起来，他戴着一副宽边眼镜，镜框是鲜艳的绿色公显得很特别。杨冬说她只是来取留在这里的一点东西。知道她是谁后，绿眼镜热情起来，向她介绍巨型机上正在运行的项目。
After the explanation from Green Glasses, Yang Dong retrieved her things, politely said good-bye, and turned to leave. She could feel Green Glasses staring at her back, but she was used to men behaving this way, so instead of being annoyed, she felt comforted, as if by sunlight in winter. She was seized by a sudden desire to communicate with others. She turned to face Green Glasses. “Do you believe in God?”
听完绿眼镜介绍，杨冬拿了自己的东西，礼貌地告别准备离去。当她转身向大门走去时，感觉到绿眼镜仍在注视着自包。她已经习惯了男人的这种目光，并不反感，而是有一种冬天阳光照到身上的舒适。她突然有了和人交流的愿望，就停下转身面对绿眼镜“你相信有上帝吗？”
Green Glasses was similarly stunned. After a while, he managed to close his mouth and ask, carefully, “What kind of ‘God’ do you mean?”
绿眼镜也被这个问题震住了，张口愣了好半天，才小心翼翼地问：‘什么样的上帝？“
“Just God.” That overwhelming sensation of exhaustion had returned. She had no patience to explain more. “I don’t.”
“就是上帝。”杨冬简单地说，那种压倒一切的疲惫感又出现了，她没有精神再多解释什么。“我不信。”
Yang Dong was shocked by her own question. But considering the model displayed on the terminals, the question wasn’t entirely out of place.
这话一出口，杨冬自己都感到吃惊，但想到这里正在运行的模型这个问缅也不算太突兀，她才多少释然了一些。
Yang pointed to the large screens. “But the physical parameters governing the existence of life are utterly unforgiving. Take liquid water as an example: It can exist only within a narrow range of temperatures. Viewing the universe as a whole, this becomes even more apparent: If the parameters of the big bang had been different by even one million billionth, we would have no heavy elements and thus no life. Isn’t this clear evidence for intelligent design?”
“可是，”杨冬指指大屏幕上的大陆和海洋，“生命能存在的环境，各种物理参数都是很苛刻的，比如液态水，只存在于一个很窄的温度范围内；从宇宙学角度看更是这样，如果大爆炸的参数偏离亿亿分之一，就不会有重元素出现，也不会有生命了。这不是表现出明显的智慧设计迹象吗？
Yang Dong glanced over at another terminal and saw that the supercomputer was operating at full capacity. A machine like that consumed as much electricity as a small city, but she didn’t tell Green Glasses to stop.
杨冬从一个控制终端上看到主机开始全功率运行，巨型机都是电老虎，这时的耗电量相当于一个小县城，但她没有阻止绿眼镜。
Green Glasses shook his head. “I don’t know enough about the big bang to comment, but you’re wrong about the environment on Earth. The Earth gave birth to life, but life also changed the Earth. The current environment on our planet is the result of interactions between the two.” He grabbed the mouse and started clicking. “Let’s do a simulation.”
绿眼镜摇摇头，“大爆炸我不懂，但你说的地球生命环境，根本就不是那么回事。地球产生了生命，生命也在改变地球，现在的地球环境，其实是两者互相作用的结果。”绿眼镜想了想，抓过鼠标，“我们来模拟一个看看。”
He brought up a configuration panel on one of the large screens, a window filled with dense fields of numbers. He unchecked a checkbox near the top, and all the fields became grayed out. “Let’s uncheck the option for ‘life’ and observe how the Earth would have evolved without it. I’ll adjust the simulation to be coarse-grained so as not to waste too much time in computation.”
他从一个大屏幕上调出一个设定界面，那是一大堆令人头晕目眩的参数窗口，但他把最上面一个选择框中的钩去掉，所有的窗口都变虚了，“我们把生命选项去掉，看看地球在没有生命的状态下演化到现在是什么样子，只能粗线条过一下，要不太费时间了。”
A newly formed planet appeared on the large screen. Its surface was still red-hot, like a piece of charcoal fresh out of the furnace. Time passed at the rate of geological eras, and the planet gradually cooled. The color and patterns on the surface slowly shifted in a hypnotic manner. A few minutes later, an orange planet appeared on the screen, indicating the end of the simulation run.
大屏幕上出现了一颗刚刚形成的行星，表面处于红热状态，像一块刚从炉中取出的炭。时间以地质纪年流逝，行星渐渐冷却，表面的色彩和纹路在连续地缓慢变化，看上去有一种催眠作用。几分钟后。屏幕上出现了一颗橙黄色的行星，提示模拟进程完成。
“But… where are the oceans?”
“可是……海洋呢？”
“You’re saying that without life, liquid water would not exist on Earth?”
“你是说，如果没有生命，地球上连液态水都没有了？”
“Do you think life is nothing but a fragile, thin, soft shell clinging to the surface of this planet?”
“你是不是以为，生命只是地球表面一层薄薄的、软软的、稀稀拉拉的、脆弱的东西？”
“There are no oceans. No rivers either. The entire surface is dry.”
“没有海洋，没有河流，全是干的。”
“The computations were done at the coarsest level; to do it with more precision would require over a month.” Green Glasses moved the mouse and zoomed in on the surface of the planet. The view swept over a broad desert, over a cluster of strangely shaped, towering mountain peaks, over a circular depression like an impact crater.
“这是最粗略的运算，精确模拟要花一个月时间。”绿眼镜说，同时移动鼠标，从太空向行星表面俯冲下去。视野掠过广阔的沙漠，飞过一群形状怪异的山峰，那些山像一根根巨大的柱子；接着又飞过深不见底的大裂谷和一个像是陨石坑的圆盆地。
“But –“
“可。。。。”
“Isn’t it?”
“不是吗？”
“Earth. Without life, this is what the surface of the planet would look like now.”
“地球啊。如果没有生命，地球演化到现在，表面就是这个样子。”
“The reality would probably be even more shocking. Remember, this is only a coarse simulation, but at least you can see how much of an impact life had in the present state of the Earth.”
“真实情况可能比这还惊人。这当融是粗略的模拟，但至少让你看到了生命对地球现在形态的影响有多大。”
“What are we looking at?” Yang Dong asked.
“这是哪儿？”杨冬迷惑地问。
“Only if you neglect the power of time. If a colony of ants continue to move clods the size of grains of rice, they could remove all of Mount Tai in a billion years. As long as you give it enough time, life is stronger than metal and stone, more powerful than typhoons and volcanoes.”
“那你忽略了时间的力量。一队蚂蚁不停搬运米粒大小的石块，给它们十亿年，就能把泰山搬走。只要把时间拉得足够长，生命比岩石和金属都强壮得多，比飓风和火山更有力。”
“Then how did the oceans disappear?”
“那海洋是怎么消失的？”
“But the formation of mountains depends on geologic forces!”
“可造山运动主要还是地质力量在起作用吧。”
“Not necessarily. Life may not be able to uplift mountains, but it can change the distribution of mountain ranges. Let’s say there are three mountains, two of which are covered by vegetation. The one that is nude would soon be flattened by erosion. ‘Soon’ here means on the order of millions of years, a blink of an eye in geological terms.”
“不一定。生命也许不能造山，但能改变山脉的分布，比如有三座大山，植物在其中两座上生长，没有植物的那座山就会很快被风化夷平，这里说的很快是一千万年左右，在地质上真的不长。”
“We’d have to examine the records of the simulation, which would be a lot of work. However, I can give you an educated guess: plants, animals, and bacteria all have had important roles in the present composition of our atmosphere. Without life, the atmosphere would be very different. It’s possible that such an atmosphere would not be able to shield the surface of the Earth against solar winds and ultraviolet rays, and the oceans would evaporate. Soon, greenhouse effects would turn the Earth’s atmosphere into a copy of Venus’s, and then water vapor would be lost to space over time. After several billion years, the Earth would be dry.”
“这得看模拟过程的记录，太麻烦，不过可以猜。植物、动物和细菌，都对形成现在这样的大气层产生过重要作用，如果没有生命，现在的大气成分会有很大不同，可能已经无法阻拦紫外线和太阳风，海洋会蒸发，地球大气先是变成金星那样的蒸笼，水汽从大气层顶部向太空蒸发，几十亿年下来，地球就成干的了。”
Yang Dong said no more as she stared at that yellow husk of a planet.
杨冬不再说话，默默地看着那个干涸的黄色世界。
“Thus, the Earth that we live on now is a home constructed by life for itself. It has nothing to do with God.” Green Glasses held out his arms in mock embrace of the large screen, clearly pleased with his own oration.
“所以，现在的地球，是生命为自己建的家园，与上帝没什么关系。”绿眼镜对着着摒幕做出拥抱的姿势，显然对自己刚才的口才发挥满意。
Yang Dong was not really in the mood to discuss such matters, but the moment Green Glasses unchecked the option for life in the configuration panel, a thought had flashed into her mind. She asked the next terrifying question: “What about the universe?”
以杨冬现在的精神状态，她本来根本没有心思谈这些和看这些，但就在绿眼镜去掉数学模型中的生命选项时，她的思想突然有了震撼的一闪念，现在，她终于问出了那个可怕的问题：“那宇宙呢？”
“The universe? If we use a similar mathematical model to simulate the entire universe, and uncheck the option for life at the beginning, what would the resulting universe look like?”
“宇宙？宇宙怎么了？”正在关闭模拟进程的绿眼镜不解地问。“如果有一个像这样的数学模型来模拟整个宇宙，像刚才那样，在开始运行时把生命选项去掉，那结果中的宇宙看起来是什么样子？”
Yang Dong held her tongue. She said good-bye again and struggled to put on an appreciative smile. She left the building and stared up at the star-studded night sky.
杨冬想说什么但终于没说出来，于是再次同绿眼镜告别，并努力向他露出一个感激的微笑。她来到大楼外面，仰望初现的星空。
Green Glasses thought for a moment. “It would look the same. When I talked about the effects of life on the environment, it was limited to the Earth. But if we’re talking about the universe, life is exceedingly rare, and its impact on the evolution of the universe can be ignored.”
“当然还是现在这样子了，如果结果正确的话。我刚才说的生命对世界的改变仅限于地球，宇宙嘛，生命就是有也极稀少，对演化过程的影响可以忽略不计。”
She knew that she could no longer save herself. She tried to stop thinking, to turn her mind into empty darkness, but a new question stubbornly refused to leave her alone: Is Nature really natural?
她知道已经救不了自己，就停止了思考，努力把思想变成黑色的虚空，但仍有一个最后的问题顽固地留在潜意识中：大自然真是自然的吗？
From her mother’s secret documents, she knew that life was not so rare in the universe. In fact, the universe was downright crowded. How much has the universe been changed by life?
从妈妈电脑上的那些信息中可知，宇宙中的生命并不稀少，宇宙是很拥挤的。那么，宇宙现在已经被生命改变了多少，这种改变已到了什么层次和深度？
A wave of terror threatened to overwhelm her.
后一个问题尤其令杨冬恐惧。
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