2023-2024学年外研版英语八年级上册精读文章.pdfVIP

01

Makingsenseofthebig-Admitit.Wearenotbornnumberpeople

Thereare8billionhumansonEarth.Thesunis150millionkilometersaway.Theuniverse(宇

宙)mayhave200billiontrillion(万亿)stars…

Asscientistsexploretheworldwithmoreandmoreadvanced(先进

的)tools,thenumbersusedarealsobecomingbigger.Recently,scientistsaddedfournewnamesforreallybigandreally

2730-27-30

smallmeasurements(度量):ronna(10),quetta(10),ronto(10)andquecto(10).

Doyoufindthesenumberstoobigtomakesense(有意

义)?Dontworry.Almostallhumanbrainshaveaproblemdealingwithbignumbers.Whilelivingandevolving(进

化),ourancestors(祖

先)hadnoneedtodevelopsuchaskill,USmathematicianSpencerGreenbergtoldthesciencewebsiteGizmodo.Earl

yhumansonlyneededtounderstandsmallquantities(数量),likethenumberofpeopleintheclan(族

群),orhowmanyanimalstheyhadcaught.Soitsnotimportanttodifferentiatelargefromverylargefromanevolutio

naryperspective(进化的角度).

somethingyouarefamiliar(熟悉

的)with.Forexample,ifimagining400,000peopleistoohard,youcanthinkthatanaveragesoccerstadiumcanholdar

ound40,000people.Then400,000peoplemean10

e(百万富翁)has1,000timesmoremoneythanyou.

Needlesstosay,therearelimitstothesemethods.Thisiswhyweoftenjustdothemath,saidGreenberg.Weca

nworkwithlargenumbersincalculationsandgetusefulanswers.Wejustcantnecessarilygrasp(理

解)thenumbersthroughoutthatprocess.

01

人类大脑为何难以理解庞大的数字？

全球人口突破80亿大关。地球到太阳的距离超过1.5亿公里。宇宙中有两千亿兆颗恒星…

随着科学家们探索世界的工具越来越先进，使用到的数字也变得越来越大。最近，科学家们新增了4个新的度

量单位，用来表示非常大或非常小：ronna代表10的27次方，即1后面27个零；quetta代表10的30次方，即1

后面30个零；ronto代表10的27次方之一，即10的负27次方；quecto代表10的30次方之一，即10的负30

次方。

你是不是觉得这些数字太大了，并没有什么意义？别担心，几乎所有人的大脑都不擅长处理“大数字”。美国数