原著：Matthew Hahn

選譯：錢潤(rùn)荷

一年曾有400天

原著：Matthew Hahn

選譯：錢潤(rùn)荷

The Year Was 400 Days Long

Earth's Rotation

Well,it actually takes 23 hours,56 minutes,and 4 seconds for the Earth to(自轉(zhuǎn))once.But in fact the Earth’s rotation is slowing down all the time because of the (萬(wàn)有引力)of the moon.

Does this mean that the days really do feel longer?No.The moon slows us down by about two(毫秒)a century,so that even one million years ago days were only twenty seconds shorter.

地球自轉(zhuǎn)

事實(shí)是，地球自轉(zhuǎn)一周需要23小時(shí)56分零4秒。但實(shí)際上，由于有月球的萬(wàn)有引力作用，地球的自轉(zhuǎn)一直在變慢。

這是就意味著一天的時(shí)間真的讓人覺(jué)得變長(zhǎng)了？不。月球每過(guò)一個(gè)世紀(jì)就讓我們變慢了兩毫秒。因此，即使是一百萬(wàn)年前，每天時(shí)間比起現(xiàn)在也只變短了20秒。

Would People Notice?

I doubt I would have noticed that.

Maybe not a million years ago but 400 million years ago,days were 21 and a half hour’s long,which you would have noticed.

人們會(huì)注意到么？

我很懷疑我是否能注意到。

也許，不是一百萬(wàn)年前而是4億年前的話，當(dāng)時(shí)一天是21.5小時(shí)，這樣你就注意到了。

400 Days per Yea

What you really would have noticed is that the time it takes the Earth to get around the sun hasn’t changed,so that back then there were 400 days a year.

Scientists have found(化石)evidence from(熱帶珊瑚蟲(chóng))that existed at that time,and they have about 400 daily growth rings per year.So someone was enjoying all those(額外的)sunny days.

一年400天

可能你真正意識(shí)到的是：地球繞著太陽(yáng)公轉(zhuǎn)的時(shí)間沒(méi)有改變，所以那個(gè)時(shí)候一年有400天。

從存活于那個(gè)時(shí)候的熱帶珊瑚蟲(chóng)的化石中，科學(xué)家已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)了證據(jù)。那個(gè)時(shí)候的珊瑚每年大約有400個(gè)生長(zhǎng)日輪。所以那時(shí)的某個(gè)人可以享受這些額外的燦爛陽(yáng)光。