萬(wàn)物簡(jiǎn)史 第54期:事物的測(cè)定(12)

Norwood's two daughters brought their fatheradditional pain by making poor marriages. One ofthe husbands, possibly incited by the vicar,continually laid small charges against Norwood incourt, causing him much exasperation andnecessitating repeated trips across Bermuda todefend himself.

諾伍德的兩個(gè)女兒的婚姻都不盡如人意，給她們的父親帶來(lái)了額外的痛苦。有個(gè)女婿可能受那位牧師的唆使，不斷為了小事去法院控告諾伍德，惹得他非常氣憤，還不得不經(jīng)常去百慕大的那一頭為自己辯護(hù)。

Finally in the 1650s witch trials came to Bermuda and Norwood spent his final years in severeunease that his papers on trigonometry, with their arcane symbols, would be taken ascommunications with the devil and that he would be treated to a dreadful execution. So littleis known of Norwood that it may in fact be that he deserved his unhappy declining years.What is certainly true is that he got them.

最后，在17世紀(jì)50年代，百慕大開(kāi)始流行審訊巫師，諾伍德提心吊膽地度過(guò)了最后的歲月，擔(dān)心自己那些帶有神秘符號(hào)的三角學(xué)論文會(huì)被看做在跟魔鬼交流，自己會(huì)被可怕地判處死刑。我們對(duì)諾伍德的情況知之甚少，反正他在不愉快環(huán)境中度過(guò)了晚年，實(shí)際上也許是活該。肯定沒(méi)錯(cuò)的是，他的晚年確實(shí)是這樣度過(guò)的。

Meanwhile, the momentum for determining the Earth's circumference passed to France.There, the astronomer Jean Picard devised an impressively complicated method oftriangulation involving quadrants, pendulum clocks, zenith sectors, and telescopes (forobserving the motions of the moons of Jupiter).

與此同時(shí)，測(cè)定地球周長(zhǎng)的勢(shì)頭已經(jīng)到達(dá)法國(guó)。在那里，天文學(xué)家讓•皮卡爾發(fā)明了一種極其復(fù)雜的三角測(cè)繪法，用上了扇形板、擺鐘、天頂象限儀和天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡(用來(lái)觀察土星衛(wèi)星的運(yùn)動(dòng))。

After two years of trundling and triangulating his way across France, in 1669 he announced amore accurate measure of 110.46 kilometers for one degree of arc. This was a great source ofpride for the French, but it was predicated on the assumption that the Earth was a perfectsphere—which Newton now said it was not.

他花了兩年時(shí)間穿越法國(guó)，用三角測(cè)繪法進(jìn)行測(cè)量;之后，他宣布了一個(gè)更加精確的測(cè)量結(jié)果：1度經(jīng)線為110.46公里。法國(guó)人為此感到非常自豪，但這個(gè)結(jié)果是建立在地球是個(gè)圓球這個(gè)假設(shè)上的--而現(xiàn)在牛頓說(shuō)地球不是這種形狀的。