Day 4-5：Vocabulary and expressions

1. Clean usage of words and phrases

动词词组

1）work out

a. to develop in a successful way:  Things have worked out quite well for us.

b. find the answer to sth:  work out a problem, work out all the laws by pure thought

2）a preferred state of rest, which anybody would take up(=accept) if...

take up a challenge, take up one's offer

3）If one set aside(=not consider/ disregard sth) for a moment the rotation of the earth

set aside my personal feelings

4）Part of the pulse is reflected back at the event

5）spread out：to cover a larger area

a pulse of light will spread out as a sphere of light

spread out to form a sphere with a radius of xx meters.

The searchers spread out to cover the area faster.

the ripples that spread out on the surface of a pond

介词用法：

1）balls of different weights/ twice the mass

2）apart: seperated by a distance, of space or time

the farther apart the body

hit the table twice on the same spot one second apart.

Their birthdays are only three days apart.

3）his measurements of the variations in the distance of the earth from the Jupiter

variation in temperature

4）the time at which（=when） he receives the echo

5）the time halfway between when ... and the time when ...

连词用法：

1）decribe the whole universe in terms of a collection of overlapping patches.

2）in the case of the most distant object that we have seen

3）points near the sun would be slightly bent inward, on account of（= because） the mass of the sun.

4）talk about events in the universe without the notions of space and time

写作可以学习的用法：

1）No one until xxx ... did ...

... didn't come until 1865, when...

2）Roemer's achievement, in not only ..., but also in ..., was remarkable.

3）so it folllows automatically that ...

4）the theory was very successful in explaining... and in describing...

5）... is of considerable practical importance, with the advent of very accurate navigation systems based on signals from satellites.

表达替换：

1）the lack of ...= the nonexistence of ...

2）In effect= In fact

3）a combination of...

4）is hailed as...= be given credit for

was hailed as a great act of reconciliation between the two countries

5）mount=place：use a pair of accurate clocks mounted at the top and bottom of a water tower

6）a fixed arena（a particular environment or walk of life） in which events took place

其他：

1）... is what most people would take to be the commonsense view

2）put an end to the idea of ...

3）they have only a limited range of validity

4）we are seeing it as it was in the past.

5）it appears to us

6）be at rest: not moving, or dead

7）the first war was in progress

8）could be sheer luck

9）has the idea of absolute time at the back of one's mind

2. 乘除运算：

1）the speed of light is just the distance it has traveled divided by the time it has taken

2）the distance of the event is half the time taken for this round trip, multiplied by the speed of light.

3. equivalent: 

adj. A is equivalent to B, do sth equivalent

A is the equivalent (n.) of B: has the same effect as...

Breathing such polluted air is the equivalent of smoking ten cigarettes a day.

n. equivalence

the equivalence of science and rationality/ mass and energy

A and B have an equivalence.

4. If you let go of a ball on a slope that drops by one moter for every ten meters you go along, the ball will be travelling down the slope at a speed of about one meter per second after one second, two meters per second after two seconds, and so on, however heavy the ball (=not matter what its weight)

however + adj. 

However carefully I explained, she still didn't understand.

He wanted to take no risks, however small.

5. explicit 

adj. clearly expressed: explicit orders/ instructions

explicitly adv.

This idea was first stated explicitly in ..., explain sth explicitly

6. A is/should be (inversely) in proportional to B

Salary is proportional to years of experience.

the punishment ought to be proportional to the crime

The body will accelerate, or change its spped, at a rate that is propotional to the force.

The gravitational attraction/force between two bodies is proportional to the mass of each body and inversely proportional to the distance between them.

5. The acceleration is also smaller the greater the mass of the body.

6. If the law were that the gravitational attraction of a star went down faster or increased more rapidly with distance, the orbits of the planets would not be elliptical, they would either spiral in to the sun or escape from the sun.

elliptical: 

1）<记忆>：The worde elliptical is derived from the oval shape known as an ellipse

have an elliptical orbit around the Sun

2）characterized by extreme economy of expression or omission of superfluous elements.

1. economy of expression/words: use only necessary words, sometimes makes the work obscure and hard to interpret

2. omission: sth that has not been included either deliberately or accidentally

3. superfluous: more than required.

... are necessary, beyond these, all esle seems superfluous to me.

4. it doesn't shed any light on the meaning

spiral:

n. a series of circles that become gradually larger or smaller

v. something moves in a spiral shape

my kite spiral down to the ground

7. stub one's toe on a large stone: hurt the toe by accidentally hitting sth

8. ambiguous

1）<记忆>something that's ambiguous can lead to "big" misunderstandings.

2）having more than one possible meaning：ambiguous words/instructions

3）driving us in two or more different directions at once, mislead

the polling had a complex and ambiguous (or equivocal) message for potential female candidates

4）unambiguous: has a single and clear meaning

     one could unambiguously measure the interval of time between two events

9. Time was completely seperate from and independent of space.

两个独立的事情：A is seperate from B, A is independent of B

两个相关联的事物：

1）A is moving at constant speed with respect to B

2）speed should be relative to the ether

3）accord with his idea of...

4）it corresponds to the historical definition of the meter

5）it was inconsistent with the Newtonian theory of gravity

6）in exact agreement with general relativity.

10. finite: it has an end or finishing point.

have a finite amount of time

travel at a finite, but very high, speed.

<反义>：infinite:

take an infinite amount of energy, travel with infinite velocity

11. his value（the amount） for the speed of light

the modern value of 186,000 miles per second

12. paritial

1）part of the whole: a partial eclipse, a partial monopoly

unify the partial theories

2）be partial to/of something: express a fondness for it

partial to horror movies

13. combined

The combined voices of a crowd are louder than one voice.

If two people pool their money, the combined amount will be greater. 

If two countries are allies in a war, their combined forces will be stronger than their individual forces.

14. 专业词汇：

1）wavelength: the distance between one wave crest and the next

2）infrared 红外线，ultraviolet 紫外线，gamma rays

3）ether：originally a scientific term for what 19th century physicists called "the fifth element," a substance that was said to fill all space and make up all bodies.

4）a cesium/caesium clock：a soft silver-white ductile (pliable, flexible) metallic element (liquid at normal temperatures); the most electropositive （having a positive charge）and alkaline metal（having a pH greater than 7）铯

5）platinum：a heavy precious metallic element; grey-white and resistant to corroding 铂，白金

6）geodesic：bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits（move along a circular orbit） by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space.

the route an airline navigator will tell the pilot to fly along

the geodesic on the earth is called a great circle（a circular line formed by intersecting it with a plane passing through the center）

7）light should be bent inward by gravitational fields

8）an eclipse of the sun：the sun's light is blocked out（stop light or noise from coming in） by the soom

9）dynamic quantities：when a body moves, or a force acts, it affects the curvature of space and time- and in turn the structure of space-time affects the way in which bodies move and forces act.

a dynamic, expanding universe

15. 关于几何描述

直角：at right angles to the earth's motion

The wings were at right angles to the line of flight.

Line A crosses line B at right angles.

夹角：the angel between the line joining A to B, and the line joining B to C

对角线：a diagonal line：<记忆Diagon Alley：对角巷>

距离：.. miles north of...

半径：with a radius of

空间维度：spatial dimension

a two-dimensional space：a point can be specified by two coordinates, latitude and longtitude

a three-dimensional space：at a certain latitude and longtitude, and a certain height above sea level.

a four-dimensional space：called space-time

to someone high up

形状：

elongated：stretched out, or extended so that it's longer than usual

elongated neck/body/orbit

the long axis of the ellipse should rotate about the sun at a rate of about one degree in ten thousand years.

They will lie within or on the expanding sphere of light emitted from the event P.

the path of any object must be represented by a line that lies within the light cone.

16. contract

1）contract a serious disease: 

You catch a cold, but contract malaria.

2）compress, squeeze, shrinks

When the economy contracts, consumers stop buying things.

a contracting market

Glass contracts as it cools.

The heart muscles contract to expel the blood.

17. hitherto: until now

a hitherto undiscovered hidden tunnel

s hitherto unknown clerk

You could say that you're taking a hot air balloon ride that you were hitherto too scared to contemplate

a very shy girl in your philosophy class who was hitherto totally silent finally spoke up today

18. postulate

v. If you postulate something, you suggest it as the basis for a theory, or assume that it is the basis

Physicists postulate the existence of parallel universes

n. the fundamental postulate of the theory of relatively

19. confine: setting limits

If you are confined to the house, it means you can't leave it.

confine your examples to ones that you can support with direct evidence

In the 19th century, pregnancy and childbirth were often referred to as a woman's confinement —a time when she couldn't get up or out.

Any nomal object is confined by relativity to move at speeds slower than the speed of light.

20. intrinsic: Anything intrinsic comes from within

An intrinsic quality of dogs is that they're loyal.

The paintings have no intrinsic value except as curiosities

Small local shops are intrinsic to the town's character.

waves that have no intrinsic mass

反义词：extrinsic

extrinsic evidence

an extrinsic feature of the new building

looking for extrinsic aid

21. pulse

1）n. the rhythmic contraction or beat

the pulse of dance music or a pulse of flashing light

2）take your pulse as a quick evaluation of a person's health

3）v. contract or beat rhythmically

If you’re angry, the muscles in your jaw might pulse.

Your blood will pulse（literally） through your veins, or a busy city may pulse（figuratively） with life.

22. assign: 

specify something or someone for a specific purpose

If your sisters fight over whose turn it is to sit in the front seat, your parents may have to assign turns.

The teacher assigned him to lead his classmates in the exercise.

assign different times and positions to the same event

assign the same letters for...

23. coordinate

v. organize the different parts of an activity and the people involved in it.

coordinate the  work of the team (the painters, masons, and plumbers)

coordinate his actions with that of his colleagues

coordinate our efforts

coordinate priorities and schedules

n. a number that identifies a position relative to an axis：

three coordinates, well-defined spatial coordinates

synchronize：

1）to make things happen at the same time

synchronize your dance moves with the beat of the music

The sound track did not synchronize with the action.

It was virtually impossible to synchronize our lives so as to take holidays and weekends together.

synchronizing the needs of two distinct groups

2）synchronize the clocks：make them show the same time

spatial：relating to space

the spatial distribution of the population

the development of a child's spatial awareness.

If you're not wearing your glasses, your spatial perception might be off

24. arbitrary

adj. not based on any principle, plan or system, but based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice（a sudden desire）

an arbitrary decision/choice/division of the group

the choice of coordinates is arbitrary

discretion：

1）the power of making free choices: something is "at your discretion."

is left to the discretion of the doctor

2）the quality of being discreet（quiet, prudent, and restrained）

25. stack snapshots（an informal photograph） of the ripples one above the other, the expanding circle of ripples will mark out a cone whose tip is at the place and time at which the stone hit the water.

mark out：to draw lines to show the edges of sth

They marked out a tennis court on the lawn.

cone：a shape whose base is a circle and whose sides taper up to a point

construte a light cone

taper：To taper is to gradually grow smaller or more narrow or less intense. 

For most people, the desire for battle tapers off with time and exhaustion.

Your interest would taper off before I finished explaining it. 

The fact that a road appears to taper off into the distance is an optical illusion.

26. would change instantaneously（without any delay）

27. Einstein made the revolutionary suggestion that gravity is not a force like other forces, but is a consequence of the fact that space-time is not flat, as had been previously assumed: it is curved, or ''warped"（used especially of timbers or boards; bent out of shape usually by moisture） by the distribution of mass and energy in it.

make the revolutionary suggestion

revolutionize our view of ...

distribution：

1）many are concerned about the distribution of wealth, which is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the richest few.

2）the spatial or geographic property of being scattered about over a range, area, or volume

28. smaller deviations of the orbits of the planets

deflect through a small angle

29. expedition：an organized journey that is undertaken for a particular purpose

A group of scientists launching an expedition to South America to seek out a new medicinal herb

Day 6：逻辑图

第一稿：信息点很全，但是逻辑不够严谨，每个概念之间的连接不够密切

修改之后：概念之间的联系更加紧密，舍去了一些细枝末节，避免自己日后回顾这篇文章的时候，发现这份逻辑图根本不能起到提纲挈领的目的。

Day 7：Summary

这篇总结用了不到一个小时完成，简直是一个unexpected result，妈呀，怎么学个精读班，我的写作变好了。通过这篇summary，我用自己的话又梳理了一遍文章，不自觉用到了很多上面记下来的词和词组，也阐述了一下这篇文章带给我带来的几点感悟。发现的问题是，虚拟语态真的在写作中不会应用啊，看来语法还是得练，不然抄100遍规则也没用。

To check whether my mind map serves as a good "navigator" to help me get the idea of the whole chapter, I would like to challenge myself today to do a biref summary of this passage.

Our present ideas about the motion of bodies date back to Galileo and Newton. Galileo disproved Aristotle's thoughts of state of rest and believed that there was no absolute rest and the real effect of a force was to change the speed of the object. Newton's laws of motion were later put forward based on Galileo's theories, with Newton's first law and second law explaining what happens with or without a force acting on it. 

Both Galileo and Newton believed in absolute time, and thanks to Annie's explanation, I have an idea why the author swifted from different theories on the motions of bodies to the propagation of light so abruptly, leaving a seemingly huge gap for us to fill. The fact that the speed of light affects time is of considerable importance, and that's why scientists like Roemer, Maxwell and Einstein endeavored to measure the speed of light and prove whether it was fixed or not, which may not currently appear to be clear to me though.

Einstein proposed the theory of relativity in 1905, and made a revolutionary suggestion that time is not absolute. He constructed the space-time diagram, in which we can use a arbitary set of coordinates to describe the position of a point or an event. The light spreading out from an event formed a light cone, and any given event P can be divided into three classes--the future of P, the past of P and the elsewhere of P. The author cited an interesting example to illustate his points which arose my interest immediately. Have you ever thought about what would happen if the sun were to cease to shine at this very moment. It would take eight minutes for us to become aware of this fact, the time which the earth need for entering the future light cone of the death of the sun. 

The general theory of relativity was proposed in 1915 to comply with the theory of gravity, in which Einstein stated space-time is curved. He predicted that light is bent by gravitational fields and that time appears to be slower near the earth. The general theory of relativity suggests that the universe is dynamic and expanding, replacing the old theory of unchanging universe.