大学英语自学教程课文上unit18.docx

[00:00.00]Unit 18 text A[00:04.88]Why Are Maps Drawn with North at the Top ?[00:08.15]为什么地图绘制得北方在上？[00:11.42]Now it is hard to visualize a map that does not feature north at the top[00:15.24]现在很难想像一幅不是北方朝上的地图，[00:19.07]but this was not always so.[00:21.25]但过去的情况并不总是这样。[00:23.43]The oldest known map in the accepted sense of the world was drawn about 3,800 BC,[00:28.21]现在被人们认可的最古老的地图绘制于大约公元前3800年[00:32.99]and represents the river Euphrates flowing through northern Mesopotamia, Iraq.[00:37.42]图上显示幼发拉底河流经伊拉克的美索不达米亚平原北部。[00:41.85]This,and others that followed it,[00:44.23]这幅地图以及[00:46.60]were little more than rough sketches of localized features;[00:49.63]后来的地图比地方地理特征略图好不了多少；[00:52.66]it was not until many centuries later that the ancient Greeks placed[00:56.49]直到许多世纪之后，古希腊人[01:00.32]the science of map--making on a sound footing.[01:03.29]才把地图绘制学置于可靠的基础之上。[01:06.27]At the forefront of the pioneers in the field[01:09.00]在此领域最早的先驱者首推[01:11.73]was the Greek mathematician philopher Claudius Ptolemaeus (c.AD 90-168),[01:17.02]希腊数学家和哲学家克劳迪’托勒密乌（约公元90年-168年）。[01:22.31]more popularly known to history as Ptolemy.[01:25.28]历史上通常称他为托勒密。[01:28.24]The last great scientist of the classical period,[01:31.21]他作为古典时期伯最后一位伟大的科学家[01:34.17]he was the first to draw a map that was based on all available knowledge,[01:37.75]他第一个画出以当时所有的知识为基础的地图，[01:41.33]rather than guess or imagination.[01:43.61]而不是基于猜测和想象。[01:45.90]Earlier,the Babylonians had attempted to map the world,[01:49.32]在此之前巴比伦人曾试图绘制世界地图，[01:52.74]but they presented it in the form of a flattened disc rather than a sphere,[01:56.43]但他们把地图绘在扁平盘上，[02:00.11]which was the form adopted by Ptolemy.[02:02.59]而非托勒密所采用的球体上。[02:05.07]Given the state of knowledge of those times, he got things wrong;[02:08.60]鉴于当时人们的知识状况，他把事情搞错了。[02:12.13]for example,his estimate of China[02:14.61]例如，他对中国[02:17.09]and the Atlantic Oceanwas far from being accurate.[02:20.17]和大西洋的估计远非准确。[02:23.26]Nevertheless,it was a useful effort[02:25.68]可是，这是有用的尝试。[02:28.11]an