剑桥雅思8test1passage1阅读原文翻译

剑桥雅思8test1passage1该篇阅读的主题为时间记录的历史。文章按照时间顺序介绍，下面是具体每一段的翻译，一起来看看吧。

剑桥雅思8test1passage1阅读原文翻译

A Chronicle of Timekeeping时间记录的历史

段落A

According to archaeological evidence,at least 5,000 years ago,and long before the advent of the Roman Empire,the Babylonians began to measure time,introducing calendars to co-ordinate communal activities,to plan the shipment of goods and,in particular,to regulate planting and harvesting.They based their calendars on three natural cycles:the solar day,marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth rotates on its axis;the lunar month,following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth;and the solar year,defined by the changing seasons that accompany our planet’s revolution around the sun.

根据考古证据，至少在5000年前，距离罗马帝国出现还有很久的时候，巴比伦人已经开始计时，引入日历以协调公共活动，安排货物的运输，管理播种和收获。他们的日历基于三个自然周期：太阳日，以地球自转时连续产生的光明与黑暗为标志;阴历月，月球围绕地球旋转的阶段;以及太阳年，由随着地球围绕太阳公转而变化的季节定义。

段落B

Before the invention of artificial light,the moon had greater social impact.And,for those living near the equator in particular,its waxing and waning was more conspicuous than the passing of the seasons.Hence,the calendars that were developed at the lower latitudes were influenced more by the lunar cycle than by the solar year.In more northern climes,however,where seasonal agriculture was practised,the solar year became more crucial.As the Roman Empire expanded northward,it organised its activity chart for the most part around the solar year.

在人造光发明之前，月亮具有更大的社会影响。对于那些生活在赤道附近的人来说更是如此，它的阴晴圆缺比季节的流逝更加明显。因此，在低纬度地区出现的日历受月球周期的影响大于受太阳年的影响。然而，在更北部实行季节性农业的气候中，太阳年变得更加关键。随着罗马帝国的向北扩张，它所组织的大多数活动都围绕太阳年展开。

段落C

Centuries before the Roman Empire,the Egyptians had formulated a municipal calendar having 12 months of 30 days,with five days added to approximate the solar year.Each period of ten days was marked by the appearance of special groups of stars called decans.At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise,which occurred around the all-important annual flooding of the Nile,12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens.The cosmic significance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in which each interval of darkness(and later,each interval of daylight)was divided into a dozen equal parts.These periods became known as temporal hours because their duration varied according to the changing length of days and nights with the passing of the seasons.Summer hours were long,winter ones short;only at the spring and autumn equinoxes were the hours of daylight and darkness equal.Temporal hours,which were first adopted by the Greeks and then the Romans,who disseminated them through Europe,remained in use for more than 2,500 years.

罗马帝国出现前的几个世纪，埃及人制定了一种市历，共有12个月，每个月30天，最后加上五天以接近太阳年。每十天为一个周期，以被称为decan的特殊恒星群的出现为标志。天狼星刚好在日出前升起，这是12个decan横跨天空。而这一现象在每年十分重要的尼罗河泛滥期间出现。埃及人赋予12 decan的重大意义使他们开发出一种将黑夜(随后又将白天)12等分的体系。这些时段被称为日光时，因为它们的持续时间会随着季节的流逝和昼夜长短的变化而变化。夏天长，冬天短;只有在春分和秋分，白天和黑夜的时间才相等。日光时最初由希腊人采用，然后由罗马人通过欧洲传播，至今已使用了2500多年。

段落D

In order to track temporal hours during the day,inventors created sundials,which indicate time by the length or direction of the sun’s shadow.The sundial’s counterpart,the water clock,was designed to measure temporal hours at night.One of the first water clocks was a basin with a small hole near the bottom through which the water dripped out.The falling water level denoted the passing hour as it dipped below hour lines inscribed on the inner surface.Although these devices performed satisfactorily around the Mediterranean,they could not always be depended on in the cloudy and often freezing weather of northern Europe.

为了在白天记录日光时，发明者创造了日晷，通过太阳阴影的长度或方向指示时间。日晷的对应物，水钟，旨在测量晚上的时间。最早的水钟之一是一个水池。水池的底部附近有一个小孔，水从该孔滴出来。水位下降到水池内部表面所刻着的小时线以下，代表着时间的流逝。虽然这些设备在地中海地区的表现令人满意，但在北欧多云和寒冷的天气下却不总是那么可靠。

段落E

The advent of the mechanical clock meant that although it could be adjusted to maintain temporal hours,it was naturally suited to keeping equal ones.With these,however,arose the question of when to begin counting,and so,in the early 14th century,a number of systems evolved.The schemes that divided the day into 24 equal parts varied according to the start of the count:Italian hours began at sunset,Babylonian hours at sunrise,astronomical hours at midday and‘great clock’hours,used for some large public clocks in Germany,at midnight.Eventually these were superseded by‘small clock’,or French hours,which split the day into two 12-hour periods commencing at midnight.

机械钟的问世意味着尽管可以对其进行调节以维持日光时，但它天然地适合记录相等的时间。然而，有了这些，就出现了何时开始计时的问题，因此，14世纪初出现了许多系统。根据计时起点的不同，将一天分成24等份的方案也各不相同：意大利的时间从日落开始，巴比伦的时间从日出开始，天文学时间从中午开始，而德国一些用于大型公共场所的巨大时钟则从午夜开始。最终，这些计时方式被“小时钟”或法国时间所取代。它将一天分为两个12小时的时间段，从午夜开始。

段落F

The earliest recorded weight-driven mechanical clock was built in 1283 in Bedfordshire in England.The revolutionary aspect of this new timekeeper was neither the descending weight that provided its motive force nor the gear wheels(which had been around for at least 1,300 years)that transferred the power;it was the part called the escapement.In the early 1400s came the invention of the coiled spring or fusee which maintained constant force to the gear wheels of the timekeeper despite the changing tension of its mainspring.By the 16th century,a pendulum clock had been devised,but the pendulum swung in a large arc and thus was not very efficient.

有记录的最早的重量驱动机械钟是于1283年在英格兰贝德福德郡建造的。这款崭新的计时器的革命性方面既不是由向下的重量进行驱动，也不是传递动力的齿轮(齿轮已经存在至少1300年了)，而是所谓的擒纵机构。在15世纪初期，人们发明了一种螺旋弹簧，或者叫作均力圆锥轮，尽管其发条的张力发生变化，但它仍对计时装置的齿轮保持恒定的力。到了16世纪，摆钟被设计出来。但因为钟摆摆动弧度很大，因此效率不高。

段落G

To address this,a variation on the original escapement was invented in 1670,in England.It was called the anchor escapement,which was a lever-based device shaped like a ship’s anchor.The motion of a pendulum rocks this device so that it catches and then releases each tooth of the escape wheel,in turn allowing it to turn a precise amount.Unlike the original form used in early pendulum clocks,the anchor escapement permitted the pendulum to travel in a very small arc.Moreover,this invention allowed the use of a long pendulum which could beat once a second and thus led to the development of a new floor-standing case design,which became known as the grandfather clock.

为了解决这个问题，1670年人们在英国发明了原始擒纵装置的一种变型。这就是所谓的锚擒纵装置，它是一种基于杠杆原理的装置，形状像船的锚。摆锤的运动使该装置晃动，由此它抓住并随后释放擒纵轮的每个齿，从而使其精确的旋转。与早期的摆钟所使用的原始形式不同，锚式擒纵机构使钟摆能够以很小的弧度行进。而且，该发明使得使用较长的摆锤成为可能，它每秒跳动一次，从而推动新的落地柜式设计的发展。该设计被称为祖父钟(落地摆钟)。

段落H

Today,highly accurate timekeeping instruments set the beat for most electronic devices.Nearly all computers contain a quartz-crystal clock to regulate their operation.Moreover,not only do time signals beamed down from Global Positioning System satellites calibrate the functions of precision navigation equipment,they do so as well for mobile phones,instant stock-trading systems and nationwide power-distribution grids.So integral have these time-based technologies become to day-to-day existence that our dependency on them is recognised only when they fail to work.

如今，高精度的计时仪器为大多数电子设备的设置时间。几乎所有计算机都包含一个石英钟来控制其运行。此外，全球定位系统卫星发出的时间信号不仅可以校准精密导航设备的功能，而且还可以用于移动电话，即时股票交易系统和全国性的配电网。这些基于时间的技术已变得不可或缺，以至于只有它们在无法工作时我们才能意识到自己对它们的依赖。