Scientific American | 来聊聊比特币
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This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
There are now more than 16 million bitcoins in circulation, with a total market cap of 130 billion dollars—more than the market value of Netflix, Priceline or Starbucks. Just going by numbers, bitcoin is the one coin to rule them all.
目前在流通的比特币数量超过1600万,总市值达1300亿美元——这比奈飞公司、旅游网站旅游网站和星巴克公司的市值都要高。只从数量来说,比特币可以统治所有货币。
📖circulation 主要强调某物从一个人到另一个人的这个传播过程,可以指 (a) 新闻﹑ 信息﹑ 谣言等流传; 传播: the circulation of news/ information/rumours etc.也可以指(b) 钞票,货币等流通: Police say a number of forged banknotes are in circulation.警方称市面上有一定数量的伪钞. in/out of circulation(不)在社会上或事业上活跃;(不)再流通的
Police believe there are thousands of illegal guns in circulation.警方相信仍有数千把非法枪支在市场上流通。
The book was taken out of circulation. 这本书已经停止发行了。
She's been ill but now she's back in circulation.她一直生病, 但现在又重新参加活动了.
📖market cap市值,是Market capitalization的简写
市值指一间(或一组)上市公司在证券市场上的「市场价格总值」的简称。
一般会以该上市公司在相关证券市场上的收市价格作为计算基准,乘以其已发行的股份总数,而得出的市场价格总值。由于市值的计算基准为有关上市公司的收市价,因此数字会随股价升降而变动,而市值的升降,亦反映投资市场的买卖气氛
📖market value 某物的市场价值; 市价;投资者对一家公司的估价
offer a car at 500 below (its) market value 以低于市场价格500英镑出售一辆汽车.
Netflix(Nasdaq NFLX) 成立于1997年,是一家在线影片租赁提供商,主要提供Netflix超大数量的DVD并免费递送,总部位于美国加利福尼亚州洛斯盖图。2013年Netflix出品的《纸牌屋》更是被推上全球瞩目的风口浪尖,随后《铁杉树丛》、《女子监狱》等接连多部剧集均保持超高质量成为了现象级话题。
Priceline是美国人Jay Walker在1998年创立的一家基于C2B商业模式的旅游服务网站。是目前美国最大的在 线旅游公司。在Priceline网站,最直观的可选项目就是机票、酒店、租车、旅游保险。Priceline属于典型的网络经济,它为买卖双方提供一个信息平台,以便交易,同时提取一定佣金。
星巴克(Starbucks)大家都很熟悉了吧~1971年成立,是全球最大的咖啡连锁店,其总部坐落美国华盛顿州西雅图市。星巴克旗下零售产品包括30多款全球顶级的咖啡豆、手工制作的浓缩咖啡和多款咖啡冷热饮料、新鲜美味的各式糕点食品以及丰富多样的咖啡机、咖啡杯等商品。
📖go by 凭···判断;根据某事物形成意见或做出判断:
Have we enough evidence to go by? 我们有足以做出判断的证据吗?
It's not always wise to go by appearances. 根据表面现象看问题有时是不可取的.
If past experience is anything to go by, the plane will be late. 过去的经验要是还靠得住的话, 这飞机会晚点的.
But if you consider the spectrum of 600 actively traded cryptocoins as a financial ecosystem...you can take an evolutionary approach, and ask: which is the 'fittest' of the coins?
但是,如果将600种交易活跃加密货币当作一个金融系统来看,那你可以采取渐进的方式,并询问:哪种货币最好?
📖spectrum / ˈspektrəm; ˋspɛktrəm/ n (复数形式为 spectra / ˈspektrə; ˋspɛktrə/) (通常作单数)
本意为光谱;声谱; 频谱 the sound spectrum 声谱.,现在通常也引申为范围; 系列: covering the whole spectrum of ability 涉及整个能力范围. She'd seen his moods range across the emotional spectrum. 她见证了他经历过各种情绪。
Politicians across the political spectrum have denounced the act. 政界各方人士纷纷谴责此举。
📖cryptocoin等于下文中的cryptocurrency,这个词来自cryptography + coin/currency的组合,目前译法不一,主要解释为为“电子加密货币”。cryptography是密码学, coin/currency就是钱币/货币
📖ecosystem 生态系统,指某一地区的生物之间相互联系,与环境共同作用组成的完整系统。这里的financial ecosystem将电子货币交易市场比做一个生态系统,这600多种电子货币就如同生态系统中的动植物相互联系相互影响。
📖take an evolutionary approach
evolutionary /ˌiːvəˈluːʃənrɪ; US ˌevəˈluːʃənerɪ;ˌɛvə`luʃənˌɛrɪ/ adj. 进化的; 由进化产生的; 进化论的; 发展的: evolutionary processes 进化过程.
采取···的方式可以用take an ··· approach,这种用法比较书面和正式,还可以用动词use/adopt/make 与approach搭配,也可以说take steps/actions/measures to do sth,再口语化一点,可以只简单地说do something about it
Or, in other words: "Every cryptocurrency, bitcoin, ethereum, there are many...are a different species." Andrea Baronchelli, a network scientist at City, University of London.
或者换句话说,“加密货币、比特币、以太坊等等,很多不同种类的虚拟货币都在流通。”伦敦大学的网络科学家安德里亚·巴伦凯利说道。
📖species /ˈspiːʃiːz; `spiʃiz/ n (单复数同形) 物种,种;(口语) 种类,类型(sort,type)
various animal species 各种动物
an odd species of writer 古怪的作家
还记得刚刚生态系统的那个比喻么?此处把各种各样的密码货币,不用all kinds of这种常规的表达,而用species,既指不同物种,也指不同种类。
He and his team used evolutionary models to approximate the real-world behavior of cryptocurrencies. Each week of currency trading was treated as a new generation of progeny. Reporting their results in the journal Royal Society Open Science, they found that a so-called 'neutral' model of evolution best explained coin behavior...meaning no coin had a selective advantage.
他和团队使用演化模型来模拟加密货币在真实世界的行为。每周的货币交易都被视为新一代的产生。他们将研究结果发表在《英国皇家学会学报·开放科学》期刊上,他们发现,所谓的“中立”演化模型对货币的行为进行了最好的解释,这说明没有货币有选择优势。
📖approximate 熟词僻义 此处为动词词性 近似,使…接近,粗略估计;接近于,近似于
权威例句
Cage and everyone else trying to approximate reality miss the fact that games are fundamentally participatory.
凯奇和其他所有想要接近事情真相的人都忽视了一个问题:这个游戏从根本上就是全员参与的。
FORBES: PS4: Polygon Counts Have Nothing to Do With Emotion in Games
📖progeny / ˈprɔdʒənɪ; ˋprɑdʒənɪ/ n (fml 正式用语) (a) 子女; 幼崽: Natural selection might be expected to favour the progeny of men who enjoy bringing them up. 自然选择也许更偏爱那些乐于带孩子男人的后代。 (b) 说某物的progeny,就是指从此物发展出来的其他东西,译为结果,结局,成果 Among its many progeny, the 1944 Education Act gave birth to the modern youth service. 在1944年通过的《教育法案》的诸多衍生条款中,就包括了现代青年教育服务。
📖selective advantage 选择优势。这其实是个生物学概念,就是适者生存,与那些更不能适应的发生种间竞争具有优势的存活下来 被环境所选择
In a straight fight, therefore, it was the drug-sensitive strain that had the selective advantage when faced with a two-pronged attack. 这场直接的菌群较量说明了当面对两种进攻的时候,敏感菌有优势。
📖Reporting their results in the journal Royal Society Open Science, they found that a so-called 'neutral' model of evolution best explained coin behavior...meaning no coin had a selective advantage.
他们将研究结果发表在《英国皇家学会学报·开放科学》期刊上,他们发现,所谓的“中立”演化模型对货币的行为进行了最好的解释,这说明没有货币有选择优势。
👉🏻语法现象:独立主格结构。
👉🏻语法知识点:独立主格结构表示时间、条件或原因时,相当于一个状语从句,一般放在句首,表示原因时还可 放在句末;表伴随状况或补充说明时,相当于一个并列句,通常放于句末。并将其置于主语之前。
独立主格结构本身并不是一个句子,而是由名词或代词作为逻辑主语,加上分词、形容词、副词、动词不定式或介词短语作为逻辑谓语所组成的短语结构。这种结构在形式上与主句没有关系,具有相对独立性,所以通常被称为“独立主格结构”。
独立主格结构的构成方式主要是:名词/代词+非谓语动词(V-ing;V-ed)/形容词/副词/介词短语,有时也会在名词或代词前面加上with,但这种情况只见于表伴随的用法。也有由there或it引导的独立主格结构。
⚠️独立主格结构一般都出现书面语中,如文献中。口语中几乎不用。
🐼名词或代词+现在分词
We will go for a picnic tomorrow, weather permitting.
He being ill, we'd better go and see him.
🐼名词或代词+过去分词
The work finished, she went home.
We given more time, a better cake could have been made.
🐼名词(代词)+形容词或副词
He is lying in bed, his eyes wide open.
He dead like a dog, everyone on the street showed no mercy on him.
🐼名词或代词+不定式
Nobody to attend the meeting tomorrow, we will have to put it off.
Enough people to help her, she is sure to win the game.
🐼名词或代词+介词短语
The teacher came in, book in hand.
He is talking on the phone, she in his arms.
🐼特殊的独立主格结构
1)There being +名词或代词
There being nothing else to do, we left the office early.
2)It being +名词或代词
It being Christmas, the local shops were open late into the night.
3)with引导的独立主格结构
当独立主格表伴随时,也可用with的复合结构,但其逻辑主语一般都是名词,很少会用代词。其形式为:with +名词+现在分词/过去分词/形容词/副词/不定式/介词短语等。如:
He stood under the tree, He being ill. = He stood under the tree, his mouth wide open.
The murder was brought in, with his hands tied behind his back. = The murder was brought in, his hands tied behind his back.
⚠️在含有介词短语的独立主格结构使用中,需要注意的是,当介词是in时,其前后的两个名词均不加任何成分(如物主代词或冠词),也不用复数,但 with 的复合结构不受此限制。
His sister entered his room, doll in hand. = His sister entered his room, with a doll in her hand.
👉🏻句子解析:本句中有两个独立主格结构,分别是Reporting their results in the journal Royal Society Open Science和meaning no coin had a selective advantage。由于Reporting their results的逻辑主语与主句中的they一致,故省略,否则不可省。主句they found that a so-called 'neutral' model of evolution best explained coin behavior 的谓语是found,且包含一个that引导的宾语从句,后面的meaning no coin had a selective advantage做补充说明,省略引导宾语从句的that,meaning的逻辑主语也和主句中found的主语一样,都是They,故略之。
Which implies that: "Investors choose which cryptocurrencies to invest in only proportional to the cryptocurrency's market share, and nothing else. So they are not apparently considering other fundamentals like the underlying technology or the purpose for which a certain cryptocurrency has been designed for. They are just sampling each cryptocurrency proportional to its market share.”
这也暗示着:“投资者选择哪种加密货币进行投资,只与加密货币的市场份额成正比,与其他无关。所以,显然他们并没有考虑其他基本因素,比如基本技术或某种加密货币的设计目的等。他们只是对每种加密货币的市场占有率进行抽样。”
📖imply /ɪmˈplaɪ; ɪm`plaɪ/v 含有...的意思; 暗示; 暗指:
His silence implied agreement. 他沉默不语意味着同意了.
I don't wish to imply that you are wrong. 我无意暗示你错了.
📖proportional to /prəˈpɔːʃənl; prə`pɔrʃənl/(与某事物在大小、数量或程度上)相称的, 成比例的
Payment will be proportional to the amount of work done. 酬金将与工作量成比例.
📖market share 市场占有率(一公司等的某种货物或服务项目在市场中所占的比例)
Thomsons have a 48% market share. 汤姆森公司有48%的市场占有率.
📖fundamentaln (通常作复数) 基本规则; 基本原则; 基本原理; 基本部分:
the fundamentals of religion/philosophy/art etc 宗教、哲学、艺术等的基本原理.
📖underlying 指事物不明显的,隐含的,深层次的特征。
The underlying assumption is that the amount of money available is limited.
隐含的假定是,可用的资金有限。
Unemployment may be an underlying cause of the rising crime rate.失业可能是犯罪率攀升的潜在原因。
And only when investors begin to value coins for a particular attribute—such as their convenience or their intrinsic technological advantages—will the market start to actively pick winners.
只有当投资者开始重视货币的特定属性——比如货币的便利性或其内在的技术优势——市场才会开始积极地挑选赢家。
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
📖attribute /ˈætrɪbjuːt; `ætrəˌbjut/ n 属性; 特质; 性质:
Her greatest attribute was her kindness. 她最大的特点是为人厚道.
Patience is one of the most important attributes in a teacher. 当教师最重要的一个品性就是要有耐心.
📖intrinsic /ɪnˈtrɪnsɪk, -zɪk; ɪn`trɪnsɪk, -zɪk/ adj(指价值或性质)固有的, 内在的, 本质的:
A man's intrinsic worth, eg arising from such qualities as honour and courage, rather than how much he owns. 一个人的内在价值来源于如正义感、勇敢等品质, 而不在财富多寡
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