BBC Ideas｜为什么水是宇宙间最奇怪的物质之一？

Why water is one of the weirdest things in the universe | BBC Ideas

Water. You might not see it, but this is probably the strangest things in the universe Here's why. Every molecule of water on the Earth and inside you or any other living thing has existed for billions of years. After it came to Earth, that water has been cycling through rocks, air, animals, plants and back again. Each molecule has been on an incredible voyage before coming to you. At some point, the water inside you would have been inside dinosaurs, bacteria, the oceans, storm clouds, the polar ice caps and much more.
水。你可能看不到它，但这可能是宇宙中最奇怪的事情，原因如下。地球上、你体内或任何其他生物体内的每一个水分子都已经存在了数十亿年。水来到地球后，一直在岩石、空气、动物、植物中循环，然后又回来了。每个分子在来到你身边之前都经历了一段不可思议的旅程。在某一时刻，你体内的水曾进入过恐龙、细菌、海洋、风暴云、极地冰盖等等。

All of the water on Earth is alien. They might be a familiar part of our world, but our oceans formed hundreds of millions of years after our planet took shape. The water arrived on asteroids and comets from space, objects from the edge of our solar system. They were leftovers of the vast clouds of dust and rocks that didn't quite make it into planets. This is the origin of all the water you can see on the Earth.
地球上所有的水都是外来的。它们可能是我们世界上熟悉的一部分，但我们的海洋是在地球形成后数亿年形成的。水从太空到达小行星和彗星上，这些物体来自我们太阳系的边缘。它们是没有形成行星的巨大尘埃和岩石云的残余物。这就是你在地球上看到的所有水的起源。

Water doesn't follow the normal rules of chemistry. For a start, it shouldn't really be a liquid on our planet. A water molecule is made from two very light atoms, hydrogen and oxygen. And at the temperatures and pressures on the surface of the Earth, rules of chemistry say that water should be a gas. And, unlike any other chemical, when water freezes it expands. And so ice floats on water.
水不遵循正常的化学规律。首先，它不应该是我们星球上的液体。水分子是由两个非常轻的原子——氢和氧构成的。在地球表面的温度和压力下，化学规则告诉我们水应该是气体。而且，与其他化学物质不同的是，当水结冰时，它会膨胀。所以冰漂浮在水面上。

Now you see this every day, but take a moment to think about how weird that is. Over time, this odd behaviour has been very useful. By insulating the water underneath, floating ice has enabled complex life to survive and evolve on our planet, despite the many ice ages that have frozen the Earth's surface solid. And the strangeness just goes on and on. Did you know that hot water freezes faster than cold? Yes, really. No-one knows why.
现在，你每天都能看到这种情况，但请花点时间想想这有多奇怪。随着时间的推移，这种奇怪的行为非常有用。通过隔绝下面的水，浮冰使复杂的生命得以在我们的星球上生存和进化，尽管许多冰河时期曾把地球表面冻得结结实实。奇怪的事情还在继续。你知道热水比冷水更快结冰吗？是的，真的。没人知道为什么。

Water molecules can float upwards, against the force of gravity. That's because they love to stick to each other. They're so good at it that they can actually pull each other up through tiny channels, such as the tiny blood vessels in your body. That's how oxygen and nutrients reach the edges of your brain. The same process, called capillary action, allows plants to move water from deep below the ground to nourish the leaves and branches that grow in the sunshine.
水分子可以克服重力向上漂浮。那是因为他们喜欢互相扶持。它们非常擅长这一点，以至于它们实际上可以通过微小的通道相互拉动，比如你体内的微小血管。这就是氧气和营养物质到达大脑边缘的方式。同样的过程被称为毛细作用，它能让植物把水从地下深处输送到阳光下滋养枝叶。

Our solar system is drowning in water. Once upon a time, we thought that we were alone on Earth with so much water, but in fact it's the second most common molecule in the universe. We now know there's water on the moon, on Mars, Pluto. In fact there's H2O on almost every object in our solar system. And where there's water, there could be life.
我们的太阳系正在淹没在水中。曾几何时，我们以为我们独自在地球上拥有如此多的水，但实际上它是宇宙中第二常见的分子。我们现在知道月球上有水，火星上有水，冥王星上有水。事实上，我们太阳系中几乎每个物体上都有H2O。哪里有水，哪里就可能有生命。

So pour yourself a glass of water now, and take a good look at this colourless, featureless and tasteless material. It's actually remarkable. It breaks so many rules of chemistry that scientists struggle to understand it. But without its rebel behaviour, none of us, nor our world, would exist. You're only here watching this video because water is so strange.
所以，现在给自己倒杯水，好好看看这种无色、无特征、无味的材料吧。事实上，它非常了不起。它打破了许多化学规则，以至于科学家们都很难理解它。但是，如果没有它的反叛行为，我们和我们的世界都不会存在。你之所以会在这里观看这段视频，是因为水太奇特了。

词汇表
molecule 分子，微粒
storm clouds 风暴云：暗示暴风雨即将来临的黑云。
polar ice caps 极地冰盖，两极冰帽
alien 外来的
asteroid 小行星，海星
comet 彗星，扫帚星
leftover 残存物，遗留物
atom 原子
hydrogen and oxygen 氢和氧
insulate 隔离，使绝缘，使免受（影响）
blood vessels 血脉，血管细胞
capillary action 毛细管作用：液体通过毛细管的作用返回到热管的蒸发部分。
nourish 滋养，培养，养育
Pluto 冥王星，冥王
featureless 无特色的，平淡无奇的
rebel 叛逆的，反抗的

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