Unit 1 Text1 What’s the Big Idea? Nokia sponsors a wide range of educational, cultural and other activities. One of the most unusual activities was the sponsoring of “Future Histories”, a collection of stories by prominent writers of science fiction .Why should a telecommunications company become involved with literature? It could be called “research”. 诺基亚公司举办了一系列有关教育文化的的意义活动。其中最不寻常的一项活动是举办“未来的历史”,由科幻小说作家们收集的小说故事系列。为什么一个通讯公司变得与文学有牵涉,它就是所谓的“科学研究”。 Science and literature have traditionally been hostile to each other. Writers have regarded scientists as dull creatures who take pleasure in destroying great words of the imagination with boring facts. Scientists have thought of writers as frivolous people with no respect for the rules of evidence. At the heart of their mutual suspicion is the question of who owns the truth. Does something become real when it is imagined or when it is physically created? 科学和文学传统上就相互敌对。文学作家认为:科学家们是一群愚蠢的生物,他们总是破坏人类伟大的想象取乐。科学家则认为:文人作家们是轻浮的,没有尊循事实依据,两者相猜疑的中心交点在于:到底是谁拥有真理事实,是先有想像后来成成真呢?还是实际设计出变成真的? Science fiction is the one area where these tow opposing groups have met and exchanged ideas . As its name suggests, science fiction is literature which predicts the technology of the future and the effect this will have on human society .Over the years many of their speculations have been remarkably accurate. Space travel, communications satellites, nuclear power, robotics, cloning and mobile telephony have all appeared in books before they appeared in reality. 科幻小说是两大对立集团相互邂逅并交流思想的公共领域。顾名思义,科学...